
About Us
Minnesota Death Collaborative
We are a group of integrative death professionals who serve our community in a variety of ways. We are end of life doulas, home funeral and vigil guides, celebrants, green burial advocates, energy and body workers, and much more. We work together to provide integrative death care opportunities to those who are dying, their families, and their support network. Our goal is to educate and inform the public and professionals within the state of Minnesota, and to help those in need find appropriate services and resources.
We welcome you to join this growing community! For information on membership and benefits, click here. To sign up for our newsletter, click here.
Our Steering Committee
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Michelle Kolling
SECRETARY
admin@mndeathcollaborative.org
Michelle is an INELDA trained end of life doula, grief coach, and founder of HELD. While serving as a caregiver to her husband during the end of his life, she came to understand the transformational possibilities that exist when being deeply present to the dying experience. Michelle is a member of both INELDA and NEDA, is a Certified Grief Educator through David Kessler, is a Certified NLP Practitioner, Hypnotherapist and Life Coach through IntraAwareness. To learn more about how Michelle practices the art of death midwifery go to heldoula.com.
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Becca Nelson
MEMBERSHIP
members@mndeathcollaborative.org
Becca is a Going With Grace trained & NEDA proficient End of Life Doula, volunteer with Sholom Hospice, and founder of Partners in Passing. As a former management consultant, Becca is passionate about using her organizational, project management, and communication skills to build community and support for the dying and their circles of support. Becca is committed to facilitating uncomfortable conversations with the aim of making death less weird.
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Cindy McCreary
DEVELOPMENT
development@mndeathcollaborative.org
Cindy McCreary is an End of Life Doula, Grief Specialist and Certified Life Planning Specialist trained through International Doula Life Movement (IDLM). She currently volunteers her services as an End-of-Life Doula at Sholom Hospice in St. Paul, MN and as a volunteer with other hospice organizations in the Twin Cities area. She has recently ended a long career in Organization Development which included leadership and team development, change management and executive coaching. She enjoys using her skills in new ways through her work with the MN Death Collaborative and her volunteer work. She is passionate about making a difference in death work and is grateful to have compassion, kindness and caring at the core of how she spends her time.
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Liz Liddiard Wozniak
FINANCE
finance@mndeathcollaborative.org
Liz is a graduate of the Going With Grace Death Doula Program, and is certified through NEDA. She volunteers at Providence Place in Minneapolis, and has provided Tarot divination to clients for 40 years. Her interest in end of life work was born when her mother died in 2012. Liz was part of the home birth movement in the 70s and 80s, participating in evolving how we are born in this country. The role of midwife is strong in her life work, and she now works to support the evolution of how we die. She sees the importance of normalizing conversations about death, educates people in end of life planning and supports people in thinking about what they want when their time comes. The most profound knowing that has come from this work has been to deeply internalize the reality that she will die. When facilitating groups, her goal is to bring an awareness of our mortality, and often feels a palpable sigh of relief in gratitude that these conversations can be had with courage, humor and love.
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Libby Hilsendager
COMMUNICATIONS
communications@mndeathcollaborative.org
Libby recently stepped away from her full-time career in the field of Radiation Therapy to instead lean in to things she is passionate about, and she found her passion lies in death work. She is a certified Advanced Care Planning Navigator, a volunteer with Beyond Hospice, and is also actively working to bring Natural Organic Reduction to the Twin Cities through Live On Minnesota. She strongly believes everyone should have a “plan” for their deaths and celebrations of life. She, herself, has brainstormed everything from a music playlist, to food she wants served, to pictures she wants hung at her own celebration of life. And to be clear, it’s going to be FUN with lots of laughing and embarrassing stories about her. The only tears allowed at her celebration should be tears of joy and laughter in remembering Libby.
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Lacey Hart
EDUCATION-EVENTS
events@mndeathcollaborative.org
Lacey A. Hart serves as the Event and Education Coordinator, bringing over 25 years of leadership experience across healthcare, quality, and compassionate care innovation. A seasoned strategist and servant leader, Lacey has led national initiatives in care transformation and end-of-life education, blending operational excellence with deep empathy. She is the Founder of Hope to Healing and Co-Founder of HB Healthcare Safety®, and holds certifications in Compassion Fatigue, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and End-of-Life Education. Lacey is passionate about fostering meaningful conversations around death, dying, and healing—and creating welcoming, inclusive spaces for shared learning and connection.
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Emily Wisser
MARKETING
marketing@mndeathcollaborative.org
Emily is an INELDA trained End of Life Doula. After watching her father navigate his end of life journey with cancer, Emily began processing her grief experience through writing and learning about alternative modalities of healing, which led her to discovering death work. As a visual and user experience designer, Emily is drawn to approaching problems with creativity, and she is grateful to support this community and its important mission. She is passionate about removing the stigma around death and grief.
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Amanda Luke
MEMBER AT LARGE
amanda@mndeathcollaborative.org
Amanda is the Community Programs Manager at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. She is incredibly passionate about cemeteries as community spaces and is actively involved in connecting cemetery educators and advocates across the country with resources to increase programming and community engagement. In addition to her love of cemeteries, she enjoys finding new ways to encourage community conversations around death and dying, whether through community memorialization opportunities, or small workshops and informational classes.
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Corey Siewert
MEMBER AT LARGE
corey@mndeathcollaborative.org
Corey is a trained End of Life Doula through the International End of Life Doula Association (INELDA), and serves as a volunteer with North Memorial Hospice. As the caregiver during his mother’s death, he found a clarity of purpose, helping individuals and families navigate their end-of-life journey. He believes death should be talked about and planned for. As a lifelong planner his mantra is, “none of us are making it out of here alive, so let’s make sure we plan for it and have a good death.” He feels everyone should leave this world for the next unburdened from the stresses of life, surrounded by laughter, compassion and love.
Sage Circle
Retired Founding Members
Jane Whitlock, Founding Member, 2018 to August 2021
Jean Budge, Founding Member, 2018 to September 2021
Nina Guertin, Founding Member 2018-September 2021,
Scholarship Chair April 2021-Present
Susan Lawrence, Founding Member, 2018 to September 2021
Cheryl Larson, Founding Member, 2018 to August 2022
Anne Murphy, Founding Member, 2018 to April 2023
Wendy Brown, Founding Member, 2018 to May 2023