The 1980s ushered in a new era for GE and Elfun. In 1981, new CEO Jack Welch challenged Elfun to re-examine its traditional social and fraternal role to better complement a changing company and a changing business world. Welch addressed the Elfun Fall Meeting and urged members "to make a searching and fundamental evaluation of what Elfun's role should be [in the new GE]."

Frank Doyle, then GE's Senior Vice President for Relations and Elfun's liaison to the Corporate Office, played a key role in the months ahead to help Elfun focus on Welch's challenge to "make Elfun relevant." Elfun began to reengineer itself from a social to a service-oriented organization.

By the time of the 1982 Elfun Fall Meeting, Elfun proclaimed a new image built around volunteerism, community service, and communication and called itself: "A Volunteer Organization of GE leaders." Welch applauded the new focus and said, "Elfun should not be an agent of the Company... or a vehicle to make GE look good... but [an organization] developed from your own spirit and thinking... that gives GE reflected [not directed] glory."

During 1982 and 1983, the new theme was promoted throughout Elfun. An entire issue of Under the Elm was devoted to volunteerism. Community service had been an Elfun thread for 30 years, but the magazine noted, "What is new is the gathering together of these many threads into a strong, cohesive, organization-wide lifeline of dedicated and united effort in community service."