How to prepare your council roster data to send to us

DDC Safe Environment Program (SEP) “How to Guide” for preparing your Council Roster.

For Grand Knights, Financial Secretaries and Council Safe Environment Directors.

Updated January 29, 2025

The DDC SEP Program has been created to comply with directives of the Bishop Burns and the Director of Safe Environment of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas. The DDC has made a commitment to follow these procedures. Safe Environment clearance through the Dallas Diocese SEP (through involvement in a parish ministry) or DDC SEP is required for all knights who actively serve in K of C service events held on parish or diocesan property.

This How To Guide is intended to provide instructions at the council level on how to pull, update, and submit initial reports to the DDC SEP committee in the required format.

1. Financial Secretary or Grand Knight: Please download the current roster file and email addresses from Officers Online in Excel
   • Sign in to the KofC application portal ‘Officers Online’. (https://www.kofc.org/applicationportal/AuthorizeUser.action)
   • Click on the ‘Reports’ tab, then select the excel report for Membership Roster. You will be informed of the restrictions on use, and you click 'I agree’.
   • This will generate an excel spreadsheet for you to save.
   • Save the file with the name formatted as “DDC SEP Roster Council ##### as of MM-DD-YYYY.xlsx”, including the council number and the date.
2. Please make the following changes to the Excel Roster file:
   • Do not delete any rows from the roster. We need the complete roster.
   • ADD four new columns on the right side of the report:
     • Email address
     • Date of Last SEP Training
     • Date of Last SEP Background Check
     • Active Knight? (Y or N)
   • DELETE the columns that contain K of C confidential information. These include: Mail returned, First Degree, Second Degree, Third Degree, Re-Entry Date, YRS Service, Member Type, Member Class, ASSY and EXM.
   • Your spreadsheet should only contain these columns:
     • Council Number (required)
     • Member Number (required)
     • Title
     • First Name (required)
     • Last Name (required)
     • Suffix
     • Street Address (no multiple lines)
     • City
     • State
     • Postal Code
     • Birth Date (required) (only dates allowed)
     • Email Adddress (required)
     • Last SEP Training Date (only dates allowed)
     • Last Criminal Background Check Date (only dates allowed)
     • Active Knight (Y/N)
       
3. For each knight on the roster, please add the email address. Email addresses can be obtained by the GK or FS using Officers Online member management as follows:
   • Go to kofc.org/signin and login to Officers Online.
   • Under Supporting Applications, click Member Management. Choose the Live application.
   • After the application loads, click the Print Center - MM tab.
   • On the left side navigation pane, choose Data Extract Tool.
   • Under Contact Info (usually already selected), click Select All under the General Contacts header and Select All under Primary Address Information.
   • Click Get Extract
   • Save the file
4. Please determine which knights in your council are considered “active”
   • For each knight on the roster, GK, FS and/or SEP director (in consultation with other council officers) decide whether a knight is “active” or not as follows:
   • Active = a Knight who has volunteered for a council service event in the last 12 months or is anticipated to volunteer for a council service event within the next 12 months. Council or Officer Meetings are not usually service events (unless your pastor so designates), but any other council activity held on parish or diocesan property (or parish/diocesan event in which Knights of Columbus are identifiably participating as Knights) is a service event. All new knights or transferred-in members are to be considered active and must be safe environment cleared
5. Please work with your parish safe environment coordinator to add date of last diocesan background check and date of last training to the records as indicated
   • The yellow columns (date of last SEP training and date of last SEP background check) need to be completed by the council in consultation with the parish safe environment coordinator, only for “active” knights. If the Parish Safe Environment Coordinator does not know, mark “unknown”. Inactive knights do not need to be looked up.
6. Please submit your roster reports to the DDC Safe Environment Program Committee (copy your District Deputy). Please also tell us the name of your Council SEP Director.
   • Bryan A. Finley, DDC SEP Director
   • Jorge Ruiz, Software and Data Management
   • Chuck Johnson, Training and Communications
7. Clearance Steps: each “active” knight who is not currently cleared through Catholic Diocese of Dallas SEP (through involvement in a ministry) will be asked to consent in writing to a background check, will be invited to attend webinar training, and will be asked to review, acknowledge, and retain policy materials to obtain DDC clearance. Councils will need to comply with both.
8. Invoiced costs. The council will be billed $15 for each background check. Therefore, it is important to gather the information on prior background checks performed by the Diocese, to avoid unnecessary expense.
9. Ongoing updates should be reported to the above by the Council Safe Environment Directors as changes happen (i.e. new Knight, transfers in, Knight goes from inactive to active, Knight gets SEP Cleared/Updated through parish ministry, (and vice-versa, etc.).

Note: The DDC SEP does not replace or substitute for the Supreme SEP (and vice-versa). The required Supreme SEP training and background clearance of four (4) officers/directors, as well as requirements to follow the safe environment policies of Supreme, are separate from the DDC SEP, yet also apply to all K of C unit events involving youth and vulnerable adults.

1. Supreme SEP Quick Reference Guide
2. Best Practices Guide