From Silos to Solutions
How Florida Is Building a Stronger Funeral Service Talent Pipeline Through Cross Sector
By Dr. Kimberly Vissotski | Founder and Consultant, Alignment Works, LLC
What happens between “I might be interested in funeral service” and “I’ve built a lifelong career serving families”? The answer reveals one of the profession’s most complex challenges. Florida has employers seeking qualified professionals, colleges preparing future funeral directors, experienced professionals willing to mentor, and organizations with resources to contribute. The pieces exist. The challenge is connecting them well enough to move people from career awareness through education, internship, licensure, employment and long-term retention.
That challenge is driving an emerging cross-sector collaboration in Florida’s Miami-Dade region. The Independent Funeral Directors of Florida (IFDF) has partnered with Alignment Works to bring together funeral professionals, educators, industry partners, workforce organizations, students and community stakeholders. IFDF will convene the collaboration. Alignment Works will serve as its architect and facilitator, helping participants develop the priorities, systems, structures and processes needed to strengthen the pipeline.
How can the people and organizations that influence the entire talent pipeline work together to build a stronger, more connected system for developing and retaining funeral service professionals?
A Changing Path into the Profession
For generations, many people entered funeral service through family connections, personal relationships or direct exposure to the work. Dave Snyder, Business Consultant with Federated Fiducial, recalls an earlier pathway into the profession.
“When the lights and sirens were removed from the combination ambulance and funeral coach in the 1970s, the first-generation mortuary student feeder system ended.”
Dave Snyder | Business Consultant Federated Fiducial
If the traditional pathways that once introduced young people to funeral service no longer exist, the profession must create new ones. For Snyder, that begins with current professionals investing in those who may follow them.
“Mentor a student today to ensure your legacy tomorrow; recruiting local talent begins with the teenager who has experienced the death of a loved one, perceives the value in the funeral ministry and thinks this might be their calling.”
Dave Snyder | Business Consultant Federated Fiducial
Funeral professionals may be the field’s most influential ambassadors, but the next generation cannot depend solely on chance encounters or family connections. Young people need intentional opportunities to meet professionals, explore funeral homes and understand the profession’s combination of science, business, communication and compassionate care.
The Challenge Is Bigger Than Recruitment
An environmental scan conducted for IFDF revealed a strong foundation of committed professionals, established educational programs, employer demand and existing career-development resources. It also identified recurring barriers. Some candidates never encounter funeral service as a career. Others face limits in educational access, capacity, scheduling or cost. Students may struggle to secure meaningful internships or navigate licensure and employment. Compensation, workload, schedules, advancement and work-life balance can influence whether professionals stay.
These issues are interconnected. Awareness without educational capacity moves the bottleneck downstream. Education without strong bridges to internships and employment leaves another gap. Recruitment without career sustainability does not create a lasting workforce.
Florida does not simply need more recruitment activities. It needs a connected talent-development system that supports people from initial awareness through long-term career success.
IFDF as a System Convener
IFDF is embracing a role larger than creating another stand-alone program. By convening people who influence different parts of the pipeline, the association can help them establish a shared vision and develop solutions no organization could accomplish independently.
“IFDF has been searching for a way to fundamentally change the approach to funeral service education that will enhance the workforce pipeline with qualified and dedicated professionals. We are excited to embark on this grassroots effort to bring exposure to our most precious resource, our youth.”
Heather Bernier | Associate Executive Director Independent Funeral Directors of Florida
Funeral homes bring workforce knowledge, career exposure and practical experience. Colleges understand preparation, program capacity and progression. Industry partners contribute expertise and resources. Workforce and community organizations connect people to careers. Students and recent graduates show where the pathway becomes difficult. IFDF’s opportunity is not to own every solution, but to help the right people do the right work together.
Education and Student Voice
Miami Dade College’s Funeral Service Education Program is a vital regional asset, but even an excellent college program controls only part of a student’s journey.
“Funeral Service Education is one of many programs within a large college, which makes collaboration with industry and community partners especially valuable. By connecting high schools, higher education and the funeral service profession, we can introduce students to a career they may never have considered while creating a stronger pathway into funeral service education and ultimately into the profession.”
Dr. Tanya Scotece PhD LFD CFSP | Program Coordinator and Professor Miami Dade College
A college can prepare students for professional practice, but it cannot independently ensure early career exposure, educational access, high-quality internships or workplaces where graduates want to build lasting careers. Those outcomes require relationships beyond the classroom. Students and emerging professionals must also help shape the system they are being asked to enter.
“This project represents both a personal passion of mine and an important part of IFDF’s mission. We believe our responsibility extends beyond serving families in their moments of loss—it includes understanding the communities we serve, preserving their histories, and creating opportunities for meaningful education and collaboration. I’m grateful to be part of an organization that is willing to step beyond the traditional boundaries of our profession and build partnerships that can create lasting impact.”
Beatriz Cains, LFD| Student Liaison Independent Funeral Directors of Florida
Students are not simply recipients of the system being developed. Their experiences can reveal how the profession is perceived, what attracts people to the work, where the pathway becomes difficult and what would encourage new professionals to remain.
Building the Collaboration in Miami Dade
The collaboration is in its beginning stages. Rather than arriving with predetermined solutions, IFDF will convene diverse stakeholders to build them together. Guided by Alignment Works, participants will use the environmental scan as a foundation, establish a practical vision, identify underlying barriers and develop shared priorities for strengthening the pipeline.
They will also design the systems, structures and processes needed to turn priorities into coordinated action: how responsibilities are shared, resources connected, progress monitored and collaboration sustained over time. The goal is not simply to produce a strategic plan. It is to build the collaborative capacity to implement and sustain it.
A Shared Responsibility and Opportunity
The implications of this work reach far beyond one region. Across funeral service, organizations are already recruiting, educating, mentoring and advocating. The innovation is not another program, but a better way to connect the work already underway.
For funeral professionals, the invitation is direct: Mentor a student. Open the doors of your funeral home. Build relationships with educators. Participate in career exploration. Listen to students and recent graduates. Share your experience and expertise.
For the profession, the invitation is much larger.
What is beginning in the Miami-Dade region, with the Independent Funeral Directors of Florida as the convener, is an emerging first-of-its-kind grassroots effort to connect the people and organizations that influence the entire funeral service talent pipeline. But the workforce challenge it addresses is not unique to South Florida. Communities across the country are asking the same fundamental question: Where will the next generation of funeral service professionals come from and what will it take for them to stay? The answer will not be a mirror image everywhere, nor should it. The opportunity is to take the core principles, cross sector collaboration, and shared ownership and personalize an innovative and systemic approach to the needs, resources and realities of each community.
State by state. Region by region. Community by community.
The future will depend not simply on how many people enter the profession, but on how successfully we build the systems that prepare, connect, support and retain them.
Bring the right people together. Do the right work. Create lasting impact.