If you are looking to improve your business, bolster your skill set and understand and adapt to changes in the funeral industry, the New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association has the event for you.

The 2026 Funeral Directors Convention and Expo will be held from September 15 through September 17 at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City, and this year’s gathering promises to provide attendees with many opportunities to improve your professional skills and help your consumers through the funeral process.

One of a business owner’s most important questions when considering whether to invest in any venture or event is what the return on that investment is. This year’s Convention will answer that question definitively. The event is dedicated to improving your professional connections and enhancing your business, and both can help you strengthen your bottom line.

Here are some ways the Convention can help you:

Understanding Industry Trends and Changes

The funeral profession in New Jersey will see several changes in 2026 that will reshape how funeral service can be conducted and how future morticians will get licensed in the state. It is vitally important for you to be up to date on what these changes mean to you. Continuing education courses will be offered on the recently signed funeral licensing law and on the natural organic reduction law and process. Both will take effect in 2026.

By attending the Convention, you will gain an understanding of how these new laws will affect your staffing, potentially making it easier to find qualified employees, and your operations if you choose to invest in NOR. Knowing the details of these laws and processes has the potential to improve your business and keep you on the cutting edge of funeral service.

These in-person continuing education courses are offered separately from the Convention for an additional fee. Those interested in attending these seminars will need to register specifically for them.

Exploring Opportunities and Growing Your Business

Finding new ways to improve funeral homes and their operations is constantly on the mind of the discerning owner and manager. At the Convention, that exploration can be done in one place over a couple of days.

The Exhibit Hall, a favorite for vendors and attendees alike, is a great place to start. Looking for ways to streamline business processes from paperwork and bookkeeping? The Exhibit Hall is the place to visit. Need a new vehicle to replace an aging and obsolete model? You can find one here. Interested in the newest forms of body preparation (such as natural organic reduction) or looking for better prices on existing supplies? Look no further.

The Convention is one-stop shopping for your business needs and aspirations.

Networking

Funeral service is a profession that is built on connections. The better and larger your circle of contacts, the more opportunities you have for collaboration and the gathering of knowledge and ideas. From informal gatherings to planned events, the Convention offers plenty of time for you to reintroduce yourself to old acquaintances and make new friends and colleagues.

These connections can help you innovate, navigate thorny regulatory questions and learn of new business practices that can help you save time and money. Beyond those professional benefits, the Convention provides time to relax and enjoy the event with your colleagues in a resort atmosphere at a spectacular time of year at the Jersey Shore.

The annual Convention party, the Funeral Directors Round-Up and the ribbon-cutting at the opening of the Exhibit Hall are just a few of the opportunities for you to shake a hand and make a connection that could change your business for the better.

Save the Date!

By attending the Convention, the benefits, as well as the advantages they provide, are yours. By investing in your business through attending from September 15 to September 17, 2026, you could realize a significant return in both professional advancement and bottom line.

Stay tuned to The FORUM and your email for more details on this important event.

Meanwhile, save the date. We’ll see you at the Hard Rock!

An organization dedicated to supporting women in the funeral profession is seeking feedback from New Jersey women in funeral service as part of a survey on their experiences in death care.

Funeral Women Lead, founded to offer support, mentoring and training to women in funeral service, has created a survey to provide data for its State of Women report and inform its efforts to create programming geared toward women.

The annual survey gauges the pulse of women in funeral service “across every career stage from students and early-career professionals to senior leaders, owners, and educators and suppliers, so we can measure what matters most in areas of: wellness, respect, connection, growth opportunities, leadership pathways and commitment to staying in the profession,” the introduction to the survey states.

The survey, which takes approximately five minutes to complete, can be accessed here.

Results are not tied to respondents’ identities to “protect individual privacy while elevating the collective truth.”

The survey will remain open until the end of June 2026.

A registered intern at a New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association member firm has been awarded a scholarship toward his funeral service program education.

Rabbi Laurance Malinger, an intern at Brunswick Memorial Home, was granted the $1,000 scholarship by the International Order of the Golden Rule. Malinger is a student at Mercer County Community College. He was one of six recipients honored by OGR.

“We’re honored to invest in their growth as they advance in the profession and continue serving families with integrity and compassion,” Chris Miller, chair of the OGR Foundation and incoming OGR board chair, said of the scholarship recipients.

Malinger was also awarded a scholarship by the New Jersey Funeral Service Education Corporation in 2025.

Natural organic reduction is coming to New Jersey, providing what one company offering the equipment for the process called “an attractive option as more people become conscious of the environmental impact of traditional funeral practices.”

But, as we approach Earth Day on April 22, 2026, it’s important to ask how environmentally friendly NOR is and will it replace any of the three main forms of disposition in the state.

There is a lack of empirical studies on the environmental impact of NOR, in part because the process is so new that long-range studies are not yet completed. But evidence about NOR, how it is conducted and the resulting product of the process has been analyzed. Most advocates are saying it is a better environmental option than burial, entombment or cremation. 

Natural organic reduction is the process of controlled supervised decomposition of a human body resulting in the conversion of human remains into a soil-like product. New Jersey legalized the process in 2025, and it is scheduled to become available to consumers in July 2026.

Earth Funeral, an NOR company that has been particularly active in advertising to New Jersey families and funeral directors in advance of the process becoming available, made a comparison of natural organic reduction and cremation. Earth Funeral’s NOR process uses renewable electric to power its equipment. It produces no net CO2 emissions and uses 40 gallons of water, roughly the same amount as a standard bath.

Cremation, however, produces 535 pounds of CO2 emissions and releases other harmful gases and elements into the environment.

But what of that soil-like product created by NOR? The amount can seem unwieldy, with more than 200 pounds being produced, as opposed to a relatively small urn for cremated remains. There are also restrictions on who can be considered for NOR. In several states, people with infectious diseases, radiological devices and other conditions are barred from using NOR over concerns about possible contaminants in the soil-like product.

Moreover, there are concerns about where the product from NOR can be placed. The Green Burial Council, which advocates for green burials as the most environmentally friendly form of disposition, said considerations must be made concerning sensitive land.

Human compost “may easily upset a fragile system or introduce an imbalance of nutrients, achieving precisely the opposite of the goal,” the Green Burial Council concluded. “It’s important to have thought through the research concerning what we know about forest restoration.”

Most states, including New Jersey, are putting restrictions on the use of the soil-like product and where it can be placed.

As with all forms of body treatment and disposition methods, NOR is not completely carbon neutral. Even if the electricity used is renewable, there are environmental costs to generating it and transporting it. There is also an environmental impact to building the equipment, called vessels, used to effect the accelerated decomposition of a body. In addition, decedents must be transported to the NOR facility and the resulting product must be transported once the process is completed.

Still, the evidence that exists shows that NOR is a more environmentally friendly process than several other forms of disposition, outside of green burial, which involves the placement of unembalmed bodies, without vaults or standard caskets, in cemeteries within natural settings.

Two Americans mistake a funeral for a restaurant in China and are welcomed with hospitality. Nicole Kidman is studying to become a death doula. And two women fight during a funeral after learning they were both dating the decedent. These stories and more are in the week in funeral news.

NEWS

Two American Travelers Mistake “Happy Funeral” Banquet for Restaurant, Receive Warm Hospitality in China
By NDTV
A surprising cultural misunderstanding turned into a heartwarming experience when two American travelers in rural China mistakenly entered a traditional "happy funeral" banquet, thinking it was a restaurant. The incident led to unexpected hospitality and a memorable interaction with local residents. Read more here.

Nicole Kidman Reveals Why She Is Learning to Become a Death Doula in Her Spare Time
By Heidi Parker (Daily Mail)
Nicole Kidman has revealed she wants to study to become a death doula after the passing of her mother Janelle in September 2024. The 58-year-old Hollywood icon shared the news when speaking at the University of San Francisco during the private college's Silk Speaker Series. Read more here.

Descendants Renew Fight to Save Historic Black Cemeteries in D.C.
By Dana Hedgpeth and William Neff (The Washington Post)
Neville Waters III stepped through two of Washington, D.C.’s oldest Black cemeteries on a recent spring morning, surveying overgrown weeds and broken and decaying headstones marking the grave sites of at least 10,000 enslaved and free African Americans. For more than six decades, Waters, his relatives and a handful of supporters have fought to preserve the adjoining cemeteries–Mount Zion and Female Union Band Society–overlooking Rock Creek in what was once known as Black Georgetown in D.C. Read more here.

Women Brawl over Dead Man's Coffin After Learning They Both Dated Him at Awkward Funeral
By Yelena Mandenberg and Bradley Jolly (The Mirror U.S.)
Two women in Mexico were filmed brawling over the casket of their mutual cheating boyfriend in footage that has since exploded across the internet. The funeral-goers had no clue they'd both been romantically entangled with the same man until the bombshell dropped at his memorial service, igniting a furious showdown. Their clash played out in front of stunned mourners gathered to pay their respects. Read more here.

Why Crema­tion Became Remark­ably Wide­spread Dur­ing China’s Song Dyn­asty
By South China Morning Post
Crema­tion in China was once even regarded as a form of humi­li­ation or pun­ish­ment, often reserved as an extreme pen­alty for hein­ous crimes. The inten­tion was to oblit­er­ate the remains, thereby con­demning the soul to eternal obli­vion. Yet dur­ing China’s Song dyn­asty (960-1279), crema­tion became remark­ably wide­spread. This was not a fringe prac­tice con­fined to the mar­gins of soci­ety but a genu­ine pop­u­lar move­ment that chal­lenged the very core of tra­di­tion. Its rise was driven by a blend of reli­gious faith, cir­cum­stance and prag­mat­ism. Read more here.

Man Killed in Shooting Outside Church After Funeral in Queens, NY
By Eyewitness News
New York City police are searching for the suspect who shot and killed a man outside a church after a funeral in Jamaica, Queens. Read more here.

The New Jersey Prepaid Funeral Trust Fund posted a net growth of $7.75 million in 2025, ending the year with a total value of nearly $386 million. The net growth figure includes interest, deposits and withdrawals.

The Trust holds 49,129 consumer accounts, up slightly from 2024. More than $11.4 million in interest was allocated to the consumer accounts in 2025.

The 2025 statistics are included in the 2025 Highlights brochure, which was recently mailed to the Trust’s nearly 600 participating New Jersey funeral homes. The brochure was also sent to each Board and committee member of the New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association and its affiliated entities. Additional financial data, including the Statement of Net Assets and Statement of Cash Flow, is also contained in the brochure.

The Trust, also known as Funeral Planning CHOICES, has offered consumers a reliable method to prefund funerals since 1981. It is endorsed by the NJSFDA.

As is mandated by law, the Trust’s assets are fully insured by the FDIC. All funds are invested in jumbo certificates of deposit, allowing the New Jersey Prepaid Funeral Trust Fund to offer competitive interest rates and growth from the day of deposit. In addition, the Trust meets all federal and state regulations for the deposit of funds connected to prearrangements, as well as the requirements for SSI/Medicaid, Work First New Jersey and New Jersey General Assistance resource exclusions.

Additional Marketing Brochures Available

Additional 2025 Highlights brochures are available free of charge to all participating funeral homes for as long as supplies last.

The Trust offers two other consumer brochures free of charge to participating funeral homes. The New Jersey Prepaid Funeral Trust Fund and SSI/Medicaid and Prepaid Funeral Arrangements brochures provide your families with general information about preplanning.

Electronic copies of the brochures are available for your client families at www.njsfda.org/brochures.

For more information on the Trust, contact a Trust Administrator at 800.286.3628 or visit www.njsfda.org/choices.