Primary Goal of this Step
Death notice: Publicly notify people of the death and any services that will be held to memorialize the person who died. If you choose to direct donations to specific charities, let people know which charities are preferred.
Obituary: Persuade newspapers to write an editorial obituary, and provide the most meaningful information to be included in the written tribute.
Important Tasks: Write Death Notice & Collaborate on Obituary
Write death notice
Gather the relevant information about the person who died, and use our checklist for typical information included in a death notice. As gathering information can sometimes be difficult, we suggest you take 20 minutes to sit down (or get on the phone) with close family members and try to fill in as much information as possible together. This will cut down on the back-and-forth of revisions and the overall time it takes to write the death notice. It will also allow you to reach consensus on which family members (i.e. grandchildren, step-relatives) will be mentioned in the death notice (since it can be expensive to list more individual names).
Since the cost of a death notice is per word, line, or printed inch, many families choose to keep the biography as brief as possible and focus on information about the funeral and other services.
If you want a photograph to be included, locate the picture you’d like to use.
Decide on a charity for donations
If you would like to specify a charity for donations in the name of the person who died, you will likely want to publish this information in the death notice. Make sure that the charity’s information is correct before submitting the notice. If donations can be made online, test out the donation system yourself to ensure your instructions are correct and that the online process works.
Submit death notice to newspapers and other publications
Decide which papers you want the death notice to run in. The funeral home can submit the death notice to newspapers on your behalf, and can provide pricing for those publications.
