Reaching out to our local communities
From the clients and families we care for, to the communities we serve, building and maintaining strong external relationships plays a key role in the overall success of our business.
In the case of our clients, relationships frequently extend beyond the funeral itself – after all, the grieving process is never so straightforward and will affect different people in different ways over different timespans.
A popular and welcome initiative has been the communal memorial services coordinated by our colleagues in the build up to Christmas. We organise hundreds across the country, both for clients we have helped, as well as wider members of the community who also wish to participate.
The services are a chance to remember and celebrate loved ones, whose names are read out as a mark of respect, before family members are invited to light a candle. Poignant, emotional, but also comforting, it is a chance for Funeral Directors and Funeral Arrangers to speak with families and offer further support if required.
Guidance just a click away
In our desire to become more digitally-enabled and offer greater choice to customers, we have taken our knowledge to create an innovative online tool that guides people through the essential steps they need to follow when someone dies. An extension of our website, the tool is mobile friendly, easy to navigate and produces a bespoke checklist for the user based on the answers they provide to a series of questions related to the circumstances of their loss.
Location tracking recommends external organisations that can help and, if required, also signposts a selection of our nearest funeral directors. The service is not reserved for Dignity clients and can help anyone in need of guidance when trying to cope with the sometimes complex procedures associated with registering a death.
Community
Dignity is proud to work with a number of charitable partners, sometimes through fundraising activities or sponsorship, or alternatively by giving up our time and offering assistance to local projects near our branches and crematoria.
We have enjoyed a longstanding partnership with the British Heart Foundation and in the past year presented the charity with a donation of approximately £234,000.
Among the related projects we have supported is the installation of defibrillation equipment into all Dignity operated crematoria throughout England and Scotland, while colleagues have been learning valuable CPR techniques that could also help to save a life in the event of an emergency.
As the partnership continues, we will be looking at carrying out similar installations on the exteriors of our funeral branches and office premises in busy locations where there are currently no defibrillators nearby.
Alongside such large-scale national partnerships, we also recognise the importance of responding to more localised causes where many of our funeral branches and crematoria have proud connections to their respective communities that span generations.
In short, one size does not fit all and we encourage colleagues to identify the particular charities and community groups they want to support, often following requests from a client. We are also considering the feasibility of topping up localised fundraising through a centrally administered grants scheme.
