All great programs start the same way: with a dream.

In 1928, the delegates at the Grand Lodge Convention established the Elks National Foundation with an initial grant of $100,000 because of a dream. Then-National President John F. Malley envisioned that the ENF would “unite the forces of the Order into a mighty army for the service of mankind.”

Malley’s dream inspired decades of charitable work through the ENF, but it wasn’t until more than 70 years later when his dream of a charitable army started to come into fruition. The very first seeds of the Community Investments Program were sewn at an ENF Board of Trustees meeting in July 2001.

“The Foundation supports all of the national programs, and we give money back to the states, so indirectly, we are helping out locally,” said ENF Director Jim O’Kelley in his initial pitch to the board. “But, unless a Lodge has a scholarship recipient, they don’t really see ENF money at work locally. We need to get money back to the Lodges.”

Jim O’Kelley is a dreamer. The CIP was his dream, and it was a dream embraced by the then-Board of Trustees, who were eager to brainstorm, posit suggestions, and continue refining the idea.

“If we’re going to impact the community and let them know what Elks are really about,” suggested Past National President Robert Sabin, “it should be a project in the community itself where the Elks can visibly participate.”

Past National President and fellow dreamer Frank Hise, who founded the Hoop Shoot program, said, “I think awarding grants to Lodges would be one of the greatest things we could do.”

The board voted unanimously to direct the staff to devise a program for review. Two months later, however, a national tragedy relegated the Lodge grant program to the backburner.

“9-11 changed everyone’s focus,” O’Kelley reflects.

By July 2003, the ENF was ready to revisit the idea, and at a board meeting in St. Louis, then-Chairman Dr. Leonard Bristol appointed a task force composed of board members and staff to develop a community grant program for presentation to the board. Rapid progress followed, but by the next summer, the task force had stalled.

“We were stuck in the weeds,” O’Kelley recalls.

That changed in October 2004 with the arrival of new Programs Manager Debbie Kahler Doles.

“Debbie jump-started the program,” O’Kelley says. “She helped us define community and state our purpose.”

“The foundation was already there for a great program that would give grants to Lodges to help in their communities,” Doles says.

“Maybe,” O’Kelley acknowledges, “but if not for Debbie, we’d still be debating the name.”

At the December 2004 board meeting in Chicago, O’Kelley presented the task force’s plan for the new Community Investments Program. The board was not yet sold on the piece that would eventually become the Impact Grant, but the trustees were excited about the Gratitude Grant component. At the February 2005 meeting in San Diego, the board approved a modest budget of $350,000 to fund the CIP.

Although the larger grant component had been tabled, “it was exhilarating to be on the ground floor of something that we all believed would create lasting change,” Doles says.

The Community Investments Program launched in July at the Convention in Reno with two components worth $200 each: the Promise Grant, which the ENF had been funding through the Drug Awareness Program since 1999, and the Gratitude Grant, which would be available to Lodges that achieved the National President’s per-member-giving goal for the ENF.

“The very first day the program opened, we received 29 applications,” O’Kelley says. “In the first year, we approved applications from 695 Lodges.”

Oakmont, Pa., Lodge No. 1668 used its first Gratitude Grant back then to support the public library. Omaha, Neb., Lodge No. 39 purchased wishlist items for the Ronald McDonald House. They’ve received Gratitude Grants every year since.

“The board was tentative at first,” O’Kelley says, “but the trustees saw what Lodges were able to do with those $200 grants, and they’ve been expanding the program ever since.”

For 2025-26, when the CIP will mark its 20th anniversary, the program’s budget is nearly $18 million, meaning the board has increased funding by more than 5,000 percent since that first year.

Twenty years after purchasing items for the Ronald McDonald House, Oakmont Lodge is still using CIP grants to build a stronger community. Most recently, the Lodge used its Gratitude Grant to partner with the Plum Area Youth Soccer Association, providing equipment and supplies for children with disabilities through the TOPSoccer program. Lodge members serve as soccer buddies for the kids and help them practice.

“Oakmont, Omaha and some of the other early adopters are still doing great work,” Doles says. “It’s inspiring, and we’re giving them even more resources this year.”

This year, in celebration of the anniversary, the board increased the base Gratitude Grant to $3,000 from $2,000.

“John F. Malley’s foresight is unfathomable,” O’Kelley says. “Especially in the context of that time. The stock market crashed a year after he founded the Elks National Foundation. He kept his focus through the Depression, investing money that was needed then so that the Elks could do much more in the future.

“Debbie and I, our colleagues on the staff, and the board members we’ve worked with, our contribution is the CIP, and it’s the CIP that turned Malley’s dream into reality. The CIP has united the forces of the Order into a mighty army in service of mankind.”

This year, the ENF allocated nearly $18 million to the CIP so all the Elks who dream of bettering their community can make that a reality, too. Learn more at enf.elks.org/CIP.