This summer, Emily did a guest blog for us about the notion of funeral crowdfunding and whether this might some day come to pass. 

And what do you know, we were emailed this week by Flendr – ‘the money hub for family and friends’. They’ve set up a website for personal fundraising that might well provide a solution to the age-old issue…paying for a funeral by funeral crowdfunding.

They are providing a service straight to ‘customers’ as well as to funeral directors who provide the service to families.

Here’s what they say about funeral crowdfunding:

“Flendr was set up in realisation that sometimes the cost of a funeral can be a real challenge to one family member and there should be a way for a ‘community’ to come together to easily to help – pooling resources for example. We are aware of the horror stories of people turning to payday lenders at a difficult time, and finding themselves financially and emotionally drained.

“Flendr allows the family to open a tribute page which can be set up to take donations in memory of someone who has died. Donations could be toward funeral expenses or a good cause or a commemorative item (like a bench).”

Flendr can be used by Funeral Directors or families.

How Flendr supports funeral crowdfunding

•       Collections can be for any cause – from contributions toward funeral expenses through to donations to charities and non-charities. Flendr handles Gift Aid, can make donations direct to the charity, to the Funeral Director or to the family member, should they wish to make a personal donation or to purchase something such as a commemorative bench.

•      Customer Support – we have 24/7 live chat to answer any questions as well as an in-house customer service team to help anyone who is unsure of what to do

•       Friends and family can leave messages and make donations securely online through bank transfer, PayPal or payment card

•       The Memorial page can also include offline donations

•       Funeral Directors can have multiple crowdfunding programmes running at once. Each donation is tracked so that it is easy for to see in how much is collected for which family.

Setting up a page for crowdfunding a funeral

1.       It takes two minutes to set up an ‘In Memorial’ page. This could carry an Obituary, image of the person who’s died and details of where donations will go.

2.       The link to the page can be sent to family for them to distribute

3.       Donations collect in the relevant Flendr account. Donors can leave messages. They send an alert every time a donation is received

4.       You can check the status of any client collection in your Flendr account and instruct them to make payment at the appropriate time.

Benefits to Funeral Directors

•       Better customer service: friends and family from around the world can leave messages and make donations.

•     24/7 live chat to answer any questions as well as an in-house customer service team to help anyone who is unsure of what to do.

•       Increases donation value through Gift Aid.

So…

Final Fling community – what do you think of Flendr’s philanthropy community? Is funeral crowdfunding something that you’d think about? We love to keep a finger on the pulse, so let us know.