Dear Clergy and Lay Leaders:
It is now time to begin gathering the information you need for your Annual Parochial Report.
A few reminders and helpful hints:
• The Office of the General Convention sent out information on the new Parochial Reports on Dec. 7, and began the filing of the reports on Jan. 3.
• Last year, every congregation was required by the Office of the General Convention to create a unique email address and password. All of the information was sent to that email address.
• To access the information on your Parochial Report, go to that email address.
• The link to the DFMS Filing website is https://reports.dfms.org. This is where you go to input the information.
• The password that you created last year is for filing your report, and is unique to the Parochial Report.
• Forms and instructions are available on the General Convention website at https://www.generalconvention.org/research-and-statistics.
• You can also find a video that briefly goes through every page of the report on the Diocese of South Dakota website: https://www.episcopalchurchsd.org/page/clergy-new-only. You can also access this page by going to the web site, www.episcopalchurchsd.org, click on MENU in the upper right hand corner, and look under Resources for “News for the Clergy.” Under that heading, you will see “Changes to the Parochial Report for 2023.” There are two links in that section that will explain how to do the report.
• If you want to print off your form, in order to fill it out by hand first (and then go back online to fill it out there and file it), go to https://reports.dfms.org, log in using your unique email address and password, and go to Download/Print Reports on the left-hand side. You can then print out your report and fill it out by hand first.
• Please note that the General Convention website at https://generalconvention.org is currently undergoing privacy renewal certificates. You might receive a privacy message. You may bypass it by clicking ‘advance’ and clicking ‘continue’. The General Convention Office is hoping to rectify this issue by Friday, January 13th.
• The deadline for reports is March 1.
• And finally, if you have questions, or need help in any way, please do not hesitate to contact me. I will provide whatever assistance you need, and if I don’t have the answer to your question, I know where to get the answer.
Blessings and peace,
Canon Lauren+