Year in Review: 2022
The Northern Pyre Board of Directors. From left to right: Alaina, Ashley, Kelsey, and Kate.
It’s been an incredible first year for Northern Pyre. We’d like to reflect on our accomplishments month by month, with some takeaways for 2023.
January: Our site went live.
Northern Pyre 1.0 has a simple navigation, no photos, and a black and white palette. It fulfills the most basic purpose - to let people know we exist.
Next year, we’d like to sift through the site analytics and improve the user experience.
February: We published the Logo Design Process.
It’s no secret that we’re a fledgling nonprofit, and we can’t afford a creative agency to put our brand together for us. But our board is made up of creative folks who love storytelling, so we’ve gotten by fairly well.
March: We formalized a summary of Minnesota’s Crematory Legislation.
Is open-air cremation legal? After comprehensive conversations with industry folks, lawyers, and similar nonprofits, we’re closer to an answer than ever before. Because the law is murky, it’s open to interpretation. At the end of the day, it will come down to what you (the public) want.
April: We submitted Form 1024.
Although Northern Pyre was incorporated and had an EIN, we weren’t tax exempt and couldn’t call ourselves a nonprofit. Submitting the paperwork for our organization was a turning point for us, and one of the biggest steps we took this year.
May: The New York Times published an article on open-air cremation.
One of the biggest hurdles open-air cremation faces is a lack of awareness. Currently, the only public pyre in North America is in Crestone, Colorado. When we heard that they were interviewed by the NYT, we wanted to promote the article however we could.
In the months since it’s been published, there’s been an overwhelmingly positive response to this death option that continues to fuel our passion and conviction.
June/July: We expected the IRS to get back to us in nine months. They reached out in three.
Our 2022 content calendar was adjusted to accommodate the tax-exemption approval. We’re still pinching ourselves.
August: We were invited to speak at Crestone’s board meeting.
The pyre at Crestone is part of Informed Final Choices and the Crestone End-of-Life Project, and the folks who manage this nonprofit generously allowed us to join their monthly board meeting and talk about our progress. We had an amazing conversation and ended up making some wonderful connections.
September: The board president obtained a Crematory Operations Certification.
Cremation Association of North America (CANA) offers a crematory operations course, with coursework that includes education around necessary equipment and PPE, legal requirements, maintenance, and operations. It was valuable knowledge to learn and provided a fantastic foundation for the Northern Pyre Business and Operations Plan.
October: Our estate planning blog post was published, and became our most popular article this year.
How does one declare their burial/cremation preferences? There are a couple of ways to formalize your final wishes, as we outline in this blog post.
November: We held a brand workshop - and were filmed for a documentary.
With eleven months of analytics, Northern Pyre felt confident enough to facilitate a weekend workshop to establish our audience and define our overall “look and feel.” All of the brainstorms and sticky notes contributed to building personas, SEM/SEO, and a 2023 content calendar.
We were completely stunned when Brett Nicoletti reached out to us about a film project that he was working on about death customs and cultures around the world. It was a wonderful and humbling experience to interview with him, and we can’t wait to celebrate all of his progress.
December: We’re closing out the year with a solid 2023 roadmap.
Advertising. Master planning. News articles. Our first fundraiser. The work we put into 2022 will start to bloom in 2023. We’re so grateful to everyone who has helped us on this journey.
