Jeff Toale looks to deepen and double impact at helm of the LWRCF

Jeff Toale’s philanthropic instincts started early. 

“Being around my parents and the clergy, I think the message of giving back to community was ingrained in me before I even realized it,” he says.

The young Toale was a scion of the family that owned Toale Brothers Funeral Home & Crematory, a Sarasota institution dating back to 1918. Funeral directors must deal with people who are at their most vulnerable, often overwhelmed by grief, seeking a reassuring hand to help them through a grueling process. Caring, empathy and a gentle touch are absolute job requirements. 

Jeff Toale watched, learned and absorbed those character traits as a youngster. These days he applies them in his role as vice president of business development for Robert Toale & Sons Funeral Homes. His primary role within the company is overseeing its Celebration of Life Center, which opened in Lakewood Ranch in 2022.

Although Toale, 45, was raised in Sarasota — and still lives there with his wife and four children — he has forged a deep bond with Lakewood Ranch, so much so that in 2023 he joined the board of the Lakewood Ranch Community Foundation and took over as president and board chair in June 2025. 

Toale, his board and small staff — which consists of Executive Director Kate Mulligan and a part-timer — have ambitious plans afoot. For starters, “I think we dedicated $125,000 back to the community last year,” Toale says, referring to grants the foundation makes to nonprofits. “We’ve announced that our goal for this year is $250,000.”

Doubling an annual goal is not customary in the nonprofit world, but, as Toale explains, “We have to really challenge ourselves to expand what we’re doing here in Lakewood Ranch.” Last November’s Soirée at the Ranch, which celebrated the organization’s 25th anniversary and raised more than $100,000, was an auspicious start.

This surge of renewed drive has been spurred by the organization’s break from the Manatee Community Foundation in 2021, after which it converted from a fund to a foundation. That change comes with legal and tax implications, of course, but in practical terms the nonprofit foundation is no longer just a fundraising organization that doles out money to other charities. 

“We’re in the process of beginning to provide services as well as donating funds to nonprofits,” Toale says. As of early April, no programs had been unveiled. The foundation is also looking to incorporate volunteer programs. “We’re finding that people not only want to give money but want to give their time as well,” Toale adds. 

The Toale family’s decades-old business also underwent a major transition not long ago. In 2018, Robert Toale — along with his wife, Debbie, and sons Jeff and Jason — split from Toale Brothers to form Robert Toale & Sons, which operates as part of the national Dignity Memorial network. “We had a different vision of where funeral services were going,” Jeff Toale explains.

As a result, Lakewood Ranch’s first funeral home is called the Robert Toale & Sons Celebration of Life Center. The branding reflects a new trend in funeral services, where they no longer have to be dreary affairs in dimly lit rooms with open caskets. A celebration of life means something different for everyone who walks through the door, Toale says, and his company customizes experiences to meet the needs of each client. Much of the time, prospective customers are too grief-stricken to even know the kind of celebration they want, and that’s where Toale & Sons steps in to help them craft a plan. 

To further separate itself from fusty funeral homes, the 6,700-square-foot facility is well-lit, with 25-foot ceilings and a color scheme built around white and cream. “We’ve had people walk in and say, ‘We’re in the wrong spot, we were looking for a funeral home,’” Toale says. 

His full-time job and charitable pursuits dovetail nicely, but they keep him busy. Toale estimates that he puts in five to eight hours a week toward the foundation. (He’s also on the board of Samaritan Counseling Services of the Gulf Coast.) And his position at Robert Toale & Sons is not a nine-to-fiver. It includes nights and weekends, and occasionally calls in the middle of the night requiring him to set funeral operations in motion.

That round-the-clock aspect was one of the reasons Robert Toale dissuaded his sons from joining the family business. “He didn’t want us to feel obligated, but to expand and see what else may be of interest to us,” Jeff Toale says. Although Jeff has a finance degree and Jason a degree in IT, and both worked briefly in those fields, they gave in to the pull of the funeral profession. The siblings started in entry-level positions and worked their way up, thus learning every aspect of the business. (Jason is vice president of operations.)

Working in the funeral industry has instilled in Jeff Toale a myriad of valuable life lessons. Here’s one of them: “I’m certainly reminded more often than most people to go home and hug your family,” he says, “to tell your family that you love them.”