charitable activity records

Every Texas lodge is supposed to maintain records of its charitable activities and those of its members. I don't think that is very strictly enforced, and most lodges in my area have no idea that it is required.

Is this being kept up in other areas?

Don't most (!) Texas Lodges send in a Form 71 every year?

All lodges should send a form 71, but the underlying charitable record is usually a guesstimate made by the audit committee late one evening close to the due date. To be honest I don't think that many lodges track their charitable work very well. I at least haven't seen it.
(and I think that if we took the work that the Shrine does out of the equation, the numbers would be much less than what we like to tell the public, but that's another discussion).

Nope. Every Secretary gets an Excel workbook of multiple spreadsheets with which to keep track of charitable endeavors. The problem is getting the Brethren to provide the information we need to populate the spreadsheets.

If you'd like me to send you a sample workbook, PM me with your email address.

Bill_Lins77488 said:

Nope. Every Secretary gets an Excel workbook of multiple spreadsheets with which to keep track of charitable endeavors. The problem is getting the Brethren to provide the information we need to populate the spreadsheets.

Click to expand...

Exactly, which is my point. I don't think that very many lodges or brethren actually fill out the forms that they should. Instead it ends up being a guesstimate at the end of the year...

Shame on 'em, especially if they ever get audited.