By Thomas A. Parmalee
When Jason Troyer speaks with families, funeral homes and cemetery professionals, a common theme emerges: When someone is gone, what their family members often miss the most is their voice.
“Families may have thousands of photographs, but only a few saved voicemails or short video clips,” he said. “Often, no one thought to record the person telling familiar stories, describing important memories, or sharing the messages their family would most want to preserve.”
Given that funeral homes and cemeteries want to connect with families in more meaningful ways, Troyer has taken this unmet need and done something about it, launching Preserve Their Voice, a turnkey storytelling, family-engagement and grief-support system sponsored by organizations committed to helping families navigate end-of-life care and remember and honor their loved ones.
At the center of the system is a simple, branded web app that gives families prompts to help them record personal stories, memories, family history, life lessons and messages in their own voices.
The larger system includes ready-to-share social media content, educational resources, grief support videos and customized links that connect families back to the sponsoring organization.
The goal is not simply to produce recordings, according to Troyer. Rather, he hopes to help funeral homes and cemeteries make meaningful connections with families before services are needed and continue supporting families after a death.
FuneralVision.com recently caught up with Troyer, a grief educator, speaker, psychologist, community engagement specialist, former university professor and the co-founder of Healing Path Cemetery to learn more about Preserve Their Voice.
What inspired you to create Preserve Their Voice?
As a grief educator, I have repeatedly heard people say that one of the things they miss most after someone dies is the sound of that person’s voice. Families may have thousands of photographs, but only a few saved voicemails or short video clips. Often, no one thought to record the person telling familiar stories, describing important memories, or sharing the messages their family would most want to preserve. At the same time, many funeral homes, cemeteries, hospices, and home care organizations are searching for more meaningful ways to connect with families. Preserve Their Voice brings those needs together. It gives families something genuinely valuable while helping the sponsoring organization demonstrate that it cares about family, connection, and legacy.
Who created Preserve Their Voice?
I teamed up with my brother, Trent Troyer, on this initiative as a joint venture.
I have spent much of my career studying how people experience loss and helping professionals provide more meaningful support to grieving families. I am responsible for much of the program’s educational content, storytelling prompts, grief support resources, organizational strategy and professional outreach.
My brother, Trent, brings the technical and product-development expertise behind the platform. He designed and developed the web app and is responsible for the technology that allows families to record, save and share stories directly from their own devices. Trent’s focus is making the system easy to use, secure, accessible, and flexible enough to be customized for funeral homes, cemeteries, hospices, home care agencies, and other organizations.
The partnership combines my understanding of grief, family needs, and professional practice with Trent’s ability to turn those ideas into a practical and intuitive digital tool.
How does the recording process work?
Families open the app on a phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer and choose from a collection of guided prompts. The prompts cover subjects such as childhood, family relationships, school, work, holidays, favorite things, faith, life lessons and messages for loved ones.
The individual selects a question, presses the recording button and begins talking. A recording can be up to 10 minutes long, and families can create as many recordings as they wish. They can then save, email, or text the recordings to relatives. There is no complicated biography project to complete. A person can record one meaningful two-minute story and immediately have something worth preserving.
Why did you focus on short voice recordings rather than producing a complete life story book or documentary?
There are excellent companies that create full biographies, books, and legacy documentaries. However, those projects can require a substantial commitment of time and money. We wanted to remove as many barriers as possible. People already understand the emotional value of a saved voicemail or a short recording of someone they love. Preserve Their Voice builds on that behavior. A family does not need special equipment, an interviewer, a lengthy appointment, or a large budget. Short recordings also allow families to begin immediately. One story often leads to another, but the experience is still meaningful even if someone records only a few memories.
How can Preserve Their Voice help a funeral home?
Funeral homes face a difficult marketing challenge. Most families do not want to think about funeral services until a need is immediate, and traditional educational messages about death or preplanning can be difficult conversation starters. Stories and family connection offer a more positive entry point.
A funeral home can share a branded Preserve Their Voice app and weekly story prompts through Facebook, email, community presentations, preplanning events, or printed QR codes. That gives local families something they can use immediately, even when they are nowhere near needing funeral services. The app can also connect families to the funeral home’s obituary listings, preplanning information, contact details, staff videos, livestreams, pet services, payment information, and other resources. After a funeral, the same app can provide access to grief-support videos and other helpful material. It allows the funeral home to be present before, during and after the immediate time of need.
How can the system help cemeteries?
Cemeteries often have an additional challenge: families may not understand the wide range of memorialization choices available to them. A customized cemetery app can introduce families to burial options, cremation gardens, columbaria, mausoleums, private estates, monuments, markers, veterans’ services, cemetery tours, maps, rules and preplanning information.
However, the first message families encounter does not have to be a sales message. It can be an invitation to record a family story or preserve the voice of someone they love. That creates a warmer and more meaningful connection. The cemetery becomes associated not only with property and final disposition, but also with remembrance, family history, and continuing bonds.
Is this primarily a marketing tool or a family-support program?
It is intentionally both. Many marketing programs ask an organization to talk about itself: its facilities, staff, awards, history, or services. Preserve Their Voice begins by giving families something useful and emotionally meaningful. That generosity can create awareness, trust, and engagement. Families are introduced to the sponsoring organization through a positive experience instead of through a traditional advertisement. At the same time, the system provides practical family support. It encourages meaningful conversations, preserves personal stories, provides grief education and connects families to useful resources. The marketing benefit comes from offering authentic value rather than simply creating another promotional message.
What does the sponsoring organization receive?
Each organization receives a customized, branded version of the web app, which includes:
- The organization’s logo, name, and contact information.
- Guided voice-recording prompts.
- Grief-support videos.
- Links to the organization’s website and social media.
- Staff or leadership videos.
- Obituaries or service information.
- Preplanning resources.
- Cemetery options.
- Requests for hospice assessments or referrals.
- Information about home care services.
- Volunteer, employment, donation, or community resources.
- Other custom links selected by the organization.
Partners also receive four ready-to-post social media graphics and one video each month. These resources encourage families to share stories and direct users back to the organization’s branded app. The intention is to give the organization a complete program rather than another piece of technology it must figure out how to promote.
What is the Early Partner Program?
The Early Partner Program allows qualifying funeral homes, cemeteries, hospices, home care agencies, and other participating organizations to receive the complete Preserve Their Voice system at no cost through Dec. 31, 2026.
Early Partners receive a customized and branded app, voice-recording and grief-support resources, and monthly ready-to-share social media content. There is no startup fee, customization fee, long term contract, or obligation to continue after the free period. In return, we ask partners to share the provided content through their social media channels and give us honest feedback about the program.
We know that Preserve Their Voice is different from the traditional marketing and family-support products these professions have used. Rather than trying to explain its value only through a sales presentation, we want organizations to experience the complete system in their own communities. The Early Partner Program also gives us an opportunity to learn from professionals in each field and continue refining the app, content, and implementation process.
Why are you offering the system for free through 2026?
We want to eliminate the financial risk for organizations that are interested in the idea but are unsure how families in their communities will respond. Preserve Their Voice is a new type of offering. It combines outreach, family engagement, storytelling, grief support, and customized organizational resources. That can be difficult to fully understand from a brochure or demonstration. The Early Partner Program allows organizations to use the complete system, share it with families and evaluate the response before making a financial commitment. It also allows us to gather feedback from funeral homes, cemeteries, hospices and home care agencies, so that the system can continue improving. We believe the best way to demonstrate the program’s value is to let organizations experience it.
What happens when the free Early Partner period ends?
Beginning Jan. 1, 2027, a participating single-location organization may choose to continue for $3 per day, billed annually at $1,095. Multi-location organizations can request customized pricing based on the number of locations and the type of implementation.
There is no obligation to continue. Families also keep the recordings already stored on their devices even if the sponsoring organization decides not to renew. Our goal is to make the decision straightforward: use the system during 2026, see whether families engage with it and continue only if it provides meaningful value.
What privacy or HIPAA concerns should organizations know about?
Preserve Their Voice was designed so that neither our company nor the sponsoring organization receives or stores a family’s recordings. The recordings are created and stored on the user’s own device. The individual or family decides whether to text, email, save, or share them. Preserve Their Voice cannot hear, download, or retrieve the recordings, and the sponsoring funeral home, cemetery, hospice, or home care agency cannot access them through the app. The app does not collect protected health information, connect to an organization’s patient records, track individual users, or store personal identifying information. It is not an electronic medical record or clinical documentation system. The family owns and controls the recordings. We strongly encourage users to share copies with several trusted family members, so that the stories are not lost if a phone or other device is damaged or replaced.
How difficult is the system for an organization to implement?
The setup is intentionally simple. The organization provides its logo and answers a short series of questions about the links, resources, and information it wants included. That initial conversation generally requires about 15 minutes. Once the necessary information is received, the customized app can typically be completed in less than two weeks. After launch, the organization receives four social media posts and one video each month. Those posts can generally be scheduled in approximately 10 minutes. No additional technology team or dedicated program coordinator is required. Training can also be provided for staff and volunteers who will introduce the app to families.
What do you ultimately hope Preserve Their Voice accomplishes?
On the family side, I hope it encourages conversations that might not otherwise happen. Families frequently assume there will be more time to ask questions. Preserve Their Voice gives them a simple reason to begin today:
- Tell me about your childhood.
- What traditions mattered to you?
- What are you proud of?
- What do you want your grandchildren to remember?
On the organizational side, I hope the system demonstrates that meaningful service and effective outreach do not have to be separate goals.
A funeral home, cemetery, hospice, or home care agency can build visibility and differentiate itself by offering something that genuinely helps people. When an organization helps families ask better questions, hear important stories, and preserve the voices of those they love, that organization becomes associated with far more than a transaction. It becomes associated with family, connection, remembrance, and care.
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