Girl Scouts cookies question

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Girl Scouts is a scam!

The selling really is. My daughter has been in it for 5 years and I refuse to let her participate in cookie sales. They make pennies on the box at the leaders decide what they do with the money, not the girls. I’d happily give a donation. I ask my daughter why she wants to work to have someone else get paid and explain MLM companies to her every year during cookie sales.

Feel free not to sell cookies, but please don't spread misinformation.
- The girls are supposed to decide what to do with the money. I'm sorry you got a bad leader, but that's also something you or your DD can speak up about.
- It's not an MLM since your daughter is not recruiting anyone to sell for her.
- All the profits stay with the local council or the troop. So yes it's only about 75 cents a box for the troop's coffers, but it's another $1 or so for the local council which maintains the camp properties and other resources. If you go to summer camps, borrow camping equipment from the council stash, or go to big events for multiple units, you are benefiting from cookie money.
- Donations are not allowed, because funding the troop through sales means everyone can participate even if they don't have money. But if your DD doesn't contribute to sales, then when she gets a badge or goes on a trip, she is benefiting from money other scouts earned; I wonder if you've explained that to her.

OP, I'm sorry your leader has been unresponsive. As someone else said, there is a cookie parent (not the leader) who is in charge of this. You give that person your order form, and she orders the cookies by the case. You are not responsible for ordering in round numbers; any overage from the case purchases is sold at booths or used to fill orders by other girls or troops.

Co-sign on all of this. Do you think $400 is a normal rate for a week of sleepaway camp?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Girl Scouts is a scam!

The selling really is. My daughter has been in it for 5 years and I refuse to let her participate in cookie sales. They make pennies on the box at the leaders decide what they do with the money, not the girls. I’d happily give a donation. I ask my daughter why she wants to work to have someone else get paid and explain MLM companies to her every year during cookie sales.

Feel free not to sell cookies, but please don't spread misinformation.
- The girls are supposed to decide what to do with the money. I'm sorry you got a bad leader, but that's also something you or your DD can speak up about.
- It's not an MLM since your daughter is not recruiting anyone to sell for her.
- All the profits stay with the local council or the troop. So yes it's only about 75 cents a box for the troop's coffers, but it's another $1 or so for the local council which maintains the camp properties and other resources. If you go to summer camps, borrow camping equipment from the council stash, or go to big events for multiple units, you are benefiting from cookie money.
- Donations are not allowed, because funding the troop through sales means everyone can participate even if they don't have money. But if your DD doesn't contribute to sales, then when she gets a badge or goes on a trip, she is benefiting from money other scouts earned; I wonder if you've explained that to her.

OP, I'm sorry your leader has been unresponsive. As someone else said, there is a cookie parent (not the leader) who is in charge of this. You give that person your order form, and she orders the cookies by the case. You are not responsible for ordering in round numbers; any overage from the case purchases is sold at booths or used to fill orders by other girls or troops.

Co-sign on all of this. Do you think $400 is a normal rate for a week of sleepaway camp?

As I understand it, profits stay with the local council and troops, so girls are not only benefitting their own troop but their GS local council; also, the factories that produce these cookies are in the US, so GS cookies also help support American workers who have jobs at these factories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please submit your cookie money on time to your money manager/cookie manager. As someone who has done this for years, I can tell you how stressful it is when parents collectively owe thousands of dollars and the Girl Scout council is about to take the money out of your troops account. Please don’t be that parent!

This x1000.

No one does these volunteer jobs for fun, they're doing it for the girls' sake. Please don't make it harder than it needs to be.

[Anonymous]

In the DC area:

$0.98 Troop's proceeds (average based on various earning opportunities)

$1.25 Cost of product, transportation, promotion, Service Unit proceeds, rewards, administrative costs and debt. ($2.25 is the related costs for specialty cookies retailing at $6.00 per package)

$2.77 Supports direct service to girls and adults
--Financial assistance for girls
--Camp programs and eight camp properties
--Council-wide girl programs
--Training for adult volunteers
--Marketing, technological, and web support
--Six convenient office locations and staff support for our volunteers and troops

I think our troop gets 85c per box because our girls insist on getting the prizes and were not selling huge amounts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the DC area:

$0.98 Troop's proceeds (average based on various earning opportunities)

$1.25 Cost of product, transportation, promotion, Service Unit proceeds, rewards, administrative costs and debt. ($2.25 is the related costs for specialty cookies retailing at $6.00 per package)

$2.77 Supports direct service to girls and adults
--Financial assistance for girls
--Camp programs and eight camp properties
--Council-wide girl programs
--Training for adult volunteers
--Marketing, technological, and web support
--Six convenient office locations and staff support for our volunteers and troops

I think our troop gets 85c per box because our girls insist on getting the prizes and were not selling huge amounts.

Thanks for your information! Is it possible to opt out of the prizes and get more $$ for the troop? Is all this information online somewhere?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the DC area:

$0.98 Troop's proceeds (average based on various earning opportunities)

$1.25 Cost of product, transportation, promotion, Service Unit proceeds, rewards, administrative costs and debt. ($2.25 is the related costs for specialty cookies retailing at $6.00 per package)

$2.77 Supports direct service to girls and adults
--Financial assistance for girls
--Camp programs and eight camp properties
--Council-wide girl programs
--Training for adult volunteers
--Marketing, technological, and web support
--Six convenient office locations and staff support for our volunteers and troops

I think our troop gets 85c per box because our girls insist on getting the prizes and were not selling huge amounts.

Thanks for your information! Is it possible to opt out of the prizes and get more $$ for the troop? Is all this information online somewhere?

DP here, the young scouts are not allowed to opt out of the cookie sales rewards. I believe it's Cadettes and older who can do so, and the decision must be unanimous within the troop (no prizes for anyone). Your cookie parent has this info.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We just joined (2 weeks ago). Troop leader is not very responsive. My daughter just got an envelope for cookie sales and an email - we created the online site.

For the physical sales - say we we get a total of 20 thin mints and 15 samoas and 10 treful orders - do we as parents have to pay for the rest -to make it multiples of 12 since the envelope seems to mention a case of 12 packages?

Sorry if this is a dumb question - I don't have any family with girl scouts and my friend has cub scouts. TIA

Not dumb questions at all! I'm a former GS leader and cookie sales can be confusing, especially if your troop leader isn't explaining things to you as a new family. No, you are not responsible for rounding orders up to a full case! I found that the easiest way to do cookie sales for my daughter was to make it online sales only - that way there was no cash for us to keep track of at all. There is a parent in your troop who is volunteering as the cookie parent and is in charge of the sales - if you do collect cash you'll turn it over to them, and they will be the person who distributes any cookies your daughter will deliver in person to customers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the DC area:

$0.98 Troop's proceeds (average based on various earning opportunities)

$1.25 Cost of product, transportation, promotion, Service Unit proceeds, rewards, administrative costs and debt. ($2.25 is the related costs for specialty cookies retailing at $6.00 per package)

$2.77 Supports direct service to girls and adults
--Financial assistance for girls
--Camp programs and eight camp properties
--Council-wide girl programs
--Training for adult volunteers
--Marketing, technological, and web support
--Six convenient office locations and staff support for our volunteers and troops

I think our troop gets 85c per box because our girls insist on getting the prizes and were not selling huge amounts.

Thanks for your information! Is it possible to opt out of the prizes and get more $$ for the troop? Is all this information online somewhere?

DP here, the young scouts are not allowed to opt out of the cookie sales rewards. I believe it's Cadettes and older who can do so, and the decision must be unanimous within the troop (no prizes for anyone). Your cookie parent has this info.

My daughter's in her second year of Daisies, and they've opted out of prizes both years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the DC area:

$0.98 Troop's proceeds (average based on various earning opportunities)

$1.25 Cost of product, transportation, promotion, Service Unit proceeds, rewards, administrative costs and debt. ($2.25 is the related costs for specialty cookies retailing at $6.00 per package)

$2.77 Supports direct service to girls and adults
--Financial assistance for girls
--Camp programs and eight camp properties
--Council-wide girl programs
--Training for adult volunteers
--Marketing, technological, and web support
--Six convenient office locations and staff support for our volunteers and troops

I think our troop gets 85c per box because our girls insist on getting the prizes and were not selling huge amounts.

Thanks for your information! Is it possible to opt out of the prizes and get more $$ for the troop? Is all this information online somewhere?

The stats on the money are from here:

https://www.gscnc.org/en/cookies/about-girl-scout-cookies/where-cookie-money-goes.html

I meant to include it with my post, but forgot.

I think it’s an extra 5c a box if the troop opts out of prizes. Then there are also extra incentives if you beat previous year’s sales and other things. I don’t remember all them.

[Anonymous]

They’ve purposely made it complicated to keep track of expenses. That’s a huge gap between $1.25 and $5.

[Anonymous]

If you are within the GSCNC council, there is a section on the website called "Cookies" that gives tons of information and all the handouts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Girl Scouts is a scam!

The selling really is. My daughter has been in it for 5 years and I refuse to let her participate in cookie sales. They make pennies on the box at the leaders decide what they do with the money, not the girls. I’d happily give a donation. I ask my daughter why she wants to work to have someone else get paid and explain MLM companies to her every year during cookie sales.

Feel free not to sell cookies, but please don't spread misinformation.
- The girls are supposed to decide what to do with the money. I'm sorry you got a bad leader, but that's also something you or your DD can speak up about.
- It's not an MLM since your daughter is not recruiting anyone to sell for her.
- All the profits stay with the local council or the troop. So yes it's only about 75 cents a box for the troop's coffers, but it's another $1 or so for the local council which maintains the camp properties and other resources. If you go to summer camps, borrow camping equipment from the council stash, or go to big events for multiple units, you are benefiting from cookie money.
- Donations are not allowed, because funding the troop through sales means everyone can participate even if they don't have money. But if your DD doesn't contribute to sales, then when she gets a badge or goes on a trip, she is benefiting from money other scouts earned; I wonder if you've explained that to her.

OP, I'm sorry your leader has been unresponsive. As someone else said, there is a cookie parent (not the leader) who is in charge of this. You give that person your order form, and she orders the cookies by the case. You are not responsible for ordering in round numbers; any overage from the case purchases is sold at booths or used to fill orders by other girls or troops.

NP. We have just one person for 9 kids and she does everything. I am not sure why no one else has stepped up. I will- next year when I have some experience.

New poster. I was a GS troop leader for 12 years as well as a GS camp staffer for five years.

Just posting to thank both the very well-informed and experienced leader (or cookie manager, or both?) who posted above, and the parent who plans to volunteer. Correcting misinformation about GS and about cookie sales is vital. The process can be very beneficial for the girls on many levels. It's not everyone's idea of fun, but it is how things like GS camps can afford to operate in this incredibly expensive region; it provides troop funds; it can, if well run, help girls feel a sense of achievement; it benefits U.S. manufacturing too, as someone pointed out above. Knee-jerk cries of "Scam" and "MLM" are based on complete misunderstanding of how the campaign actually functions and where the benefits actually go.

Thanks to the PP here who so reasonably laid out what cookie sales are and are not, and to the parent who sees that one person handling everything isn't tenable for very long. Thank you for volunteering soon!

And speaking as someone who trained and oversaw probably hundreds of girls on challenge course equipment like zip lines and climbing walls and other ropes courses elements -- cookie money really does make those kinds of adventure experiences possible for girls from ALL kinds of backgrounds.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for prior posters. I try to explain this all to parents and girls. The girls feel proud that they are helping to support sister Girl Scouts whose parents maybe can’t otherwise afford it, and the camps that they’ve enjoyed. When you compare the price of a box of chips ahoy (I think mostly made in Mexico now) to the 1.25 that goes to the manufacturing/packaging on gS (with the rest supporting Scouts), it really is a good deal. (Especially compared to other fundraisers like the BSA popcorn at $20 a bag).

In addition to voting on fun things to do with the money, the girls also enjoy voting on ways to use their hard earned money to help others. One year we used a portion to get an ice skating lesson and a portion to buy supplies to make sandwiches for those in need. Last year we used some to buy medical supplies to support healthcare workers in the country we learned about for Thinking Day. Most kids don’t ever make those choices (how do I spend my money and what portion should I use for charitable purposes) until they are much older. Making the decisions collaboratively is also a new experience for most, and it’s interesting to see the different viewpoints play out — hopefully in a respectful manner.

[Anonymous]

I am a cookie manager and no, you do not pay the difference in the box count.

[Anonymous]

I’m a Cookie Monster as well