Donation Processors' kiosk at Fundy Funeral Home in Saint John Image: Submitted
A company out of Saint John wants to change the way funeral homes receive and process donations, and results from a pilot at a local funeral home show it’s doing just that.
Donation Processors is a payment processing and data-tracking company that aims to streamline the memorial donation process for donors as well as decrease administrative costs for funeral home staff.
“There are basically two cash businesses left in Canada, one is buying and selling illicit drugs, and the other is memorial donations in funeral homes,” says Andrew Costin, the company’s president. “We’re trying to get memorial donations out of the 1950s and ’60s. Everything else you can pay with debit and credit, and we want to be able to streamline at that level for donating.”
The biggest reason why funeral homes don’t take debit or credit card donations is that they need to be able to issue a tax receipt on the spot. Donation Processors’ software allows funeral homes to do this, and donors can donate via the home’s website, its front desk or at a stand-alone kiosk.
“Where I think we’re ahead of the game and very cutting-edge is the fact that we have a kiosk system to allows you to donate immediately on the spot. It’s instant data tracking and it basically streamlines the entire donation process,” says Costin. “There is no one else in Canada that we’re aware of that has a kiosk system for memorial donations that can issue a charitable tax receipt on the spot.”
The company takes a three percent processing fee with each donation, something Costin said is balanced by the general increase in donations the funeral home will get.
“We haven’t gotten rid of pledges. We understand pledges definitely have a part,” he says. “We don’t want to monopolize that, but for us, the amount that we increase donations are far outweighed by our fees.”
Donations Processors has been piloting its technology at Fundy Funeral Home in Saint John for over a year now. Paul Daigle, Fundy’s managing funeral director, said it has allowed them to take donations for all registered charities, as opposed to a select few. It’s also greatly reduced the administrative burden on staff.
“It’s a lot less liability because we’re not holding cheques or cash here for different organizations,” said Daigle. “It’s a credit and debit machine which is wonderful and they look after all the receipts. It’s a lot less paperwork for our administrative staff.”
Visitors are particularly liking the kiosk.
“I’m seeing more and more people going on it. It’s all touch screen and it’s easy. It prints off the receipt right there for them,” said Daigle. “Also, the kiosk also prints a label with their name address on it we can put it on the card and give it to a family. It’s very seamless.”
Donation Processors’ platform could be used not just for funeral homes, but for other registered charities and political parties. But Costin says right now, they are focused on gaining ground in the funeral business. Costin said they are looking for an industry partner to help them expand across the country.
“We’re not necessarily looking for investors, because we don’t think that is an impediment. It’s more or less just having industry partners, especially from the sales perspective across Canada, so we’re looking for strategic partnerships.”
For Daigle, he’d like to see other funeral homes adopt this kind of technology.
“Speaking for us, we’re very innovative and we want to be at the forefront of anything that’s new out there,” he said. “We’ll try something that’s going to make this whole experience for people coming into the funeral home much more easier on them.”
A version of this story was published in Huddle, an online business news publication based in Saint John. Huddle is an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.
