HQ REPORT

Greetings Fellow Deke Brothers,

Once in a while in this space I write about how DKE is doing as a business. Since DKE is funded almost entirely by our alumni and undergraduate members, you deserve to know how we’re managing DKE financially and otherwise.

From a governance perspective, DKE’s governing body is a 15-man volunteer Board of Directors, who contribute their time and talent in providing strategic direction for the fraternity. A similar Board of Trustees provides direction for the Deke Foundation, and our newest entity, the Deke Property Group, also is governed by a Board of Directors. All of these entities are related to DKE if not under its direct control. Each entity’s Board contains one or two members of the DKE Board. In case you are curious, the Deke Club of New York is also a separately governed entity.

Doug Lanpher, Executive Director

experience. Besides liability, DKE also maintains directors and officers coverage and other ancillary policies.

Currently DKE has two pending claims against us, one of which is covered by the liability policy and one which is not. The one which is not is, incredibly, a claim for an incident that the claimant says occurred in 1984, but was only filed in 2021. The reason it’s not covered is that we did not have a general liability policy in 1984. Such is life in today’s world that we are being called on to defend ourselves from an alleged incident 37 years prior to when the claim was made. But defend it we must, so we of course are represented by an attorney, whose fees we are paying out of DKE’s general operating fund. You might be wondering why DKE is not protected by the statute of limitations, and it’s a good question, but this claim (in New York State) got in under the wire due to a New York law which extended the Statute for certain types of claims.

The other claim is from an alleged incident in 2021.

Financially, DKE is a 501c7 organization with an annual budget of about $1.6 million. We have eight employees, all of whom work remotely. We keep tight control over our expenses, and we always try to run the organization at a slight operating surplus. We’ve been successful at that over the past several years. I believe our last year of operating at a deficit was 2015. Payroll is our largest expense item, followed by risk management expenses, including the premium for our liability insurance.

Everyone is probably aware that DKE has a general liability policy covering the International Headquarters (IHQ), chapters, alumni associations, house corporations, and the other various DKE entities. (Canadian entities are covered through a separate policy.) That policy protects us in the case of claims when someone feels he or she has suffered a loss due to actions by an entity or a member of DKE. Between 2020 and 2022, premiums for that policy increased by over 50%. However, they have gone back down due to changes by the captive insurance company of which we are members (and part owners). The name of that company is FRMT Limited, and it’s incorporated in Vermont. DKE has been a part of this cooperative since about 2007, I’m not sure the exact year. The company is run by insurance professionals on its Board, and by paid consultants and employees with deep insurance

DKE’s claims history has been excellent over the past seven years. Prior to that we had large claims in two consecutive years. Due to the litigious nature of society, this remains a substantial factor and if we ever did a “SWOT Analysis” of our business (which we have done), the possibility of legal claims would be high on the list of “Threats.” To mitigate it, we offer a wide range of educational programming and materials to our chapters, instructing them on best practices to avoid situations which could threaten the health and safety of themselves and others.

That’s a quick exposition on a couple of aspects of DKE’s business. I’ll continue to report on the various factors of the business side of DKE in future issues. I hope it’s interesting for you to read and gives you a sense of confidence that your fraternity is being successfully managed!

In the Bonds,

Doug Lanpher, Gamma ’77 Executive Director, Delta Kappa Epsilon