Reversing the Membership Decline in Girl Scouts

[Anonymous]

Yes, it's popcorn time for the boy scouts so you will likely get hit up several times. That is our troup's only fundraiser and it is completely voluntary.

Re the religious comment. I agree there is too much emphasis on religion so in our troop we state in the beginning of the year that it is the one requirement that is to be worked on at home as the family determines is appropriate. Whatever the family wants to do is their business. Religion isn't ever mentioned in out troop or den meetings.

[Anonymous]

I was a Cub Scout leader for years with my boys. We camped all the time. We did two independent Krispy Kreme sales each year that amounted to two Saturday mornings total and that supported our pack all year. It was so much fun and so well organized. 1000x better than I found GS to be.

DD comes along and I desperately tried to get her involved in GS. Finally figured out how to volunteer to be a leader (much harder than that needed to be). Spent an entire afternoon being trained one one one - ALL we talked about was getting me up and running for Cookie training, bank accounts, how to handle money, back to cookies...paperwork upon paperwork. For my Cub Scouts we had a coffee can that usually had no more than $10 in it. What did we need?

I have one friend who leads a troop and she does almost everything "outside" of official channels, too arduous any other way.

I grew up in GS, what I found as an adult made me very sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a GSCNC service unit manager. You don't have to sell fall product in order to sell cookies. You have to sell fall product in order to do other troop-initiated fundraisers such as badge days.

This has been the policy for our service unit for the last 2 years.

Shouldn't this be uniform across GSCNC (stupid policy though it is)?

There is no GSCNC policy that mandates participation in fall product sales in order to participate in cookie sales. Someone in your service unit leadership team might be telling you that but it is 100% false. No one in our service unit participates in the fall product sale and the majority sell cookies. We are in NWDC and are under the watchful eye of the council higher ups (lucky us) so if it were mandated we'd know about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If my troop skips fall product sales, we are not allowed to have any other fundraising activities for the rest of the year, including cookies.

We were not told this. Are you in GSCNC?

I'm also a leader in GSCNC, and my understanding is that a troop needs to participate in fall product and cookies in order to have other fundraisers. I have not heard of a requirement to do fall product in order to sell cookies.

I am a second year leader of my daughter's Daisy troop and I am frustrated by the lack of guidance from Girl Scouts as an organization. Once you've done the petals, Daisies don't have much to do so we are making our own fun this year.

[Anonymous]

My friend and I co-led a troop for a few years but got tired of all of the paperwork, etc. so we dropped it this year. We let the girls pick what they wanted to do - badges, activities - it was their experience to grow. And we just did cookies one year. And only because the girls begged us.

You can have low-key trips that just focus on the core concepts. Just say no to cookies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My friend and I co-led a troop for a few years but got tired of all of the paperwork, etc. so we dropped it this year. We let the girls pick what they wanted to do - badges, activities - it was their experience to grow. And we just did cookies one year. And only because the girls begged us.

You can have low-key trips that just focus on the core concepts. Just say no to cookies.

^ that should say low-key troops


And since we weren't doing cookies most years we just skipped the trainings, meetings, and money manager BS. Just cut out the unnecessary parts.

[Anonymous]

There is also a ridiculous amount of paperwork and growing emphasis on things that help the council but offer minimal benefit to the girls--requiring troops to participate in fall product sales before doing any other fundraising and in order to become an honor troop, e.g.

Fall product sales are also a requirement if your troop wants to do additional fundraising.

I apologize if my previous comments (above) contributed to confusion about this policy. When I said other/additional fundraising, I was thinking of bake sales, SWAPS workshops, father-daughter dances, etc., not cookie sales.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My friend and I co-led a troop for a few years but got tired of all of the paperwork, etc. so we dropped it this year. We let the girls pick what they wanted to do - badges, activities - it was their experience to grow. And we just did cookies one year. And only because the girls begged us.

You can have low-key trips that just focus on the core concepts. Just say no to cookies.

^ that should say low-key troops


And since we weren't doing cookies most years we just skipped the trainings, meetings, and money manager BS. Just cut out the unnecessary parts.

^ and we had zero religion - changed up signs and songs to remove references to god, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I only skimmed this, but I agree that the journeys and badge materials are terrible. There is also a ridiculous amount of paperwork and growing emphasis on things that help the council but offer minimal benefit to the girls--requiring troops to participate in fall product sales before doing any other fundraising and in order to become an honor troop, e.g. This is my fifth year leading a troop, and I struggle more every year to find things related to the Girl Scout program that the girls want to do and are worth doing, given all the other demands on their time. Mostly we do community service, and I try to expose them to outdoor activities they might not try on their own. Basically we've been able to carry on by minimizing the number of "official" Girl Scout activities.

Same. The program has really lost its way. We're doing what we can to minimize the parts that make no sense to traditional scouting.

+ 1. Drop Journeys and return to badges. Currently there are no goals or achievements in place. Eagle Scout in Boy Scouting really means a significant achievement. Nothing in Girl Scouting means anything anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But can we all agree that it's a better organization than the Boy Scouts?

No. The Boy Scouts are evolving positively. And, they're outdoors all the time. Hikes, camping. And they haven't sold their campgrounds.

+ 1. eagle scout mom and former girl scout here. Boy Scouting is amazing. Girl Scouts is now meh. It's a real shame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a 10 year scout (and mom of a son too young for Boy Scouts), this makes me so sad to read.

Of course he can join, Cub scouts starts at first grade (my son was 7 when he started).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cookie sales and fall product sales are not mandatory. I have always made it clear to our families that participation is optional.

I believe participation in fall product sales and 100% participation in cookie sales ARE required if your troop wants to be an honor troop, but I haven't checked the requirements recently. Fall product sales are also a requirement if your troop wants to do additional fundraising. We wanted to raise funds to support another group last year, so I checked that box by ordering a box of candy online and crediting it to my daughter.

I'm a long time GS leader. We get 100% participation in cookie sales by doing two things: 1) holding a cookie booth during a regularly scheduled meeting time and 2) having all the girls participate in some way even if it is planning the locations of the cookie booths, making signs and decorations for the booth, drafting marketing emails that can be sent during the sale, etc. Even if a couple girls do not actually have individual sales, everyone participates the overall sale in some way.

[Anonymous]

I've found our biggest problem is finding any time that works in people's schedules, especially as the girls get older.

Our troop was about to fold as we only had 2 girls returning for 4th grade, then all of the sudden, a bunch of parents expressed interest at our back to school night.

We had a sudden explosion of interest at our school when we thought our scout troops were just about to die. Of course, we need to find troop meeting times that work in these kids incredibly busy schedules, and sometimes that just isn't possible.

[Anonymous]

The letter posted identifies the reason behind many people's concerns.

I am one of a handful of CEOs across the country who experienced the decade known as the Core
Business Strategy ("CBS") started in 2004 and the subsequent fallout with its failure. As I listened to the
faulty research from the "gap teams," faulty data impressions from demographers, and well-meaning
people attempting to re-brand our organization, I was worried. It seems a crisis was being
communicated when there wasn't one.

In fact, in 2004, the Girl Scouts were experiencing a 25-year high in membership. Despite the real facts, the "gap teams" were suggesting unprecedented and unnecessary changes to six core areas: (1) Girl Program; (2) Pathways of delivery; (3) a new Governance Structure including radical changes to the jurisdictional boundaries of councils, also known as
Realignment; (4) a new Funding Model; (5) an entirely different method to on-board and support Volunteers; (6) and, a new Culture for the organization.

GSUSA also believed that changing all of these categories, at once, without phasing-them-in, was the best way to rip off the band aid and quickly flip the organization into a 21 st Century success. However, the shock to the collective system did more damage than good and the damage has resulted in this organization hemorrhaging membership, both
adults and girls; loss of knowledgeable staff leadership (both locally and nationally); disruption to value
of the brand; and, creating a state of total distrust, amongst councils, volunteers and community constituents, towards the national leadership.

Note: GSUSA completely changed the GS program over the past decade.

Here is specifically where we went wrong. First, GSUSA needed to "sell" this new organizational model
to 312 councils, CEOs, Board Chairs, members; a monumental task. At that time, CEOs were career-Girl
Scouts, in it for life and had worked their way up in the organization for decades. Their staff and boards
were just as experienced. At that time, our membership had a voice and decision-making powers, and
exercised them locally at annual meetings and nationally at the National Council Sessions. Sweeping
changes could not just be handed down and demanded upon councils with this kind of experience and
power. GSUSA was well aware of this and systematically forced out the old, pressured any resistance
and played the "sisterhood" card as often as possible. Offering an irresistible, unaffordable national
retirement package for CEOs and their senior staff helped tremendously and much of the opposition
walked out.

Note: The Old Guard left. All we have now are (mostly) inexperienced staffers in Council who weren't in many cases, Girl Scouts themselves!

Reinterpreting the Blue Book of Basic Documents came next. The GSUSA board of directors through
direct wording changes and through assertions of interpretation, announced they were making
decisions that normally would be vetted through the council delegates "in the interest of moving at a
faster pace." Asking permission of members/councils to raise membership dues or re-organize councils
by one-third was deemed slow and cumbersome to the movement. As a result, GSUSA now hands down
movement-wide decisions and council delegates gather every three years for housekeeping changes to
organizational documents or to keep past board presidents out of the board room. At any rate, it
worked. The Core Business Strategy was "sold" as the saving grace that would propel Girl Scouts into
unparalleled success into the 21 st Century.

Note: The Board of Directors took over. It is very hard to get them to listen anymore. More and more grassroots groups of friends of the Girl Scouts are springing up because we want our old organization back!

Moreover, GSUSA needed to implement the CBS in just a few short years (approximately five years). The
lions-share of the heavily lifting came from councils who needed to merge with a half-dozen of their
neighboring councils (serving much larger geographical areas), attempt to balance budgets and create a
cohesive team of staff peppered across thousands of geographic miles. This alone took its toll and
council CEOs were averaging less than a year on the job before throwing in the towel, unloading the
impossible task of managing their "high capacity" council onto another executive just as inexperienced. This turnover continues today.

Note: Councils merged, much experience and tradition was lost; employees and volunteers demoralized.

To add to the confusion, councils had an entirely new program for girls and a new delivery system to
conquer. Every book and badge that girls and volunteers and staff had ever known was gone. What
replaced the program was something foreign to anyone with Girl Scout experience and history.
Inexperienced council staff attempted to teach disheartened volunteers the Journeys that were quickly
rejected by both the volunteers and the girls. The supplemental Girl Guides to Girl Scouting weren't
enough to turn things around. Simultaneously, GSUSA concluded that the troop model wasn't fresh and
the membership focus should be on short-term Pathways for member participation. Councils should
invest in six-week series opportunities or virtual groups of girls doing online Girl Scouts. None of these
were ever fully developed or addressed the issue of how the Cookie Program would be effected by
short-term Girl Scouts.

Comment: The program that we all knew completely changed. Right after they merged all our councils and got rid of all our most experienced staff and volunteers.


http://gsmembersupportersurvey.weebly.com/uploads/2/0/8/8/20881952/white_paper_2015.pdf

[Anonymous]

The Journeys are awful. But for Juniors and older, you have to do them if the girls want to earn the Bronze, Silver, or Gold Awards.

I got my girls through the Bronze. But I'm really struggling with the Silver. Girl Scouts competes with their other interests, and when the thing I have to offer is "we have to get through this Journey so we can start work on our Silver projects" several of the girls have expressed they just don't care about doing their projects anymore. Things they excitedly brain stormed and started planning at the beginning of the year! I hate to give up on the girls earning their Silver (and hopefully eventually Gold) but I may have to in order to keep them interested in Girl Scouts.