Des Moines, IA 98

GER Message

Deadlines approach for awards, financial filings

Happy 2026 to all our Elks family! January starts the last quarter of the Lodge year. Be sure to have your membership retention program working on achieving a +1 membership gain for 2026! Have your membership committee and delinquent Member sponsor reach out to those lapsed Members. This personal contact could very well bring these Members back on to our rolls. Our delinquent Members had a reason for joining and they are worth keeping as active Members. Find out why they are delinquent.

As the Lodge year is nearing the end, there is no better way to recognize those Members and citizens who have gone beyond the call of duty in their service to Elkdom than to award them with "Elk of the Year," "Officer of the Year," and "Citizen of the Year." The awards request form can be accessed in the Members Only section of elks.org and needs to be submitted prior to March 31 so that the certificates can be printed and sent back to the Lodge for Officer installations or year-end award gatherings.

Also, the Legacy Award scholarship is available until February 2, 2026. It provides $4,000 scholarships to the children and grandchildren of Elks Members. Details of the scholarship can be found on the Elks National Foundation website.

The end of the Lodge fraternal year will be here soon. With the Financial Reporting System (FRS), your Lodge needs to ensure all entries are current. A bonus of having the FRS system is that your Lodge no longer needs to have the annual audit completed. However, you still must submit your 990 and 990T for each corporation in your Lodge. Have them completed by a qualified individual (e.g., CPA) and filed with the IRS and uploaded on elks.org.

Membership... Membership... Membership: There are three months left in this year. Initiate all your candidates and work on the delinquent list!

To Be The Difference means searching for ways to improve what we have while looking forward to the future.