Workshop + Networking
9:00 AM PDT
Learn how to talk about what you do beyond the label or elevator pitch (even if you have one memorized), and discover how to open the door to conversations about your work.
The Death Worker Summit
Turn Your Calling into a Sustainable Practice
Join 20 death workers for honest conversations and practical steps to help you get hired, build meaningful relationships, and build the business around your end-of-life work.
September 24–27, 2026 Virtual Free to attend
A virtual gathering for death doulas, end-of-life educators and planners, grief workers, celebrants, funeral professionals, home funeral guides, holistic practitioners, and others whose work supports people through death, dying, grief, and remembrance.
Get your free ticketWatch the video to see what becomes possible when you have the tools and guidance to build a practice that can sustain you.
Building a sustainable practice takes more than being good at the work itself.
You’re already bringing a lot to this:
- years of skill, experience, and lived knowledge.
- a real understanding of the people you want to support.
- a deep commitment to doing this work well.
You may also have spent a lot of time learning how to build the business around it.
But when all that learning is not helping you make decisions, start conversations, or get hired, it becomes harder to know what will actually move the practice forward.
Maybe right now you…
...know people need your support, but wonder whether they will pay for it.
...keep trying to explain what you do, but people still do not understand when or why they would hire you.
...find yourself spending more time trying to run or launch the business than preparing to support the people you want to serve.
...take an unanswered email, a declined proposal, or another conversation that goes nowhere as evidence that there may not be room for your work.
...have plenty of ideas, information, and tools, but are still not sure which next step will help someone understand, trust, and actually hire you.
There has got to be a better way!
You dream of seeing all your skill, care, and experience become work people understand, trust, and hire you to do.
How would it feel to…
...get hired for the work you feel called to be doing.
...talk about what you do with confidence, so people understand who you help, why it matters, and when to call you.
...see how the work you are doing can become real conversations, referrals, and paying clients.
At The Death Worker Summit, you will see how other death workers are building sustainable businesses around their end-of-life work and how you can too.
FINALLY, A SUMMIT JUST FOR DEATH WORKERS WHO WANT THEIR WORK TO BECOME PAID WORK.
You may have already discovered that having the training doesn’t automatically make it easy for people to understand what they can actually hire you for.
Come see what paid work in this field
can actually look like.
Every conversation looks at a different part of turning death work into paid work: getting clear about what you offer, helping people understand why it matters, building relationships, finding clients, getting hired, and yes, talking about money.
And somewhere along the way, you might find yourself thinking...
“Wait... they’re getting paid for that?”
“Oh. They all do this work so differently.”
“Huh. People already come to me for things like that.”
“I already do some of that. I just don’t get paid for it.”
We’ll be the first to tell you that building a sustainable business takes real work, but we’re dedicated to helping you leave this Summit seeing more clearly how paid work could work for you, with practical strategies and a solid action plan for what comes next.
Meet the Speakers:
Twenty death workers. Twenty different practices. Twenty honest conversations about getting hired, building relationships, earning an income in this field, and creating work that can last.
Day 1: You're More Ready Than You Think
Recognize the value of the skills, experience, and perspective you already bring, and see how getting clearer about your work can help you stop preparing and begin putting it into practice.
Why You're More Ready Than You Think
Reena Lazar & Debra White
The Mosaic Practice: Pets, People, and Art
Lauren Seeley
Your Calling Will Evolve.
Let the Business Catch Up.
Johanna Munson
Why the Business Stalls When the Training is Done.
Jacqui Williams
Tips from Dead People
Mary McGreevy
Beyond “Know Your Worth”: Pricing Deathwork
Christa Ovenell
Caring & Charging - Money, Meaning & Self-Worth
Catherine Schaarwaechter
How Funeral Celebrants Can Build A Multi-Stream Income
Rosalie Kuyvenhoven
Day 2: Learn From Practitioners Who've Already Built It
See what a sustainable EOL practice actually looks like through the real, specific stories of people who've built one, and start recognizing your own next step inside theirs.
From the Only Doula to the Known Doula
Kema Ward
Workshops as a Doorway to Connection and Growth
Tracy Chalmers
Trust Before Referrals: Building Relationships with Funeral Homes & Hospices
Darnell Lamont Walker
Workshops as Your First "Yes"
Karen "Joko" Karnatz
Intake conversations and building a doula practice
 Diane Button
Death Doula Collaboratives: A Rising Tide
Vanessa Johnston
Day 3: Make the Work Sustainable
Leave with one clear next step that turns interest into a real conversation, a paid opportunity, and a practice that can support you.
How to Book your First Sponsored Workshop
Live Panel With:Â
Reena Lazar
Christa Ovenell
Sandy Travis
Taryn Kinney
Build the Service That Sustains You Too
Deanna Cochran
A Celebrant's Guide to the Intake Conversation
Amy Firth
How Death Care Professionals Can Collaborate with Financial Professionals
Rose Zealand, CFP®, CeFT®, EOLD
Knitting Together a Network That Opens Doors
Shari Haber
Built, Not Bought: A Practitioner's Guide to Swings and Roundabouts
Rebecca LyonsÂ
Pricing EOL Services: What to Charge & How to Say It
Live Panel With:
Jacqui Williams
Johanna Munson
T.J. Ford
Karen 'Joko' Karnatz
Some conversations will meet you exactly where you are. Others will show you possibilities you have not considered yet.
Together, they reveal what a sustainable death work practice can look like.
This is a conversation worth being part of.
Day 4: Live Sessions
Interactive Workshop
10:00 AM PDT
Step into a potential client conversation and practise what you might say as it unfolds, from “I’m wondering if you can help us” all the way to “What would something like that cost?”
Live Q&A
11:00 AM PDT
Bring the question you’re still sitting with about building your practice, submit it ahead of time or ask it live, and explore it with Deb and Reena.
Co-Working Session
12:00 PM PDT
Take action on what you’ve discovered throughout the Summit, share what’s sticking with you, and turn those takeaways into next steps for your own practice.
We’ll wrap up the morning by announcing the Vision to Venture Scholarship recipient.
Keynote Masterclass
1:30 PM PDT
Learn Willow’s 4-part framework to design services you want to offer around what your clients actually need, and create a practice that’s built to be sustainable.
Closing Call
3:00 PM PDT
Join us in the Facebook group to wrap up The Death Worker Summit and create your action plan for what comes next.
 MEET YOUR HOST, DEBRA
Debra White has spent more than 25 years as a high-performance coach, helping people turn meaningful ideas into clear decisions and practical action.
At Willow, she helps death workers build the practice around their work so it becomes clearer, more visible, and easier for people to understand, trust, and hire.
Together
Reena helps death workers turn what they know into meaningful ways to serve.
Debra helps them build the practice that brings that work into the world.
Together, they created The Death Worker Summit to show what is possible when the work itself and the business around it are finally part of the same conversation.
How the Summit Comes Together
A mix of recorded sessions, live conversations, practical resources, and opportunities to connect, designed so you can take part in the Summit in a way that works for you.
Completely Virtual
The Death Worker Summit comes to you.
Every speaker session will be available as a recording, with some happening live during the Summit and others recorded in advance. You can join us from home and make your way through the sessions in a way that works for your day.
Bring your coffee, your notebook, your dog, your bunny slippers. Come as you are.
The Sessions
Hear from death workers who are actually doing this work and building businesses in all kinds of ways.
Some conversations are short and focused, while others go deeper into what they’ve built, how they found their way there, what’s working, what they’ve learned, and what they’d do differently.
This isn’t one model of what a death work business should look like. It’s a chance to see a whole lot of ways it can.
Come Together LiveÂ
Recorded sessions give you the flexibility to move through the Summit in your own time, and the live gatherings give us a chance to come together along the way.
Deb and Reena will open each day, some speaker sessions will happen live, and there will be panels, conversations and Q&A where we can explore what’s coming up in the room.
Everything live will be recorded, so join when you can and catch up when you can’t.
Come Find Your PeopleÂ
Your free Summit ticket also includes access to our private Facebook group, where you can connect with other death workers, share what’s coming up for you, ask questions, and keep the conversations going between sessions.
We’ll have some fun in there too, with Summit Bingo, prizes, prompts and other ways to join in throughout the Summit.
A Full Scholarship
As part of The Death Worker Summit, every registered attendee is invited to apply for a full scholarship to the next Vision to Venture Guided Cohort, Willow®’s business course for death workers who want to figure out where they fit and build a sustainable business around the work they want to do.
For one Summit attendee, what comes next will be a place in Vision to Venture.
The scholarship recipient will be announced live on Launch Day.
The Keep-It-All Option!
After you register for your free Summit ticket, you’ll have the opportunity to upgrade to the All-Access Pass.
Your free ticket gives you access to the summit and limited-time access to the recordings.
The All-Access Pass gives you lifetime access to every Summit session, transcript, slide and speaker resource, plus more than $1,000 in bonuses, including courses, workshops, guides and resources from our speakers, a month inside The Willow Grove, and 10% off coupon for Vision to Venture.
There Is More Than One Pathway Within This Field
It is possible to build a practice around the work you actually want to do.
You’ll see different ways of serving, being visible, building relationships, finding paid opportunities, and creating a business around the work that matters to you.
Some conversations will speak directly to where you are now. Others may show you a possibility you had not considered yet.
There is more than one way to do this work.
And more than one way to get paid for doing it.
Before your free ticket gets lost in the other 77 tabs you have open…
We know the routine.
Open the page. Read the speakers. Think, “This looks really good.”
Leave the tab open so you remember to come back.
And then life keeps moving.
Bring your practice as it is. Bring your ideas, your questions, and whatever you’re still figuring out.
Come all the way in, and sit all the way down.
Bunny slippers are welcome.
COME SEE WHAT’S POSSIBLE.
The Death Worker Summit begins September 24.
Your free ticket is waiting.
HAVE QUESTIONS?
WE’VE GOT ANSWERS
Is this really free?
Do I need to already have a business?
What if I cannot attend every session live?
What is the All-Access Pass?
What happens after I register?
Is there really a Vision to Venture scholarship?
The Death Worker Summit
Hosted by Willow End-of-Life Education and Planning®
September 24–27, 2026 · Virtual · Free to attend
Willow believes the end-of-life field grows stronger when it includes many traditions for grieving, remembering, and preparing for death. Death touches every community, culture, and life story, and the work of supporting people at the end of life should reflect that same range.
The Death Worker Summit welcomes speakers and participants of every race, culture, faith tradition, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, and background.
Death Workers bring different histories and different training, and each perspective adds to what the whole field can offer the people who need it.
