When the Obituary Isn't Enough: What Funeral Home Leaders Are Doing Next

Watch the Full Conversation

On May 28, Chptr partnered with Connecting Directors and DISRUPT Media to host a live webinar exploring a growing challenge facing funeral homes: declining obituary reach and the increasing expectation that funeral homes help families stay connected to their communities.

The discussion featured:

• Ryan Thogmartin, Connecting Directors & DISRUPT Media (Moderator)
• Jamie Henriod, COO, Chptr
• Lindsay Granson, COO, Heritage Family
• Tim Szczesny, Owner & Funeral Director, DeMunn Funeral Home

The session was an educational, peer-led discussion focused on what funeral homes are experiencing today, how communities consume information differently than they did a decade ago, and what operators are doing in response.

Families still expect the community to know when someone dies.

That expectation hasn't changed. What has changed is everything else.

For generations, the newspaper obituary was the default. Today, funeral homes are hearing the same thing with increasing frequency: fewer people are seeing the obituary, fewer people are learning about services in time, and more people are finding out after the funeral has already happened.

That was the focus of a recent webinar hosted by Connecting Directors and DISRUPT Media, featuring Ryan Thogmartin, Jamie Henriod of Chptr, Lindsay Granson of Heritage Family, and Tim Szczesny of DeMunn Funeral Home.

It was one of the more candid conversations the profession has had about this topic. No polished talking points. No easy answers.

Here is what stood out.

"A Lot of People Don't Even Know Why They're Still Printing the Thing"

Tim Szczesny runs DeMunn Funeral Home in Binghamton, New York, a community he was born and raised in, where he serves on the city planning board, advises a university fraternity chapter, and has spent his entire life trying to stay connected. He took over the funeral home from his parents in 2024 and serves around 160 families a year.

He is not disconnected from his community. And yet.

"A lot of people aren't getting that newspaper anymore. A lot of people don't even know why they're printing the thing."

He described a moment that stopped him cold: he was talking to college students he advises through the fraternity chapter about connecting on Facebook. They told him that was for old people.

"That one hit hard. Because that's how fast things are changing and developing and moving."

His point wasn't that newspapers are useless or that Facebook is dead. It was that the way people receive information is fragmenting faster than most funeral homes realize, and the profession has been slow to respond.

"The funeral industry is 40 years backwards. Because this is how we've always done it. We've gotta change, adapt, and move, because the world is changing and we've got to follow suit."

The Cost Problem Is Real. But It's Not the Whole Story.

Ryan Thogmartin raised the cost issue directly, noting that one attendee had already dropped in the chat that newspaper obituary rates in their market ran $750 to $1,200 for a single notice.

Jamie Henriod, COO of Chptr, said the average is around $400, and that the reaction from families isn't frustration so much as genuine shock.

"Families aren't just frustrated when they hear the cost of the obits. Some of them are downright angry."

She described families who feel taken advantage of, paying hundreds of dollars for placement in a newspaper that fewer and fewer people are actually reading.

Lindsay Granson of Heritage Family cited a specific family member who, when offered a broadcast alternative included in his package, was "very happy to have an alternative way of doing it."

But here is the point the panel kept returning to:

Cost is a symptom, not the core problem.

Even families who can afford a newspaper obituary and choose to place one are not guaranteed that the people they hope to reach will actually see it.

The real question isn't whether families can afford the obituary.

It's whether the obituary reaches anyone.

As Tim put it, the arrangement conversation has shifted. The people sitting across the table are no longer the 95-year-old Ethels. They are 35- to 55-year-olds who don't consume information through a newspaper and don't see the value in paying for one.

"Nobody reads the newspaper. We're not gonna read the newspaper."

Nobody Stays Home Anymore. But They Still Watch the Local News.

One of the more interesting threads in the conversation was about geography, or rather, the collapse of it.

Lindsay Granson, COO of Heritage Family, manages operations across more than 130 locations in 11 states. The challenge she described wasn't just visibility in a single market. It was visibility in dozens of markets, each different, each fragmented in its own way.

"The children are not in the same spot."

She described her own experience.

"I don't live where my parents lived or where I grew up anymore, but I still have the local news on my Facebook. That's how I find out when people passed away."

Tim made the same observation from his smaller market in Binghamton. He described families making arrangements from Florida and from across the country, people who moved away but never stopped watching Binghamton's local news.

"People still, even if they move down to Florida, still watch the local news. They don't get the local newspaper anymore. But they're able to have this outlet."

The local news channel, it turns out, travels in ways the local newspaper never did.

No Single Channel Has Replaced the Newspaper. That's the Point.

Jamie Henriod was clear that there is no clean, one-to-one replacement for what newspapers used to do.

The channels available to funeral homes today, local broadcast television, social media, funeral home websites, online obituaries, search, and digital memorialization, each reach different people in different ways.

Each has its own strengths.

Each has its own limitations.

Her advice on how funeral homes should evaluate what to try:

Effort versus impact.

"It's not up to the receiver to find your communication. It's up to the communicator to get your message out. You've got to meet people where they're at."

Lindsay added a framework Heritage uses across its markets: identify the core problem first, solve that, then build from there.

"When it feels overwhelming, sometimes you back into it the wrong way."

For Heritage, that meant standardizing certain things across all locations while still allowing individual markets to layer on what made sense locally.

"That Happens Weekly"

The most resonant moment of the webinar might have been the simplest.

Ryan asked Tim what was actually working at DeMunn.

Tim's answer wasn't about strategy or frameworks. It was about what he hears when families walk through his door.

"I can't believe the amount of people these days that actually come into the funeral home and tell me, if you guys didn't run those obituaries on the news, I wouldn't even come to the funeral home. That happens weekly."

He described people who moved away from Binghamton years ago and still check WBNG's website to see what's happening back home.

People who would have missed the service entirely if they hadn't seen it broadcast on the local station they still follow.

Lindsay described Heritage's approach differently, but with a similar outcome.

Every family at every location is offered broadcast. It's not a line item to sell. It's included as part of the service experience.

"It was part of our basic service fee. So it was just part of the Heritage Way. The families just get it when they walk in the door."

The Low-Lift Standard

Both Tim and Lindsay were candid about one of the most practical constraints any funeral home faces: staff capacity.

Funeral directors are already managing arrangements, family meetings, paperwork, vendor coordination, and countless other responsibilities.

Any new service that adds significant complexity to their workflow will struggle to survive.

Tim described the test he applies:

Can my parents do it?

His parents, who sometimes struggle to send an email, can complete the process.

That is the bar.

"It's easier to submit everything to Chptr with the online forms we have than even submitting those newspaper obituaries at this point."

Lindsay described Heritage's rollout philosophy similarly: introduce change thoughtfully, support adoption, and make new processes part of everyday operations rather than additions layered on top.

"The more you build on it, the more it just becomes how you do things every day."

The One Thing

Ryan closed the webinar by asking each panelist what they would leave with every funeral home in the audience.

More channels.
"The more touch points you have, the more people will know, and the more value families will feel."

- Jamie Henriod, COO of Chptr 

Don't be afraid of the change.
"We don't have to wait until all the newspapers are gone to try to figure it out."

- Lindsay Granson, COO of Heritage Family 

Elevate your game.
"There's a lot of feeling in the funeral industry that just because you're the smaller fish in the big pond, you can't keep up. You can. Break the mold. Get comfortable in that uncomfortable zone."

- Tim Szczesny, Owner of DeMunn Funeral Home

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