A funny and famous quote assures everyone that there are only two things that come with certainty in life: death and payment of government dues via taxes.
Though one can be certain about the concept of death, the passing of a loved one is believed to be one of the most painful experiences a person can undergo.
Memorial funds are a way for the surviving parties of the deceased to healthily channel their pain into a good cause.
What’s A Memorial Fund
A memorial fund is a good way for you to celebrate the memory of a special someone that unfortunately passed on.
It’s done by raising money in their name and donating that money towards a cause or goal that they were passionate about when they were still alive.
The money raised will leave a legacy that’ll last for years after they’ve already passed on and gone.
At times, a memorial fund is a method a grieving family will use to gather funds to give their loved ones the appropriate sending-off ceremony they deserve.
The celebration may entail a lot of aspects, such as attending the funeral parlor arrangements and looking for memorial headstones.
If you’re tasked with the latter, you may visit Olympia Marble and others like it to get competitive prices on memorial headstone products.
How To Set Up A Memorial Fund
Setting up a memorial fund comes with a lot of steps and needs you to cover a lot of details; here’s a guide on how you could start setting up one hassle-free:
Know Vital Information About The Person
Before you start, you need to find out the most important details about the person to whom you will dedicate the memorial fund.
These details will help you in choosing the right type of fund and in knowing how to proceed with your plan. Who are you planning to honor?
Verify basic things like their full name, date of birth, and so on from the people closest to them if, for example, you’re seeking to honor a public figure.
Then go into the nitty grittiest help give the fund their character and personality.
Find out things like what their passions were, what their interests were, where they used to enjoy spending their time, doing what? With who?
Given their lifestyle or track record, if any, are there any causes that they would have most likely wanted to support?
Some people will have specific ideas about where they would have wanted their funds directed.
Set A Realistic And Attainable Goal
Being realistic means your funds need to be able to cover their intended cause, but they also need to be within a range that you can ‘realistically’ attain if you utilize your available resources.
Ask the following questions:
- How much are you looking to save and through what means?
- What’s the primary use for the funds you want to save through this memorial fund?
You can start by thinking about how much the funeral will cost and then go from there.
It is important that the amount you choose be realistic because if it is too low, you won’t have enough money in the account; if it is too high, it may cause you to stress financially and emotionally.
For guidance, you might follow this template to help you come up with a realistic figure to work towards:
Step 1: Determine The Cost Of The Funeral Service
Funerals come at different costs. A funeral for a public figure can cost tens of thousands in dollars, while that for an average person might cost much less.
Figure out where your loved one lies. Factor in all of the expenses of things that you need including any cremation arrangements, if any, obituary announcements, flowers, and others.
Step 2: Find Out How Much You Could Donate
To honor your loved one, you might be thinking of donating to a cause they once loved or one which best personifies them and their life.
Find out a workable figure for you to invest in this if you want to send a number of students to college, out some numbers to it.
How many kids are you sending to school? Which schools? Then, you can calculate how much that will potentially cost and compare it with your sources of income.
If it’s not achievable, dial it down until you have a goal that’s within your reach.
Step 3: Add Inflation To Your Total Figure
First, you need to determine the cost of your loved one’s funeral expenses. Estimate how much it’ll cost and then add 10 to 20 percent to allow for unforeseen costs.
Try Out Different Fundraising Methods
There are indeed many ways to raise funds for your memorial fund goal. You can try out some of the following.
Launch An Online Crowdfunding Page
Crowdfunding is a common and simple method of raising money for your memorial fund.
To start, you only need to set up an online donation page that others can send in their donations. It’s popular because it’s open to almost everyone.
Host A Charity Auction
Charity auctions are a tried and tested way of collecting funds for a great cause and a sure-fire way to get local businesses and artists to participate in the fund.
By hosting a charity auction, you get to appeal to local businesses that can donate goods and services to the cause. You can then proceed to auction off everything, with most of them being done virtually now.
Set Up Memorial Galas
Memorial galas are usually used for memorial funds geared towards a cause that supports a certain foundation or an ongoing cause like relief funds towards a natural disaster that has displaced large amounts of people.
A price tag is usually placed on the food being served at the event. The price of the meal is usually triple more than what it actually costs but the purpose of the ball is to foster the spirit of giving amongst the participants.
Nonetheless, such events are easily mired by politics and other issues and often turn out to become about the guests rather than the cause itself.
Start Bake Sales
You should never underestimate the allure of tasty treats. If you have a knack for baking, start a bake sale for a local event and use the funds towards the memorial fund.
Implore Others To Do Tree Planting
Was your loved one that has passed on a nature enthusiast? A tree planting event is a great way to honor them as well as give back to the community.
You could partner with a local nursery to get discounted saplings.
Consider Brick Engravings
If the funding is going towards building a structure of some kind, like a wall, building, or pathways, you could sell engraved bricks to donors to counterbalance the construction costs.
There are many more ideas you could use to raise money for your memorial fund goal such as hosting a movie night, kickstarting a social media video challenge, and more. To make posts attractive, use Instagram post generator.
The trick is to pick something that matches best with what you’re trying to do and your audience.
Track The Funds Raising Status
Now that you’ve set up and conducted your memorial funds gathering events, it’s time for one of the most important parts of the process: tracking the fund’s overall progress.
Planning the event itself is already hectic enough, but if you add the pressure of knowing how the figures from your several socially responsible fundraising events are performing, then you could get overwhelmed.
If you’re working with a charity organization in your fundraising (probably the charity that’ll serve as the recipient of the funds), ask them and their staff to help you monitor how much has been raised so far versus how much has been spent during the event set up and any relevant activities.
Alternatively, you could just use tools that are specifically for maintaining an accurate accounting of how your figures are moving.
Run Through The Figures
Gathering the data isn’t enough; after your team, with the help of tools you’ve employed to help you track your figures, has compiled the data, it’s now time to go through it and try to match it up with the goals you’ve set when you started.
If you have reached your goals, you can give yourself a big pat on the shoulders; you may now start your distribution process as already planned.
Nonetheless, if you’re still below your set target, it’s time to sit down and strategize.
- Do you want to continue with other fundraising events?
- Are you sure there are things you could correct if you take a second shot at things and that your guests will still be on board?
If you are, then you could make a go at it for another shot.
Conclusion
Saving for a memorial fund isn’t that hard if you know what you’re doing. At least on paper, it isn’t.
The content feature above has listed the steps you could follow from start to finish when saving for a memorial fund to honor a loved one.
The steps are, however, not exhaustive. Some situations will require extra measures not mentioned above.
Nevertheless, you can at least be sure that you’ve covered most of the basics with the ideas featured.
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