SOBATAM is a community solidarity network with the goal to facilitate the burial of its deceased members through a predetermined financial contribution of the network members and other resources and information that may be available through the network.

SOBATAM is a non-profit corporation. It is incorporated in the state of Maryland. It is not a 501c3 public charity.

SOBATAM was created with input from a broad range of members of our community in North America (USA & Canada), to better respond to the high costs associated with the burial, cremation, and/or shipment of the remain of a loved one, while giving you more flexibility to adjust your membership as your personal, professional or family situation evolves, and more voice on how SOBATAM operates.

Website: https://sobatam-na.org
For general information: info@sobatam-na.org
For registration or membership related issues: registration@sobatam-na.org
Death notification and other related issues: death-notification@sobatam-na.org
Payments and other financial related issues: finances@sobatam-na.org

You can download copies of the Bylaws or Internal Rules (IR) at https://sobatam-na.org/governance. You can also request a copy by sending an email at registration@sobatam-na.org.

All people of Cameroonian descent, or immediate relatives (spouse, children, stepchildren, mother, father) of a member of Cameroonian descent, with their primary residence in the USA or Canada,  regardless of their citizenship (current or of origin), can join the SOBATAM network.

You can join SOBATAM through 3 types of membership and you can switch any time as your life circumstances change.

SOBATAM Groups: For associations, families or any entity with 8 or more members.

• $50 registration fees regardless of the size of the group as long as the group is not yet active (does not have yet a SOBATAM Group ID)
• $10 when a new member is added to an active group
• No deposit is required
• 2 to 13 delegates at the General Assembly (GA) depending on the size of the group
• The group is financially responsible for its members’ contributions.

SOBATAM Pool. For individuals who do not belong to a group of 8 or more members.

• $15 registration fees per individual.
• Must maintain a deposit of $100 used to pay contributions for deaths and the operating budget. It is the member’s money. It is re-imbursed to the member if he/she leaves SOBATAM.
• Represented to the GA by delegates designated from the SOBATAM Pools

SOBATAM Pool for families. For a group of 2 to 7 people who join the SOBATAM Pool and share the same point of contact as the interface to SOBATAM for communication and financial contributions. Specifically designed to accommodate families.

• $15 registration fees per individual.
• Must maintain a deposit of $50 per individual in the group. It is used to pay contributions for deaths and the operating budget. It is the member’s money. It is re-imbursed to the member if he/she leaves SOBATAM.
• Represented to the GA by delegates designated from the SOBATAM Pool.

Go to https://sobatam-na.org/register and follow the instructions. 3 ways to apply for membership:
(1) Go to the membership portal, open a group or a Pool account, login into your account and enter your information or your group member information.
(2) Download the Excel spreadsheet file and fill it out with your group/individual information. Email it to registration@sobatam-na.org 
(3) You can send an email to registration@sobatm-na.org to request the spreadsheet or any assistance you may need to complete the registration.

SOBATAM uses a seniority-based scheme to determine the Network Solidarity Contribution (NSC –  previously referred as Benefit) a deceased member qualifies for. The maximum amount is $15000 for people who have been members for 900 days (30 30-day-months) or more.

The NSC a member qualifies for will depend on the number of 30-day-months he/she has been a member. The number of days is determined starting from the time the member received his/her SOBATAM ID. See the benefit table in the IR for details.

For instance, if a member passes away after 180 to 209 days, he/she is credited 6 30-day-months, and after 210 to 239 days, he/she is credited 7 30-day-months.

To faciliate the enrollment of all generations of our families, SOBATAM offers 3 NSC options:

• Standard: The default option available to all members. The member pays standard contribution/death and  qualifies for 100% of NSC.
• Young Adult: Available to members 30 year old or younger. The member pays 50% of standard contribution/death and qualifies for 75% of NSC.
• Child: Available to members 17 year old or younger. The member pays 25% of standard contribution/death and qualifies for 50% of NSC.

By default all members are in the standard NSC option. Active members who qualify for the child or young adult options can switch to one of the options during the month of december by sending an email to registration@sobatam-na.org. The change takes effect starting from January 1st.

Members in waiting period can choose the child or young adult options anytime during the waiting period by sending an email to register@sobatam-na.org. Members of groups must notify the selection through their delegates and those in SOBATAM Pool for families can notify SOBATAM through their point of contacts.

This option is available to children 17 year old or younger. If a parent select this option for a child, the child only pays 25% of a standard contribution/death, and qualifies for 50% of the standard Network Solidarity Contribution (NSC).

This option is available to members 30 year old or younger. If a member chooses this option, he/she only pays 50% of a standard contribution/death, and qualifies for 75% of the standard Network Solidarity Contribution (NSC).

You can stay outside NA ( USA or Canada) up to 6 months without losing your membership benefits. This restriction is removed after 4 years of membership in good standing provided you respect the notification procedure. 

You have 3 options:

1. Send an email to registration@sobatam-na.org with the member information: name, day and month of birth and optionally email and at least one beneficiary contact information (name, telephone and/or email).
2. Download form SBTM-REG-002 from https://sobtam-na.org/register, fill it out and send it to registration@sobatam-na.org
3. Login on to your membership portal account (You must be the group admin). Click on the “ADD MEMBER” button in your profile and follow the instructions.

You have 3 options:

1. Send an email to registration@sobatam-na.org with the member information: name, day and month of birth and optionally email and at least one NSC Recipient (previously referred as Beneficiary) contact information (name, telephone and/or email).
2. Download form SBTM-REG-002 from https://sobtam-na.org/register, fill it out and send it to registration@sobatam-na.org
3. Login on to your membership portal account. Click on the “ADD MEMBER” button in your profile and follow the instruction.

SOBATAM Groups: A delegate of the group must send from an email account on file, an email requesting the withdrawal to registration@sobatam-na.org with the names and SOBATAM IDs of members to remove.

SOBATAM Pool: The member must send from an email account on file, an email to registration@sobatam-na.org requesting the withdrawal with his/her name and SOBATAM ID.

SOBATAM Pool for families: The member with a SOBATAM account  or the shared point of contact must send an email to registration@sobatam-na.org requesting the withdrawal with the name and SOBATAM ID of the member.

SOBATAM Group:

• $50 registration fees regardless of the size of the group
• $10 registration fees for each member added after the group receives its SOBATAM ID
• Contribution to the annual operating budget as voted by the GA. The amount depends on the number of members. For FY2024 the contribution is about $11/member.

SOBATAM Pool and  SOBATAM Pool for families:

• $15 registration fees per individual
• Contribution to the annual operating budget as voted by the GA. For FY2024 the contribution is about $11/member.

This does not include contributions in case of a death of a member.

No. There is no annual membership fee. However, members contribute to the annual operating budget. SOBATAM’s goal is to grow the membership to reduce and maintain the operating costs to less than $5/member/year. The budget must be approved by the General Assembly.

• New member or a new group: 90 days
• Returning member or group: 180 days

No. Only people with a SOBATAM ID must contribute in case of the death of a member or to the operating budget.

Be in good standing. To qualify for the financial benefit, the member must:

1. Have a SOBATAM ID,
2. Be a member of a group with a SOBATAM ID and in good standing, or of the SOBATAM Pool or SOBATAM Pool for families.

To be in good standing, the group or the individual in SOBATAM Pool or SOBATAM Pool for families, must not be delinquent for death and budget contributions.

Respect notification deadlines and other requirements. The family or the group delegate must respect all the deadlines to notify the death and to provide additional documents if necessary.

Provide all required documents. The family or the group delegate must provide all the required documents.

• Death in North America (USA or Canada): 15 days
• Death outside North America (USA or Canada): 18 days

The name, day of birth and month of birth on the documents must match what is on SOBATAM files. All the documents must show the same date of birth.  If not, the family has 45 calendar days to provide additional documents proving that it is the same person.

Death in North America (USA or Canada):

• Death certificate
• A government issued photo ID
• Other documents may be required if necessary.

Death outside North America (USA or Canada):

• Death certificate
• A government issued photo ID
• Proof that the member traveled outside North America for less than 6 months. This does not apply if the member has a residency requirement waiver on file for the country of death.
• Other documents may be required if necessary.

• Death in North America. 45 calendar days.
• Death outside North America: 60 calendar days
• EB set a reasonable deadline if additional documents are necessary.

The General Assembly (GA) is the supreme authority. It is composed of delegates from groups and the SOBATAM Pool.
A group can have 2 to 13 delegates depending on its size.

The GA approves and amends the bylaws and internal rules, vote the operating budget and elect the Executive Bureau. It holds its regular meeting in July of each year.

Groups are sole responsible for the designation of their delegates at the GA.

EB is responsible as a team for the day-to-day operation of SOBATAM. It is composed of 9 members (President, Vice President, Treasurer, Depuy-Treasurer, Secretary, Deputy-Secretary, Auditor, 2 Operations Co-leaders) elected for a 3-year term. They receive no compensation and must be members in good standing of SOBATAM and delegates of SOBATAM groups or SOBATAM Pool at the GA.

The cost of burial and funerals have skyrocketed. Being a member of a single community solidarity network may not be enough to cover the financial needs of the family. So it is always better if you can afford it to be a member of 2 or more community solidarity networks.

That said, there are compelling reasons to join SOBATAM.

From the outset, SOBATAM mission was to better respond to the community expectations in terms of transparency, accountability and membership experience.

INCLUSIVE & FAMILY FRIENDLY

• You can join as an association, a family or an individual.
• Cheaper options for children and young adults to include all generations of our families.

MEANINGFUL & SUSTAINABLE

• Up to $15000 Network Solidarity Contribution (NSC)/death
• Cheaper options for children and young adults.
• Possibility to donate a proportion of NSC to a cause.
• Cheapest average total membership cost per year. $10/month vs. $19/month for larger networks.
• A seniority-based solidarity scheme that rewards long term commitment and minimizes the cost of opportunistic enrollments.

SECURED & CREDIBLE

• Good governance and greater transparency:
  • Your delegates at the GA are the ultimate authority
  • Delegates elect the Executive Bureau (EB), vote the budget and approve bylaws and IR.
• Greater transparency:
  • All financial documents are shared with delegates.
  • Extensive dashboards available to members and statistics and delegates
• Stricter vetting both during registration and at the death of a member.

The short answer is NO.  SOBATAM overall cost per year is lower than larger community solidarity networks.

Contribution/death/member is higher on average. Because SOBATAM has about 650 active members (as of 1/1/2025)  and larger networks have more than 6000+ members, the contribution/member/death is higher for SOBATAM: $6 on average with the seniority-based benefit scheme vs. $2.

The overall cost per year is lower.  SOBATAM has fewer deaths per year compared to larger networks. Since SOBATAM first IDs were issued in June 2022, as of 01/20/2025, the average monthly total cost (death + budget contributions) for SOBATAM is around $11. For larger networks it is around $20/month.

 SOBATAM is better than other solidarity networks because it is more flexible, more transparent and provide more accountability. 

• Overall cheaper.
  • Lower registration fees ($10 per new group member vs. $25 for the competition)
  • Overall lower total cost per year.
• More flexible
  • 3 Types of membership (Group, Pool, Pool for families). You can change anytime
  • Cheaper options available for children (25% of standard member contribution/death) and young adults (50% of standard member contribution/death)
  • Residency restrictions are waived after 4 years vs. 7 or more years in other networks.
  • No restriction on the place of death or burial to get benefits
• Better transparency and governance
  • While each group is guaranteed to have at least 2 delegates, the number of your delegates increase with the size of your group. You have a greater voice.
  • More financial disclosures.

We are a group of less than 20 persons. We have a Njangui and a solidarity fund that we use for events and to provide some limited death benefits of less than $5000 if a member deceases. Member contribute to the solidarity fund monthly (About $20/month) and may contribute in case of a death if there is not enough funds to cover the benefit of $5000. How joining SOBATAM can help us?

SOBATAM enables your group to enhance its member death benefits for a modest increase in the average monthly contributions. The benefit increases from $5000 to $15000. With an average monthly cost of  $11/member, the group can pay SOBATAM contributions out of the group solidarity fund by increasing the monthly contribution to solidarity fund by $1 to $3 without sacrificing any of the other existing benefits. The group can also benefit from exchange of information with other groups in the SOBATAM network.

NSC (Network Solidarity Contribution) Recipients  are  people entrusted with receiving and handling the the NSC  a deceased member qualifies for. The presumption is that the NSC will be used to pay for expenses related to the funerals and/or other financial burden resulting from the death of the member and to carry out the last wishes of the member.

You can designate as NSC recipient any person or group of people you trust to carry out your wishes. However, depending on your relations with the recipients, the rules are different:

1. The NSC Recipient is an immediate relative (spouse, child, stepchild, mother, father). When you pass away, SOBATAM will require the recipient to provide an official document showing that he/she is your immediate relative (spouse, child, stepchild, mother, father).
2. The NSC Recipient is not an immediate relative as defined above. SOBATAM requires that you provide an NSC Recipient designation form (pdf, doc) signed before a public notary and listing the person as an NSC Recipient. If this form is not on file at the time of your death, SOBATAM will deny the qualification to receive the NSC.

No. They cannot join in general except your stepchildren. Only your children, stepchildren, spouse, father and mother can join if they are not of Cameroonian descent, and you must be a member of Cameroonian descent.

Yes, in the context of enrollment to SOBATAM. In general, any person with whom you are in a committed relationship is considered an immediate relative. A committed relationship in this context means a notoriously known relationship as a couple within the community.  This is especially true if you have children together. However, to receive the benefits, a document showing the relation will be required.

SOBATAM rules allow you to facilitate the enrollment of your immediate relatives and to be their NSC Recipient.  However, if they are adults, they have the full ownership of and the decision making power on their accounts.  At any time they can decide to change their NSC Recipients, transfer to a different group, change the type of their membership or even to leave SOBATAM.

As per 12/29/2024 extraordinary General Assembly resolutions, only people of Cameroonian descent or their immediate relatives (spouse, children, stepchildren, father, mother) can join SOBATAM.

Friends of members of Cameroonian descent who do not meet the above conditions and who were already members as of 12/29/2024, can keep their membership provided they sign a consent form (pdf, doc) before a notary public attesting that they were enrolled with their full knowledge and voluntarily designated NSC Recipient on SOBATAM files.

Starting from 2/16/2025, NSC qualification must be denied if no consent form is on file when the member passes away.

Each time you designate an NSC Recipient who is not your immediate relative (spouse, child, stepchild, mother, father), you must provide an NSC Recipient designation form signed before a notary public. 

NSC will be denied if SOBATAM does not have the form on file. A new form revokes any previous form on file.

It is advised to list all your NSC Recipients in the form including immediate relatives.

They can join SOBATAM on their own because they are of Cameroonian descent if their primary residence is in North America (USA or Canada).

As a member, you can facilitate their enrollment or even pay for their contributions. It is assumed that it is with their full knowledge and consent. They retain the decision-making power on their membership even if you pay the contributions for them: designation of NSC Recipients, transfer and withdrawal.

But, if they are members through a SOBATAM group, they are subject to the internal rules of their groups and must request these changes through their group delegates. If NSC Recipients are not their immediate relatives (spouse, children, stepchildren, father, mother), they must provide an NSC Recipient designation form (pdf, doc) signed before a notary public. 

It is cause for denial of NSC if you enroll someone who is not your immediate relative (spouse, child, mother, father) without his/her knowledge and consent, and put yourself or another person as NSC Recipient.

These changes were needed to address the following challenges. Some of them are internal to SOBATAM, others are part of the general environment of community solidarity networks.

1. The monthly cost of membership is increasing rapidly. That makes it unaffordable to join or to maintain membership, to increased portions of our communities. This is basically undermining the primary goal of community solidarity networks, which is to provide a dignified send-off to all our brothers and sisters who pass away and alleviate the financial burden on their loved ones left behind.
2. Opportunistic enrollments and enrollments harvesting are driving up costs. Giving more flexibility to the beneficiaries on how they can spend the contribution is a good thing. It has also provided an incentive for what we call opportunistic enrollments and enrollments harvesting. Basically, some people treat these networks as low-cost high yield investment opportunities. They enroll relatives, friends, acquaintances who are either sick or very old with the hope of collecting benefits quickly directly or indirectly. This is usually done without the knowledge of the enrollees, and the proceeds are not even used to pay for the cost of the burials of the enrollees. This significantly increases the cost of membership and rewards short-term membership. The latest people who join cash in first. This undermines the viability of the networks in the long run. For new networks with relatively low membership count as SOBATAM, it can be fatal.
3. SOBATAM had a greater exposure to opportunistic enrollments and harvesting of enrollments. By opening the network to friends of people of Cameroonian descent living in North America, providing a fixed defined benefit of $15000 and giving more flexibility to move outside North America, SOBATAM has significantly increased its exposure to opportunistic enrollments and harvesting of enrollments. Instead of convincing their friends to enroll to protect their loved ones left behind, some people were enrolling friends and distant relatives putting themselves as beneficiaries. This was usually done without the knowledge of the enrollees. This was contrary to the spirit of SOBATAM’s core mission and a violation of SOBATAM IR section 3.1.6 (adopted on 7/14/2024), which clearly states that a 3^rd person can facilitate the enrollment of a member only with his/her full knowledge and consent, and that the enrollee retains the decision-making power on his/her account regardless of who pays for the contributions.

1. Refocus on SOBATAM core mission and align with our resources and vetting capabilities.
2. Significantly reduce the cost of membership.
3. Reward long-term and committed membership.
4. Reduce the incentive for opportunistic enrollments and harvesting of enrollments.
5. Codify more robust vetting procedures.

1. Only people of Cameroonian descent and their immediate relatives (spouse/life partner, children, stepchildren, father, mother) will be able to enroll moving forward.
2. Current members who do not meet the above criteria can continue their membership provided they sign a consent form attesting that they enrolled or were enrolled with their full knowledge and consent and voluntarily designated their current beneficiaries on SOBATAM Files. The consent form must be signed before a notary public and returned before 2/15/2025.
3. All current members and future members who want to designate a beneficiary who is not their immediate relative (spouse/life partner, children, stepchildren, father, mother) must sign a beneficiary designation form before a notary public. Current members have until 3/15/2025 to comply.
4. Adoption of a seniority-based benefit scheme. The amount of benefit you qualify for will depend on how long you have been a member with a SOBATAM ID. You have to be an active member for 900 days (30 30-day-months) or more to qualify for the maximum for $15000.

A defined benefit amount where everyone receives the same amount of benefit regardless of how long they have been a member gives an advantage to new members at the expense of members who have been paying contributions for a long time. This does not make sense. It also gives a greater incentive for opportunistic enrollments. Basically, your interest is to enroll someone else who is sick or very old and more likely to pass away shortly after enrollment to cash in benefits. It is very difficult to fight against opportunistic enrollments even if you have rules on the book forbidding it. So, it is better to decrease the incentive and minimize the impact on the benefit cost structure.

A progressive benefit schedule also called seniority-based benefit schedule, fixes this anomaly and gives the advantage to long time members. The longer you have been a member, the higher the benefit. It also significantly reduces the incentive for opportunistic enrollments and minimizes their negative effects on the cost of membership. It serves better the long-term health of the network.

To give you an idea of how beneficial a progressive benefit scheme is, If SOBATAM has adopted the current seniority-based benefit scheme, the average cost/death/member since the launch would be around $5.63 instead of $30.70. This is basically more than 540% improvement.