Compassionate Communities Initiative

According to the World Health Organization (2021), the world’s population is aging faster than it has in the past. This means that people are living for longer; living for longer periods with chronic illnesses and with increasingly complex needs; and dying at older ages (Rawlings et al., 2018; Richards et al., 2020). As a result, a civil society effort referred to as the Compassionate Communities (CC) initiative/model has emerged to deal with such changes.

The CC model “aims to de-professionalize, de-medicalize end-of-life care, return it to the community, and build up social capital that can then be mobilized when citizens come to the end of their life” (HPCO, 2019, para. 6). In a CC, members of the community play an active role in caring for each other. CCs can therefore be viewed as circles of care or social support networks available in the community to aid people as they age, develop illnesses, approach the end of life, and experience bereavement (Rawlings et al., 2021).

The Death Positive Movement

CCs are part of a broader 21st-century death positive movement. The movement began in 2011 with Caitlin Doughty’s founding of a funeral reform collective known as The Order of the Good Death (Caitlin Doughty, n.d.). The aim of the movement is to “promote open, honest engagement with” death and dying (Kelly, 2017). The movement is broad in scope, reimagining everything tied to death and dying (McGroarty, 2019). For example, we find death positivity in CCs and other initiatives that emphasize dignity, respect, caring and compassion throughout our lives, including at the end of life. There are also death doulas—functioning similarly to birth doulas—who provide continuous care and support to the dying and their families (before, during and after death).

But what exactly is the Order of the Good Death, and why has it become such a pivotal node in the movement?

What Is the Order of the Good Death?

Origins & Mission
The OGD was founded by Caitlin Doughty in 2011 after her experiences as a funeral industry worker in Los Angeles revealed how many families felt marginalized, financially exploited, or emotionally shut out by funeral processes.  The founding purpose was to make death a part of life: to confront cultural fears, dismantle silence around mortality, and normalize engagement with bodies, grief, and end-of-life decisions.

From that core, the Order grew into a network of funeral professionals, artists, academics, and death workers who collaborate on education, advocacy, and cultural reimagining.

Key Focus Areas & Activities

1. Education & Resources — The OGD provides articles, toolkits, legal guides, infographics, and interactive media to help people grasp their rights, options, and language around death.

2. Advocacy & Policy Change — The organization pushes for legislative changes to increase access to green burial, human composting, alkaline hydrolysis, and broader consumer protections in funeral regulation.

3. Cultural Events & Salons — They organize “Death Salons,” talks, exhibits, and community gatherings where art, conversation, and death coalesce in open dialogue.

4. Spotlighting Equity & Inclusion — OGD explicitly addresses how race, class, gender, and geography shape death access. They fund and support efforts to preserve marginalized burial grounds (for example, historically Black cemeteries), and develop guides for transgender people’s death-rights.

5. Innovative Death Care Models — The Order experiments with alternative forms of care and disposition (natural burial, composting, ecological funeral design, DIY practices) and pushes for more transparent, participatory roles for families.

Philosophy & Cultural Impact

• The OGD frames death anxiety and cultural death-phobia as socially constructed problems, not inevitable truths. Fear of death is seen as a dysfunction to be challenged.

• Its name evokes both ritual and morality: “Good Death” implies a death that is meaningful, respectful, and aligned with personal values—not sanitized or hidden.

• The Order’s approach is not purely negative critique: it emphasizes solutions—creating infrastructure and supports so more people can have death experiences aligned with their beliefs.

• It works to normalize talking about corpses, decomposition, grief, and mortuary practices, asserting that these topics are not morbid but human.

Influence & Reach

• The term “death positive” is widely attributed to OGD’s early framing. Doughty and her collaborators stylized it as a counter to the silence and shame around death.

• OGD has inspired similar organizations, podcasts, death educators, and a growing grassroots movement globally.

• Caitlin Doughty’s “Ask a Mortician” series has become a widely visible platform for death education, reaching millions of viewers and further pushing OGD’s mission into public awareness.

End of life rituals tied to funerals/memorials and ways to deal with dead bodies are evolving rapidly. We see this in the green funeral industry, the introduction of acquamation, and the movement back toward the use of natural burial shrouds, homemade coffins, and family completed burials (See Chapter on Dealing with Bodies). And there are the innovative death conversation initiatives including the Conversation Project, Death Cafés, and Death over Dinner, that work to get people to come together and engage in discussions about anything tied to death and dying over food and drink.

Focusing on the positive, rather than the negative, can help us rethink death. Various parts of the death positivity movement aim to enhance life, a sense of community, caring and connection and ultimately to make sure that at the end of it all, we die well. The three short videos below explore the Death Café, Death over Dinner, and the Conversation Project initiatives.

(As a reminder, any links in the text, including videos are optional to view. They are very interesting and help increase your understanding of the course content, but are not required.)

VIDEO: Death Cafes: Discussing Death, and Especially Life 

The following video takes us inside of a Death Café, where we learn about what it is, what occurs there, what motivates people to go, and the experiences of people who have attended.

VIDEO: Death Over Dinner: What is Death Over Dinner?

The following video explains the Death over Dinner initiative, how it works and the rationale behind it.

VIDEO: ABC World News with Diane Sawyer: The Conversation Project

In the following video Diane Sawyer goes inside a family gathering to witness “an act of love” — that is, having “the conversation” with their father about his end of life wishes.