Case Study: Town of Oakville
The Town of Oakville now has evidence, not just assumptions, about who its future cemetery customers will be, giving its Cemetery Services Review a stronger foundation for decisions that will shape services for decades.
250,000+ residents served. 2 + 7 active and pioneer cemeteries. 170+ years of community history in Oakville’s cemeteries.
Challenge
Oakville’s active cemeteries are running out of space. The review began as a capacity exercise built on burial trends and plot sales, metrics that show where demand has been, not where it is going.
Oakville is growing, becoming more culturally diverse and welcoming new faith communities. The real question became who are we planning for, and what should we offer?
Solution
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Oakville worked with EA to see its community through several lenses: DemoStats population projections plus data on cultural diversity, faith communities, migration and socio-economic characteristics.
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Built with EA data
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EA also identified where specific faith communities are concentrated and what characterizes them, moving the review from where residents live to how their traditions may shape future burial and memorialization needs.
Results
From insight to action
- Insight: Validated trends - Increasing diversity, growing faith communities and evolving preferences, including demand for burial, cremation and green burial options. In their words: “It wasn’t necessarily surprise. It was validation.”
- Impact: Better questions - Groundwork for service mix planning, business case development and identifying underserved groups. In their words: “It has helped us ask better questions.”
- Outcome: Confidence - Evidence-based decisions and stakeholder support, with a consultant set to build on EA’s work, not a blank page. In their words: “It moved our conversations from assumptions to evidence.”