If someone has died

Start here. The first call, what can wait until tomorrow, and the people nearby who can help today.

What to do in the first days

If you are looking ahead

Nothing has happened, and there is time to think. Write down what you would want, and look at who is nearby.

Planning ahead

No one pays for placement

Not for a higher position, not for a badge, not for a mention. There is no way to buy one.

No one is ranked

Families see who fits what they have told us matters to them, and decide for themselves.

Families reach out, or they don't

Nobody is contacted on a family's behalf. They choose who, if anyone, they would like to speak to.

If you offer care that supports a family during a farewell, you are welcome here.

When a family needs someone today

Most families come to Hestia in the first day or two, when a decision is waiting on them and the phone has been ringing. For them, the most useful thing anyone can offer is simply being reachable: answering today, saying plainly what is possible and what is not, and being honest about cost while someone is too tired to ask twice.

Everyone listed here tells us how quickly they can usually respond, so a family in the first days sees who can be with them now, and a family planning ahead sees everyone.

The family journey, and where you come in

Worth being plain about this, because it is the whole reason the arrangement works for both sides.

  1. The first days

    We need to plan now

    A family arrives with a decision waiting on them. They are comparing, often for the first and only time in their lives, and they are tired.

    What this is worth to you: found by a family who is choosing right now, on what you actually offer, with your own published prices beside you. No one has paid to be above you.
  2. The week after

    The farewell itself

    The gathering, the people traveling in, the food, the flowers, the rooms. Work that often goes to whoever the family can think of, which is usually nobody.

    What this is worth to you: if you are a venue, a caterer, a celebrant or a hotel, this is where most of your work here comes from. A family planning a gathering in one place can see you without having to go looking.
  3. The quiet months

    Afterwards

    The paperwork, the accounts, the thank-yous. The part nobody warns anyone about, and the part where a family remembers exactly who was straight with them and who was not.

    What this is worth to you: the thing you cannot buy. A family that was treated well talks, and in this work almost everything still arrives by word of mouth.
  4. Months or years later

    They write down their own wishes

    This is the part people miss. The adult child who has just buried a parent has seen the whole thing from the inside: the cost, the guessing, the week of decisions nobody was ready for. They do not want to put their own children through it.

    What this is worth to you: the relationship that actually pays. Most of the value in this work sits in planning ahead, not in the first days, and the person most likely to plan ahead is someone who has just been through it. They come back to whoever was honest with them when it was hard.

Why we are strict about the free part

Hestia stays free for families and refuses paid placement for a reason that is practical as much as it is principled.

A family who feels pushed in the first days does not come back. A family who feels helped does, and brings the people around them. Being plainly honest when someone is too tired to ask twice is not a cost you carry for us. It is how the longer relationship gets earned, and that relationship is worth considerably more than one arrangement.

Which is why no one can pay to rank here, including the people who would most like to.

The kinds of care families look for

Not a fixed list. If what you do is not here, you can say it in your own words when you join.

  • Funeral homes
  • Celebrants and officiants
  • Death doulas
  • Grief companions
  • Faith leaders and elders
  • Musicians and singers
  • Florists
  • Caterers
  • Places to gather
  • Photographers and keepsake makers
  • Hotels
  • Pet care
  • Child care
  • Travel support
  • Natural burial grounds
  • Home tending

Joining

Free to be listed, wherever you are. We take no commission on a funeral home’s own arrangements: those are made directly between you and the family. Where a family books flowers, catering, music, a venue or rooms through us, we take a share of that booking and nothing else. No monthly fee, and nobody can pay to be at the top. You can pause or remove your listing whenever you like.

The whole arrangement, in six points, including how signing up actually goes.

Create your free listing