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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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)?