Crowdfunded funerals trending up
In the fraught days following Scott Wadham’s wife’s unexpected death, he lay awake at night stressing over how he was going to pay for her funeral.
Simone Wadham, 51, came down with what doctors thought was a simple cold or flu-type bug in July. She died three days later in hospital. Doctors later said she had contracted a streptococcus infection which viciously took hold of her body.
Distraught and shocked after his wife’s unexpected death, Wadham soon started stressing about the financial implications.
He later became one of the growing number of Kiwis turning to crowdfunding in order to help pay for loved ones’ funerals.
‘‘I lay awake at night, my brain ticking over thinking about how I was going to afford the funeral, because when two-thirds of your income goes, which is what happened with us, we were like: what do we do?’’
When Wadham first contemplated turning to popular crowdfunding site Givealittle, he wondered if it would be seen as needy. But his wife’s sister volunteered to set up a page and $23,441 was eventually raised through 207 donations.
‘‘We were blown away,’’
Wadham said.
‘‘It really was so helpful during that time. Nobody wants to say: help I need money; so it was a way of sort of quietly getting help,’’ Wadham said.
‘‘There’s only so many flowers you can have delivered to your house or so many casseroles that can be eaten. It’s a polite way of saying: hey instead of spending $50 on a bunch of flowers, put it in a Givealittle page; because that can help for all sorts.’’
The page served a dual purpose, Wadham said, in that it also helped get the word out on social media about Simone’s unexpected death.
As at February 27, there were 37 Givealittle pages open containing the phrase ‘‘funeral costs’’.
A further 581 are still searchable on the site that have either closed or reached their target.
Givealittle customer care manager Mel Steel said staff had noticed more pages related to funeral expenses recently but she was unable to give specific details on how much of an increase there had been.
‘‘One reason for an increase in pages could be that crowdfunding for funeral expenses has become more commonplace and is a way of showing support to a family in a difficult time,’’ Steel said.
David Moger, chief executive of the Funeral Directors Association (FDANZ), believed the crowdfunding trend was a response to the rising costs of funerals. ‘‘People are looking for new ways to meet these costs, so more and more people are crowdfunding, something typically used for investments or speculative opportunity,’’ he said.
In 2018, the FDANZ averaged the cost of what Moger described as a ‘‘simple’’ funeral, across 20 cemeteries.
‘‘You’re looking at between $7000 and $7500 for a simple funeral with burial and about $5500 for a simple funeral with cremation,’’ Moger said.
Moger also suspected crowdfunding might be another ‘‘tangible way that people show their respects’’.
‘‘We see this very commonly when you see an unfortunate medical situation – people are prepared to put their hands in their pockets.’’
Ruth McManus, an associate professor of sociology and anthropology at Canterbury University, said crowdfunded funerals were a ‘‘really interesting development’’.
‘‘Before, there were informal ‘whiparounds’ where neighbours or workmates would chip in for a funeral, but what we’re seeing is this fundraising happening in a much more public way,’’ McManus said.
Contributing money to a Givealittle page was popular because it made people ‘‘feel like they’re part of something’’.
‘‘Crowdfunding was set up to kick-start little businesses and you’d get some sort of return if you pitched in, but I suppose the return with funerals is some kind of ‘feel-good’ response.’’
Givealittle charges a 5 per cent service fee, which goes towards covering running costs such as payment processing and website hosting, as well as customer service, website development, security and development.
‘‘We do not make a profit because the fee does not cover all of the costs, the Spark Foundation continues to make a significant contribution to keep all the Givealittle goodness going,’’ its website states.