Funeral Consumers Alliance is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting a consumer's right to choose a meaningful, dignified, affordable funeral.Think  of us as the "Consumer Reports" of the funeral business.

Here's how we can help you:

• Objective funeral advice, including online pamphlets and articles on your legal rights and options as a funeral consumer.
  
• Newsletters rounding up national issues affecting funeral choices and costs, scams to avoid, and creative ways to remember the dead without going into debt.
• Monitoring funeral industry trends and practices nationally and exposing abuses.
• Serving as a consumer advocate for legal and regulatory reform, giving advice on or lobbying for necessary changes locally, state-wide, or nationally
• Serving as a credible source of information for media covering death and dying
• Referring you to your local nonprofit funeral and memorial and planning society
  

Our affiliates are nonsectarian, nonprofit, educational organizations. They were first started in the late 1930s (known then as Memorial Societies) because of two influences: the depression and the increasing cost of funerals due to the use of embalming and more elaborate manufactured caskets. There are now more than 150 nonprofit funeral-planning groups—in most states of the U.S. and in the provinces of Canada.

Many affiliates, with the help of their volunteers, do a price survey of area mortuaries. Some have been able to negotiate a discount at participating funeral homes, sort of like a cooperative buyers' club. (Members rarely spend more than $1,000 for a simple cremation or $2,000 for a funeral). In addition, your membership supports the social action needed to expand and protect a consumer's last rights. Click here for membership options.