For Immediate Release: October 10, 2022
Contact: Jessica Koth, 262-814-1536, jkoth@nfda.org
Brookfield, Wis. – Today, the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) presented Everything After with the 2022 NFDA Innovation Award during its International Convention & Expo. Coming in second place was the KeepTrackTM system by Gather; and Ecorial® by The Living Urn took third place. Established in 2009, the NFDA Innovation Award recognizes and promotes creativity, innovation and excellence among funeral service suppliers and vendors.
Everything After is a new service built to shift how families and funeral homes experience aftercare. Research shows that families universally face three needs after the death of a loved one: planning the funeral, navigating acute grief and juggling the logistics of settling an estate. Funeral homes are experts at meeting the first of these needs, but families are being vastly underserved when it comes to the other two. Everything After enables families to better navigate their grief and deal with the challenges in settling an estate.
KeepTrack is a proprietary two-part system (hardware and software) designed by Gather to maintain a seamless chain-of-custody and provides funeral homes with the industry’s most accurate and secure body tracking solution. Additionally, keeping the family’s experience at the heart of its design, after final disposition, loved ones can scan a QR code on a keepsake medallion to visit their loved one’s permanent Remember Page. While visiting this page, family members and friends can upload their favorite photos, light a candle, send flowers, or share stories.
Ecorial by The Living Urn is the first and only global community focused on honoring and memorializing our loved ones when their ashes are scattered, interred or buried in nature. Ecorial makes it simple and easy for family and friends to permanently record the time, date, and GPS coordinates of any final resting place outdoors, whether it’s in the mountains, a forest, an ocean, a yard or beyond.
More information about the winning products by Everything After, KeepTrack and Ecorial can be found online, www.nfda.org/innovationawards.
Earlier this year, funeral service suppliers had an opportunity to submit a product or service that became commercially available after January 1, 2020, for consideration in the 2022 NFDA Innovation Award competition. A distinguished panel of judges evaluated the 22 entries on the criteria of originality, quality and design.
NFDA thanks the 2022 Innovation Award judges:
- Matt Bailey, Bailey Family Funeral Homes, Wallingford, Connecticut
- Benny Capaul, Capaul Funeral Home, Coral Springs, Florida
- Welton Hong, Ring Ring Marketing, Las Vegas, Nevada
- Katey Houston, Return Home, Auburn, Washington
- Valerie Janusz, Prasser-Kleczka Funeral Homes, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Tim McLoone, Joseph A. Fluehr lll Funeral Homes, Glenside, Pennsylvania
- Leili McMurrough, Worsham College of Mortuary Science, Libertyville, Illinois
- Kevin Smith, Berceuse Funeral and Cremation Traditions, Hampton, Virginia
- Lanae Strovers, Hamilton’s Funeral Home, Des Moines, Iowa
- Brian Van Heck, Posey Funeral Directors, North Augusta, South Carolina.
NFDA is the world’s leading and largest funeral service association representing more than 20,000 individual members who represent nearly 11,000 funeral homes in the United States and 49 countries around the world. NFDA is the trusted leader, beacon for ethics and the strongest advocate for the profession. NFDA is the association of choice because it offers funeral professionals comprehensive educational resources, tools to manage successful businesses, guidance to become pillars in their communities and the expertise to foster future generations of funeral professionals. NFDA is headquartered in Brookfield, Wis., and has an office in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.nfda.org.
