Re-structuring of the national Girl Scout program
The Daily Beast
Why Are Girl Scout Camps Being Closed?
UNHAPPY CAMPERS
The Girl Scouts are selling their camps, changing their program, and reportedly face serious problems with their pension liabilities. Has the iconic nonprofit lost its way?
Alessandra Rafferty
Updated Apr. 14, 2017 1:03PM EDT / Published Jan. 12, 2014 6:45AM EST
Tom Wallace/Star Tribune, via AP
Eagle Island, a 32-acre refuge in Upper Saranac Lake, N.Y., is a National Historic Landmark and one of the finest examples of Great Camp architecture in the Adirondacks. Bequeathed to the Girl Scouts by a wealthy banker in 1937, the camp served girls in the urban enclaves of northern New Jersey for 70 years until it was “rested” and then closed several years ago. Now it’s for sale—at $3.25 million. And Eagle Island isn’t the only Girl Scout camp on the block.
The Girl Scouts, for whom cookies and camping have long been synonymous, have decided one of them has to go, and it isn’t going to be the addictive cash-cow Thin Mint. In the past five years or so, Girl Scout councils across the country, backed by the parent organization Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA), have put up for sale more than 200 camps in 30 states—more than a third of Girl Scouts properties with acreage are threatened. The regional councils defend the sales by citing the rising costs of maintenance. And, they say, today’s girls aren’t as interested in camping.
Although camping remains a part of the Girl Scouts experience, in recent years it has been sidelined by controversial new programming that places less emphasis on outdoor learning. And camping hasn’t been promoted by cash-strapped councils that have proceeded with sale plans despite fervent protests from their memberships. That the 101-year-old organization reportedly has a woefully underfunded pension plan—currently down by $347 million—at the same time regional councils are trying to unload valuable land assets—has put the organization in the hotseat. While many pension funds took serious hits during the 2008 recession, critics, including one Tennessee council, contend that GSUSA made poor decisions, such as a massive realigning of councils and excessive buyouts, that exacerbated their loss.
In 2007, GSUSA began consolidating 312 regional councils into 112 “high-capacity” councils, some of them ranging over dozens of counties and several states in an attempt to take advantage of “economies of scale.” They have also revamped their programming to make it more relevant for “girls today,” whom they now refer to as their “customers.” But some of the customers aren’t buying, claiming instead that too much of the $750 million raised annually from cookie sales is going toward defraying bloated administration costs.
Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa’s proposed 2013 budget, for example, shows $2,000 allocated to replace roofs most in need at camp properties, but nearly a quarter of a million dollars for upgrades at offices and program centers, including parking lot repaving and landscaping. Tax forms for 2010, the last year released, showed that out of the more than $6 million in revenue, $3.53 million went to staff and benefits. CEO Diane Nelson did not reply to requests for comment.
The decision to sell more than a third of the organization’s camp properties has steadily galvanized opposition movements, with organizers saying that the biggest losers are the girls themselves. Now that Eagle Island camp is closed, for instance, “it’s the very girls that need it the most that are denied it,” says Chris Hildebrand of Friends of Eagle Island, an alumnae group that has spent several years appealing the camp’s closing and is now suing the Girl Scouts Heart of NJ (GSHONJ), which inherited the camp when districts were merged in 2007. “Inner-city girls and suburban girls are not exposed to the out of doors and to the wilderness,” Hildebrand says. “They’re not going to understand the importance of protecting it. And these are our future leaders.”
No Girl Scouts have stepped onto Eagle Island since 2008. Due to the departure of the fulltime caretaker, winter repairs that year were not made in time for summer camping, which was canceled. That fall, the board approved a plan to reopen the island, requesting it to be staffed up by the following spring and progress reports filed. None of that happened. One year later, a new board voted to sell the camp.
According to the lawsuit filed by Friends of Eagle Island, GSHONJ CEO Susan Brooks defended the sale by saying, “I have pensions to pay.” Hildebrand describes another instance where, when questioned by a parent as to what she’d do with the money from the sale, Brooks said that the plumbing in the Westwood, N.J., office needed to be fixed. “This is a camp that’s historic, and she doesn’t care,” says Hildebrand. As they are in litigation, Brooks preferred not to comment at this time. (Brooks has since resigned from her position as CEO.)
There are also lawsuits pending in Ohio, Iowa, and Alabama related to the sale of camps. Last spring in Indiana, plaintiffs won a case against the council there over Camp Wildwood. One of the most contentious battles is raging in northeastern Ohio. Five camps there are on the block, which would leave only two camps open for a membership of roughly 40,000 girls. Council board representatives defending the sales claimed that only 10 percent of the girls camped. To Lynn Richardson, life-time scout, troop leader, and founder of the TrefoilIntegrity website, that just didn’t ring true.
A subsequent review of camp usage documents by Richardson turned up a figure of 55 percent. Regional councils all over the country were also coming up with similarly low camping stats—because they appeared to be only counting council-run events. Jennifer Peter, GSUSA program project manager for camp & outdoors, acknowledges that there is a distinction to be made between camping that is organized by the councils and informal camping by troops or the larger service units. But, as Richardson points out, the “largest usage is the troops—the volunteers with their small group of girls for the weekend.” Trying to organize these volunteer-run outings without the benefit of camps owned and run by the Girl Scouts is “like trying to run Little League baseball but there’s no fields,” says Richardson. M. Jane Christyson, GSNEO’s new CEO, says camping is only measured in “participant days,” and “I am unaware of any documentation that the group could have been looking at that would help them make the estimate that 50-55 percent of Girl Scouts use the camps.… I think the Properties Committee and the board did a very thoughtful and through analysis. The decisions made were studied, researched, and evaluated by experts. We also received member input.”
The Ohio suit claims that the board squelched dissent by categorically turning down pro-camp nominees. According to Richardson, the board even called in the cops on peaceful demonstrations. “I thought, oh my gosh, [the police] are here because of us! It just blew my mind,” she recalls. In spring of 2011 the Ohio board voted to sell five camps and renovate the remaining two. That fall, frustrated membership called a special assembly of delegates, wherein 60 percent voted to block the sale of camps until they were approved by the General Assembly. Despite the majority vote, the board wouldn’t change course. The protesters sued to have more open proceedings, and the case is on appeal.
Camp supporters in eastern Iowa are also reaching out to the courts for the chance to have a greater say in the sale of their properties. Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois were set to sell all of their four remaining camps this past spring. Minutes before a preliminary injunction hearing, the council agreed to table its vote on the sale of the camps. According to the Save Our Scout Camps website, the lawsuit remains active.
Carolyn Davis, 16, a senior scout from Dubuque, Iowa, who has been going to Camp Little Cloud since she was 5, chokes up at the idea of the closings: “I was always looking forward to getting my camp name and being a counselor when I grew up. It was just hard to see that possibly—and probably—go away.” Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa has since reached out to campers and conducted town hall meetings to discuss creative ways to keep the camps open. CEO Diane Nelson said, “The council is not the enemy. We are trying to figure out how to keep all four camps open.”
In southeastern Pennsylvania, membership is up in arms over the divesting of the popular camps Tohikanee and Tweedale. Their loss means there will be no camp within an hour’s drive for a significant chunk of the suburban Philadelphia council’s girls and volunteers. Members were also frustrated by closed-door board and property-committee meetings and others, such as leader Lorie Pye Angeline, say the survey that collected input from campers was flawed, because the survey was conducted with the assistance of Domokur Architects, whose head of planning, Gregory Copeland, also served as a land consultant for GSUSA for two years. The membership felt misdirected by the survey and they felt that it was a conflict of interest to have someone who could potentially benefit from a plan to close some camps and renovate the remaining camps involved in the survey.
In a 2010 article entitled “A Shift for Survival” (PDF) in Camp Magazine, Copeland said the Girl Scouts camps “are [their] greatest asset and greatest liability,” a phrase often repeated by officials with the Girl Scouts parent organization and councils around the country. He also estimated that in the next decade the number of Girl Scouts camp properties would be halved. Copeland did not reply to requests for comment.
Despite similar language and tactics used by regional councils all over the country, GSUSA maintains there is “no master plan” to sell off camps. At a meeting with The Daily Beast at the Scouts’ 5th Avenue headquarters in Manhattan, a staffer burst out laughing “at the thought of a master plan” and laughter among the six experts assembled ensued. However, in a memo dated May 24, 2013 from then GSUSA CFO Florence Casilles to council CEOs regarding the National Girl Scout Retirement Plan (NGSRP), it appears that GSUSA was actively considering the sale and leaseback of council properties to fund the pension plan as well as donations of property to the plan, and the “identification of a national real estate broker to assist councils in selling property with use of funds to contribute to the plan.” Despite being called a “potentially good service” in the same memo, the national agent idea was “not deemed to be a good strategy for funding pension because of the likely perception in the community of the use of property to fund non-girl related programs.” The plan is currently frozen and GSUSA is appealing to Congress to change the way it can be funded.
So was GSUSA just another victim of a global recession, as GSUSA execs have stated? The Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee don’t think so. They’re suing the national organization and asking to be spun off from the pension plan. Their suit, filed last year, maintains that the generous early-retirement packages, offered by GSUSA to almost 2,000 employees when the councils merged, put undue stress on the pension plan and further that the realignment directive left the majority of councils in financial distress. The Tennessee chapter states that the parent organization “has no authority” to implement its new funding plan, which would require councils to contribute up to 16 percent of payroll to the plan by 2023.
For some, such as NorCal Council, the consolidation of councils went relatively smoothly. The northern California council is now one of the largest in the country and has so far retained all 12 of its premerger camps. CEO Marina Parks attributes the stability to the transparency that was brought to the process but acknowledges that their property evaluation is still ongoing.
For others, it was disastrous. As Suellen Nelles, CEO of the Farthest North Council in Fairbanks, Alaska, describes it, “Most everybody wasn’t questioning it, they were at that point trying to save their councils, close the mergers, create a whole new way of work with a whole new staff. They were just trying to function day to day, many struggling, most of their reserves depleted.”
Manitou Council of Wisconsin did however question the merger—all the way to court. They sued to retain their council boundaries, positing themselves as a franchise under Wisconsin’s fair dealership law. In 2011 they won on appeal. Due to a similar law in Alaska, CEO Nelles piggybacked on that case to retain her premerger council, calling it “the best decision we ever made.”
Cheryl Brown, former CEO of the Conifer Council in Texas/Arkansas also saw the storm coming. “I really felt like after a few years, after they [the newly formed council] had gone through all the liquid money, they were going to have figure out assets that needed to be sold in order to keep it going… so all of the membership voted on it and we moved [our camps] into a 501(c)3 holding company.” Adds Brown, “I look back at the [tax forms] from the five councils before the merger took place to the [tax forms] now, [and] even with inflation, the administration costs have more than doubled.”
GSUSA won’t intervene nor will it comment on the legal battles being fought over camps and protocol. “They’re their own 501(c)3s, we don’t have any say. We can offer advice,” says GSUSA media manager Michelle Tompkins But they can comment on the members that refuse to go gently into that campfire-smoke-tinged good night: “In most cases it seems like the people who are complaining were a little late to the party.” Members—both young and old—say they weren’t late to the party, they simply weren’t invited. “It’s about honesty, it’s about democracy, it’s about where this organization is going,” says Ohio’s Richardson. Tompkins does concede that some cases “are not to be taken lightly… we know that we’re dealing with people’s memories.”
GSUSA frequently frames the camp supporters’ motivation as nostalgia. “As much as I understand and have a sympathetic ear to ‘we want it the way it was when I was a child,’ it’s not possible,” says Mark Allsup, a GSUSA land consultant. “We cannot stay open under those circumstances, because the rules and regulations are constantly evolving.” He cites stricter compliance for things such as sprinkler systems. When asked if regulatory compliance was the primary financial hurdle in keeping the camps open, Allsup responded, “I don’t know if it’s primary, but it’s a contributing factor.”
The fight to keep the contested camps open has drawn back the curtain on the organization’s funding problems. But GSUSA’s shift away from the outdoors began before its financial troubles started. Ever since it veered from founder Juliette Gordon Low’s intent of building confidence through the outdoors, GSUSA has struggled to find the key formula to draw girls and volunteers into the fold. “I do think that some of the stuff needed to be updated, but it’s just so sweeping they threw the baby out with the bathwater,” says Texas’s Brown.
The current Scouting program, which replaced the earlier, short-lived Studio 2B curriculum, features a set of three guided activities called Leadership Journeys, an edited-down set of merit badges, and other varied events.
West Chester, Pennsylvania troop leader Julia Smith says of Journeys, “I don’t like them at all. It’s like school. It’s like a chore to them [the girls],” echoing similar complaints across the country. “In our March meeting, they said that Journeys are only selling at about 20 percent of membership,” says Alaska’s Nelles. “If only 20 percent of your members are buying the book, the book’s a failure!”
When asked about the “read reflect discuss” slant of Journeys, Andrea Bastiani Archibald, GSUSA development psychologist program development & research, said, “It’s really too bad they’re seeing it that way… Certainly there is reflection time but active hands-on activities are built right in… Not only do we have this leadership experience that helps girls discover themselves and their values, connect with others locally and globally, and take action on issues of concern to them, but we have ways that volunteers engage girls that are really quite special.”
A growing movement of volunteers is advocating for an “Outdoor Journey” to be added to the current set and seven councils have so far officially requested a conversation on an Outdoor Journey for the 2014 National Council Session in Salt Lake City. For her Ambassador “advocacy” Journey, Sarah Young, a 15-year-old Gold Award Scout (equivalent of Eagle Scout) from Pflugerville, Texas, chose the thesis “The Girl Scouts lack of outdoor skill badges and the current Journeys do not encourage camping.” She compiled a survey for older girls on the outdoors and got almost 2,000 responses in less than two months. “I felt it was important for my council and GSUSA to know what girls really wanted,” she says. “Those girls who have fallen in love with Girl Scouting—give them a way to learn the classic camping skills— these have been removed from the skill badge program.” Armed with her data, she took a meeting at the New York City headquarters with Joanne Berg, executive editor of girl experience, in November where she says “I felt very unlistened to.” Undaunted, she complained in an email to Berg and CEO Ana Maria Chávez and got a second, much more attentive, phone meeting. “Because I came with a plan on how to improve and not just ‘gripe,’ I think I got heard. I still want to know what it will take—is it money, is it interest?”
New financial literacy (PDF) badges are now part of the existing cookie sale. But many of the camp supporters claim the fundraiser has now become the program. The average box of Girl Scout cookies costs $3.50 to $4.00. About 90 cents goes to the supplier and about 50 cents goes to the troop. The rest goes to the regional council. The scouts “get very little money for their troop for the work they’re doing,” says Ohio’s Richardson. “When the council was supporting the camps, that’s OK.” But now that the camps are being divested and the councils still keep the money raised by cookie sales, “this becomes child exploitation. It’s not OK.” (In comparison, one half of Boy Scouts’ fundraising profit goes back to the patrol, according to Mark Moshier, team leader of local council fund development for BSA.)
Programming also includes council events. Caleigh Sullivan, 16, a Cleveland area Silver Award Scout, describes a “mall lock-in,” an outing offered twice a year: “You go to the mall and all the stores stay open all night and the Girl Scouts get locked in and you just shop all night… There’s really not much we can do anymore because we can’t get a place to camp.”
Even Girl Scout merchandise has become questionably “modern”: Karen Sheahan, a moderator of the SOS Camps website, described an item she found in the Girl Scout shop online: “Did you know you can buy Girl Scout green press-on nails with a trefoil pattern? Just try opening your pocketknife with those.”
But you may not need that pocketknife anyway—it’s possible to rise through the ranks all the way from Daisy to Ambassador without camping at all. “It is, but we wouldn’t want that,” says GSUSA psychologist Bastiani Archibald. “We love camping.”
Why Are Girl Scout Camps Being Closed?
UNHAPPY CAMPERS
The Girl Scouts are selling their camps, changing their program, and reportedly face serious problems with their pension liabilities. Has the iconic nonprofit lost its way?
Alessandra Rafferty
Updated Apr. 14, 2017 1:03PM EDT / Published Jan. 12, 2014 6:45AM EST
Tom Wallace/Star Tribune, via AP
Eagle Island, a 32-acre refuge in Upper Saranac Lake, N.Y., is a National Historic Landmark and one of the finest examples of Great Camp architecture in the Adirondacks. Bequeathed to the Girl Scouts by a wealthy banker in 1937, the camp served girls in the urban enclaves of northern New Jersey for 70 years until it was “rested” and then closed several years ago. Now it’s for sale—at $3.25 million. And Eagle Island isn’t the only Girl Scout camp on the block.
The Girl Scouts, for whom cookies and camping have long been synonymous, have decided one of them has to go, and it isn’t going to be the addictive cash-cow Thin Mint. In the past five years or so, Girl Scout councils across the country, backed by the parent organization Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA), have put up for sale more than 200 camps in 30 states—more than a third of Girl Scouts properties with acreage are threatened. The regional councils defend the sales by citing the rising costs of maintenance. And, they say, today’s girls aren’t as interested in camping.
Although camping remains a part of the Girl Scouts experience, in recent years it has been sidelined by controversial new programming that places less emphasis on outdoor learning. And camping hasn’t been promoted by cash-strapped councils that have proceeded with sale plans despite fervent protests from their memberships. That the 101-year-old organization reportedly has a woefully underfunded pension plan—currently down by $347 million—at the same time regional councils are trying to unload valuable land assets—has put the organization in the hotseat. While many pension funds took serious hits during the 2008 recession, critics, including one Tennessee council, contend that GSUSA made poor decisions, such as a massive realigning of councils and excessive buyouts, that exacerbated their loss.
In 2007, GSUSA began consolidating 312 regional councils into 112 “high-capacity” councils, some of them ranging over dozens of counties and several states in an attempt to take advantage of “economies of scale.” They have also revamped their programming to make it more relevant for “girls today,” whom they now refer to as their “customers.” But some of the customers aren’t buying, claiming instead that too much of the $750 million raised annually from cookie sales is going toward defraying bloated administration costs.
Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa’s proposed 2013 budget, for example, shows $2,000 allocated to replace roofs most in need at camp properties, but nearly a quarter of a million dollars for upgrades at offices and program centers, including parking lot repaving and landscaping. Tax forms for 2010, the last year released, showed that out of the more than $6 million in revenue, $3.53 million went to staff and benefits. CEO Diane Nelson did not reply to requests for comment.
The decision to sell more than a third of the organization’s camp properties has steadily galvanized opposition movements, with organizers saying that the biggest losers are the girls themselves. Now that Eagle Island camp is closed, for instance, “it’s the very girls that need it the most that are denied it,” says Chris Hildebrand of Friends of Eagle Island, an alumnae group that has spent several years appealing the camp’s closing and is now suing the Girl Scouts Heart of NJ (GSHONJ), which inherited the camp when districts were merged in 2007. “Inner-city girls and suburban girls are not exposed to the out of doors and to the wilderness,” Hildebrand says. “They’re not going to understand the importance of protecting it. And these are our future leaders.”
No Girl Scouts have stepped onto Eagle Island since 2008. Due to the departure of the fulltime caretaker, winter repairs that year were not made in time for summer camping, which was canceled. That fall, the board approved a plan to reopen the island, requesting it to be staffed up by the following spring and progress reports filed. None of that happened. One year later, a new board voted to sell the camp.
According to the lawsuit filed by Friends of Eagle Island, GSHONJ CEO Susan Brooks defended the sale by saying, “I have pensions to pay.” Hildebrand describes another instance where, when questioned by a parent as to what she’d do with the money from the sale, Brooks said that the plumbing in the Westwood, N.J., office needed to be fixed. “This is a camp that’s historic, and she doesn’t care,” says Hildebrand. As they are in litigation, Brooks preferred not to comment at this time. (Brooks has since resigned from her position as CEO.)
There are also lawsuits pending in Ohio, Iowa, and Alabama related to the sale of camps. Last spring in Indiana, plaintiffs won a case against the council there over Camp Wildwood. One of the most contentious battles is raging in northeastern Ohio. Five camps there are on the block, which would leave only two camps open for a membership of roughly 40,000 girls. Council board representatives defending the sales claimed that only 10 percent of the girls camped. To Lynn Richardson, life-time scout, troop leader, and founder of the TrefoilIntegrity website, that just didn’t ring true.
A subsequent review of camp usage documents by Richardson turned up a figure of 55 percent. Regional councils all over the country were also coming up with similarly low camping stats—because they appeared to be only counting council-run events. Jennifer Peter, GSUSA program project manager for camp & outdoors, acknowledges that there is a distinction to be made between camping that is organized by the councils and informal camping by troops or the larger service units. But, as Richardson points out, the “largest usage is the troops—the volunteers with their small group of girls for the weekend.” Trying to organize these volunteer-run outings without the benefit of camps owned and run by the Girl Scouts is “like trying to run Little League baseball but there’s no fields,” says Richardson. M. Jane Christyson, GSNEO’s new CEO, says camping is only measured in “participant days,” and “I am unaware of any documentation that the group could have been looking at that would help them make the estimate that 50-55 percent of Girl Scouts use the camps.… I think the Properties Committee and the board did a very thoughtful and through analysis. The decisions made were studied, researched, and evaluated by experts. We also received member input.”
The Ohio suit claims that the board squelched dissent by categorically turning down pro-camp nominees. According to Richardson, the board even called in the cops on peaceful demonstrations. “I thought, oh my gosh, [the police] are here because of us! It just blew my mind,” she recalls. In spring of 2011 the Ohio board voted to sell five camps and renovate the remaining two. That fall, frustrated membership called a special assembly of delegates, wherein 60 percent voted to block the sale of camps until they were approved by the General Assembly. Despite the majority vote, the board wouldn’t change course. The protesters sued to have more open proceedings, and the case is on appeal.
Camp supporters in eastern Iowa are also reaching out to the courts for the chance to have a greater say in the sale of their properties. Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois were set to sell all of their four remaining camps this past spring. Minutes before a preliminary injunction hearing, the council agreed to table its vote on the sale of the camps. According to the Save Our Scout Camps website, the lawsuit remains active.
Carolyn Davis, 16, a senior scout from Dubuque, Iowa, who has been going to Camp Little Cloud since she was 5, chokes up at the idea of the closings: “I was always looking forward to getting my camp name and being a counselor when I grew up. It was just hard to see that possibly—and probably—go away.” Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa has since reached out to campers and conducted town hall meetings to discuss creative ways to keep the camps open. CEO Diane Nelson said, “The council is not the enemy. We are trying to figure out how to keep all four camps open.”
In southeastern Pennsylvania, membership is up in arms over the divesting of the popular camps Tohikanee and Tweedale. Their loss means there will be no camp within an hour’s drive for a significant chunk of the suburban Philadelphia council’s girls and volunteers. Members were also frustrated by closed-door board and property-committee meetings and others, such as leader Lorie Pye Angeline, say the survey that collected input from campers was flawed, because the survey was conducted with the assistance of Domokur Architects, whose head of planning, Gregory Copeland, also served as a land consultant for GSUSA for two years. The membership felt misdirected by the survey and they felt that it was a conflict of interest to have someone who could potentially benefit from a plan to close some camps and renovate the remaining camps involved in the survey.
In a 2010 article entitled “A Shift for Survival” (PDF) in Camp Magazine, Copeland said the Girl Scouts camps “are [their] greatest asset and greatest liability,” a phrase often repeated by officials with the Girl Scouts parent organization and councils around the country. He also estimated that in the next decade the number of Girl Scouts camp properties would be halved. Copeland did not reply to requests for comment.
Despite similar language and tactics used by regional councils all over the country, GSUSA maintains there is “no master plan” to sell off camps. At a meeting with The Daily Beast at the Scouts’ 5th Avenue headquarters in Manhattan, a staffer burst out laughing “at the thought of a master plan” and laughter among the six experts assembled ensued. However, in a memo dated May 24, 2013 from then GSUSA CFO Florence Casilles to council CEOs regarding the National Girl Scout Retirement Plan (NGSRP), it appears that GSUSA was actively considering the sale and leaseback of council properties to fund the pension plan as well as donations of property to the plan, and the “identification of a national real estate broker to assist councils in selling property with use of funds to contribute to the plan.” Despite being called a “potentially good service” in the same memo, the national agent idea was “not deemed to be a good strategy for funding pension because of the likely perception in the community of the use of property to fund non-girl related programs.” The plan is currently frozen and GSUSA is appealing to Congress to change the way it can be funded.
So was GSUSA just another victim of a global recession, as GSUSA execs have stated? The Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee don’t think so. They’re suing the national organization and asking to be spun off from the pension plan. Their suit, filed last year, maintains that the generous early-retirement packages, offered by GSUSA to almost 2,000 employees when the councils merged, put undue stress on the pension plan and further that the realignment directive left the majority of councils in financial distress. The Tennessee chapter states that the parent organization “has no authority” to implement its new funding plan, which would require councils to contribute up to 16 percent of payroll to the plan by 2023.
For some, such as NorCal Council, the consolidation of councils went relatively smoothly. The northern California council is now one of the largest in the country and has so far retained all 12 of its premerger camps. CEO Marina Parks attributes the stability to the transparency that was brought to the process but acknowledges that their property evaluation is still ongoing.
For others, it was disastrous. As Suellen Nelles, CEO of the Farthest North Council in Fairbanks, Alaska, describes it, “Most everybody wasn’t questioning it, they were at that point trying to save their councils, close the mergers, create a whole new way of work with a whole new staff. They were just trying to function day to day, many struggling, most of their reserves depleted.”
Manitou Council of Wisconsin did however question the merger—all the way to court. They sued to retain their council boundaries, positing themselves as a franchise under Wisconsin’s fair dealership law. In 2011 they won on appeal. Due to a similar law in Alaska, CEO Nelles piggybacked on that case to retain her premerger council, calling it “the best decision we ever made.”
Cheryl Brown, former CEO of the Conifer Council in Texas/Arkansas also saw the storm coming. “I really felt like after a few years, after they [the newly formed council] had gone through all the liquid money, they were going to have figure out assets that needed to be sold in order to keep it going… so all of the membership voted on it and we moved [our camps] into a 501(c)3 holding company.” Adds Brown, “I look back at the [tax forms] from the five councils before the merger took place to the [tax forms] now, [and] even with inflation, the administration costs have more than doubled.”
GSUSA won’t intervene nor will it comment on the legal battles being fought over camps and protocol. “They’re their own 501(c)3s, we don’t have any say. We can offer advice,” says GSUSA media manager Michelle Tompkins But they can comment on the members that refuse to go gently into that campfire-smoke-tinged good night: “In most cases it seems like the people who are complaining were a little late to the party.” Members—both young and old—say they weren’t late to the party, they simply weren’t invited. “It’s about honesty, it’s about democracy, it’s about where this organization is going,” says Ohio’s Richardson. Tompkins does concede that some cases “are not to be taken lightly… we know that we’re dealing with people’s memories.”
GSUSA frequently frames the camp supporters’ motivation as nostalgia. “As much as I understand and have a sympathetic ear to ‘we want it the way it was when I was a child,’ it’s not possible,” says Mark Allsup, a GSUSA land consultant. “We cannot stay open under those circumstances, because the rules and regulations are constantly evolving.” He cites stricter compliance for things such as sprinkler systems. When asked if regulatory compliance was the primary financial hurdle in keeping the camps open, Allsup responded, “I don’t know if it’s primary, but it’s a contributing factor.”
The fight to keep the contested camps open has drawn back the curtain on the organization’s funding problems. But GSUSA’s shift away from the outdoors began before its financial troubles started. Ever since it veered from founder Juliette Gordon Low’s intent of building confidence through the outdoors, GSUSA has struggled to find the key formula to draw girls and volunteers into the fold. “I do think that some of the stuff needed to be updated, but it’s just so sweeping they threw the baby out with the bathwater,” says Texas’s Brown.
The current Scouting program, which replaced the earlier, short-lived Studio 2B curriculum, features a set of three guided activities called Leadership Journeys, an edited-down set of merit badges, and other varied events.
West Chester, Pennsylvania troop leader Julia Smith says of Journeys, “I don’t like them at all. It’s like school. It’s like a chore to them [the girls],” echoing similar complaints across the country. “In our March meeting, they said that Journeys are only selling at about 20 percent of membership,” says Alaska’s Nelles. “If only 20 percent of your members are buying the book, the book’s a failure!”
When asked about the “read reflect discuss” slant of Journeys, Andrea Bastiani Archibald, GSUSA development psychologist program development & research, said, “It’s really too bad they’re seeing it that way… Certainly there is reflection time but active hands-on activities are built right in… Not only do we have this leadership experience that helps girls discover themselves and their values, connect with others locally and globally, and take action on issues of concern to them, but we have ways that volunteers engage girls that are really quite special.”
A growing movement of volunteers is advocating for an “Outdoor Journey” to be added to the current set and seven councils have so far officially requested a conversation on an Outdoor Journey for the 2014 National Council Session in Salt Lake City. For her Ambassador “advocacy” Journey, Sarah Young, a 15-year-old Gold Award Scout (equivalent of Eagle Scout) from Pflugerville, Texas, chose the thesis “The Girl Scouts lack of outdoor skill badges and the current Journeys do not encourage camping.” She compiled a survey for older girls on the outdoors and got almost 2,000 responses in less than two months. “I felt it was important for my council and GSUSA to know what girls really wanted,” she says. “Those girls who have fallen in love with Girl Scouting—give them a way to learn the classic camping skills— these have been removed from the skill badge program.” Armed with her data, she took a meeting at the New York City headquarters with Joanne Berg, executive editor of girl experience, in November where she says “I felt very unlistened to.” Undaunted, she complained in an email to Berg and CEO Ana Maria Chávez and got a second, much more attentive, phone meeting. “Because I came with a plan on how to improve and not just ‘gripe,’ I think I got heard. I still want to know what it will take—is it money, is it interest?”
New financial literacy (PDF) badges are now part of the existing cookie sale. But many of the camp supporters claim the fundraiser has now become the program. The average box of Girl Scout cookies costs $3.50 to $4.00. About 90 cents goes to the supplier and about 50 cents goes to the troop. The rest goes to the regional council. The scouts “get very little money for their troop for the work they’re doing,” says Ohio’s Richardson. “When the council was supporting the camps, that’s OK.” But now that the camps are being divested and the councils still keep the money raised by cookie sales, “this becomes child exploitation. It’s not OK.” (In comparison, one half of Boy Scouts’ fundraising profit goes back to the patrol, according to Mark Moshier, team leader of local council fund development for BSA.)
Programming also includes council events. Caleigh Sullivan, 16, a Cleveland area Silver Award Scout, describes a “mall lock-in,” an outing offered twice a year: “You go to the mall and all the stores stay open all night and the Girl Scouts get locked in and you just shop all night… There’s really not much we can do anymore because we can’t get a place to camp.”
Even Girl Scout merchandise has become questionably “modern”: Karen Sheahan, a moderator of the SOS Camps website, described an item she found in the Girl Scout shop online: “Did you know you can buy Girl Scout green press-on nails with a trefoil pattern? Just try opening your pocketknife with those.”
But you may not need that pocketknife anyway—it’s possible to rise through the ranks all the way from Daisy to Ambassador without camping at all. “It is, but we wouldn’t want that,” says GSUSA psychologist Bastiani Archibald. “We love camping.”
Declining membership, fiscal woes among problems facing Girl Scouts
Associated Press
Published June 24, 2013 11:06am EDT | Updated November 29, 2015 11:33pm EST
Just a year after its 2012 centennial celebrations, the Girl Scouts of the USA's interconnected problems include declining membership and revenues, a dearth of volunteers, rifts between leadership and grass-roots members, a pension plan with a $347 million deficit, and an uproar over efforts by many local councils to sell venerable summer camps. (AP/The Register-Guard)
NEW YORK – Given the friction and financial woes facing the Girl Scouts these days, perhaps it's time for a giant friendship circle. Under that long-standing tradition, a ring of Scouts clasp hands and give a little squeeze, accompanied by a silent wish of good will.
Just a year after its centennial celebrations, the Girl Scouts of the USA finds itself in a different sort of squeeze. Its interconnected problems include declining membership and revenues, a dearth of volunteers, rifts between leadership and grassroots members, a pension plan with a $347 million deficit, and an uproar over efforts by many local councils to sell venerable summer camps.
The tangle of difficulties has prompted one congressman to request an inquiry by the House Ways and Means Committee into the pension liabilities and the sale of camps. "I am worried that America's Girl Scouts are now selling cookies to fund pension plans instead of camping," wrote Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, in a letter last month to the committee chairman. Compounding the problems are tensions at GSUSA headquarters in New York, where several senior executives have quit or been ousted since Anna Maria Chavez took over as CEO in 2011. Last week, some of the roughly 325 employees there were invited to take early retirement, and Chavez said an unspecified number of layoffs were expected in August to offset the revenue losses.
Chavez insists the GSUSA is on the right track, although she acknowledged that sweeping changes in structure and programs over the past 10 years have been difficult for many in the Scouts' extended family.
"Change can be unsettling and it is not surprising that some would prefer for us to remain static," she said. "But doing so would be a disservice to girls who need us now more than ever." Indeed, there's a common denominator between the GSUSA leaders and their critics — earnest expressions of devotion to the Girl Scouts and fervent hopes that it manages to thrive.
"I care so much about this organization, and that's why I hate to see it pulled down," said Suellen Nelles, CEO of a local council based in Fairbanks, Alaska. "We have leadership at the top who are toxic to this organization and need to go."
Connie Lindsey, the president of GSUSA's governing board, said the board had confidence in Chavez, despite the various problems. "Our board supports our CEO," said Lindsey, a corporate executive from Chicago. "We know it's a difficult charge we've given her."
Since 2003, the Girl Scouts have undergone what they describe as a "complete transformation" aimed at making their programs and image more relevant to a diverse population of girls and parents. Changes have affected uniforms, handbooks, merit badges, program materials, even the logo and the fine print on the boxes of Girl Scout cookies. "Our brand, as iconic as it is, was misunderstood — it was dated," Chavez said in an interview in her Manhattan office Friday. Yet today the Girl Scouts have about 2.2 million youth members, down from more than 2.8 million in 2003. Donations to the national office and local councils plunged to $104 million in 2011 from nearly $148 million in 2007.
The biggest change — implemented from 2006 to 2009 by Chavez' predecessor, Kathy Cloninger — was a realignment that slashed the number of local councils from 312 to 112. It was intended to increase efficiency, but resulted in the departure of many longtime employees and volunteers. A handful of councils resisted, and one of them, the Manitou Council based in Sheboygan, Wis., sued to block its merger in 2008 after negotiations failed to resolve its concerns. The council argued that it deserved the same protections as a for-profit franchise operator, and in 2011 the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.
"From a commercial standpoint, the Girl Scouts are not readily distinguishable from Dunkin' Donuts," the court wrote in its opinion.
Also refusing to merge was the council led by Nelles — the Farthest North Girl Scout Council in Fairbanks. Nelles, who contended that realignment weakened local control while saddling councils with new financial burdens, says she's been ostracized by the national office. "Questioning authority is very much frowned upon," she said. "If anyone resisted them at any point, they said we just wanted to hold onto the past."
Among other consequences, the mergers affected the Girl Scouts' national pension plan, because many employees were added to it as an inducement to take early retirement. One council, the Nashville-based Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee, is suing to get out of the pension plan. The lawsuit contends the GSUSA added as many as 1,850 employees to the plan who hadn't contributed to it, leaving local councils with a liability they had not agreed to fund. According to the suit, the pension plan had a surplus of more than $150 million in 2007. It now has a deficit of about $347 million, according to GSUSA figures.
One of the Tennessee council's lawyers, James Bristol, stressed that his clients were not seeking money from the GSUSA, but rather wanted to negotiate a remedy. "They would not negotiate," Bristol said. "They've told us, 'We've got this under control.'"
The GSUSA has filed a motion for the case to be dismissed. It is also asking Congress to pass legislation that would provide relief by stretching out the timetable for local councils to pay into the pension plan. Without such relief, councils could face a 40 percent increase in pension expenses next year, and be forced into layoffs and program cuts, according to GSUSA.
Financial stress already has prompted many local councils to consider selling off old summer camps, both to gain revenue and reduce maintenance costs. In many states — including Iowa, Ohio, New York, Alabama and Missouri — the sell-off plans provoked intense debate. Pro-camp activists argue that camping is integral to the Girl Scout experience; local leaders contend that today's girls are less keen on camping than their predecessors.
A decision by the Girl Scouts of North East Ohio to close several camps prompted a lawsuit by disgruntled adult members, as well as calls for a boycott of cookie sales. The gap between the sides was summarized on the website of Trefoil Integrity, formed by some dissident members. "The board believes that classes in leadership, financial literacy, and robotics competition are what girls need," it said. "Camp supporters believe that leadership is learned through the experiences of real living ... Children need camps as places of quiet, of basic challenges, of connection to nature."
Chavez said the GSUSA respects the views of dissident alumnae and adult volunteers, but is convinced it's making the right choices on behalf of today's girls by offering a balanced program that will produce future leaders. "Camps will always be part of our mission," she said. "But girls aren't living in the past — they're living in the future."
A Girl Scout herself while growing up in Arizona, Chavez, 45, took over as the GSUSA's first Hispanic CEO after serving as chief executive of Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas. She's pleased by a 55 percent surge in the number of Hispanic Girl Scouts since 2000. Under her leadership, a new set of handbooks seeks to nurture such attributes as environmental awareness, healthy lifestyles and critical thinking. New programs seek to boost girls' competency with money matters and encourage them to pursue careers in science and technology.
In the fiscal realm, GSUSA has launched a campaign to raise $1 billion by 2017. To improve relations with local councils, it has created the position of chief customer officer, with the mission of assisting local leaders with operational matters so they can focus more energy on programs. However, the changes have not stemmed the membership decline. GSUSA Treasurer Joan Wagnon reported in March that revenue from membership dues was down 3.8 percent over the past year and nationwide cookie sales for 2012-13 were down about 4.5 percent. The national headquarters' operating budget relies heavily on efforts of the local councils, notably the $12 annual dues paid by individual Girl Scouts plus revenue from sales of uniforms and merchandise. The dues are scheduled to rise to $15 later this year.
The Girl Scouts note that many youth organizations have been losing members, for reasons including competition from youth sports leagues and a perception by some families that they are old-fashioned. The Boy Scouts of America's youth membership declined from 3.3 million in 2002 to about 2.6 million last year. During that period, the Boy Scouts — who have no formal ties with the Girl Scouts — have been entangled in controversy over membership policies that excluded gays and atheists. The GSUSA provided a contrast with inclusive membership policies, although it suffered some defections from families who felt it had become too liberal.
Some adult Girl Scout members say the recent program changes have gone overboard in de-emphasizing traditional outdoor activities and replacing them with curricula that replicates schoolwork. "In trying to be more relevant, they've gone too far the other way," said Cheryl Brown, former CEO of a Girl Scout council in Arkansas. She left the post in 2009, soon after her council was forced to merge with four others. Brown also said pressure from headquarters to boost membership led some councils to recruit girls with no intention of engaging them in the full scope of Girl Scout activities. "It no longer was about the girls — it was about the money," she said.
Booth Kammann, CEO of the Girl Scout Council of the Southern Appalachians, said she encountered membership problems when she took over the Knoxville, Tenn.-based council in 2009 after the realignment. She eliminated programs in which girls were not fully engaged. Coupled with departures of volunteers — including some dismayed by the mergers — Kammann's council now reports a membership of 12,246 girls and 4,615 adults, compared to about 20,000 girls and 7,000 adults in 2009.
Kammann says she has a waiting list of more than 300 girls, yet can't find enough adults to mentor them. Overall, she's optimistic about the Girl Scouts' future, but says the pace of change has taken a toll.
"Do I think there's been some change fatigue? Yes," she said. "It's like rebuilding an airplane when it's in the air."
Nationwide, the shortage of volunteers is a critical problem, according to Chavez, who wants to develop new recruiting strategies as the GSUSA works to improve its finances. "At the end of the day, we're not serving enough girls," she said.
Chavez acknowledged there is room for improved communications within the nationwide Girl Scout family, including the 59 million alumnae, and she plans new efforts to reach out to them for advice, financial support and volunteer service.
"I'm excited — we're actually going to activate our base," she said. "This iconic organization, which has given back to this country for 100 years, needs your help."
Among the skeptical alumnae is Jane Duax, 56, of Davenport, Iowa, who was a Girl Scout back in the 1960s, later served as a troop leader and cookie mom, and recently has been active fighting plans to close four summer camps.
"The leadership has taken on this for-profit mentality, and let go of the not-for-profit service," Duax said. "Maybe they can get a do-over on the pension plan, but there's no do-over with the land. Once it's gone, it's gone."
Joni Kinsey, an art historian at the University of Iowa, credits her Girl Scout experience with kindling her interest in Western art. Now, as a troop leader, she's dismayed at how changes to the organization have unfolded. "Part of Girl Scout culture was that we make decisions collaboratively," she said. "Suddenly it's become an adversarial relationship where it's us against them."
"To those of us who dearly love this organization, having to resort to protest mode is not what we want to do," said Kinsey, 54. "We've been marginalized as this small, discontented group of dowdy older women trying to live in their memories."
The unease is shared by many younger employees, volunteers and alumnae — dozens of whom have joined a group called The Future is Ours.
The group's chair, Amanda Kremer from the Heart of Michigan Council, posted a letter to Chavez online, proposing a dialogue on how to improve the Girl Scouts' finances, boost youth membership and attract top-notch staff.
"We want to make sure that we inherit a financially sound organization poised to last another 100 years," the letter says. "We do not think things are headed in that direction currently." Since posting the letter, Kremer, 26, says she's had two substantive phone conversations with GSUSA chief of staff Nhadine Leung. Kremer described the conversations as positive, saying the national leadership seemed to recognize the severity of the challenges. "What we want is for everyone to feel they have a say — so girls can continue to have the wonderful experiences that we had," Kremer said.
Associated Press
Published June 24, 2013 11:06am EDT | Updated November 29, 2015 11:33pm EST
Just a year after its 2012 centennial celebrations, the Girl Scouts of the USA's interconnected problems include declining membership and revenues, a dearth of volunteers, rifts between leadership and grass-roots members, a pension plan with a $347 million deficit, and an uproar over efforts by many local councils to sell venerable summer camps. (AP/The Register-Guard)
NEW YORK – Given the friction and financial woes facing the Girl Scouts these days, perhaps it's time for a giant friendship circle. Under that long-standing tradition, a ring of Scouts clasp hands and give a little squeeze, accompanied by a silent wish of good will.
Just a year after its centennial celebrations, the Girl Scouts of the USA finds itself in a different sort of squeeze. Its interconnected problems include declining membership and revenues, a dearth of volunteers, rifts between leadership and grassroots members, a pension plan with a $347 million deficit, and an uproar over efforts by many local councils to sell venerable summer camps.
The tangle of difficulties has prompted one congressman to request an inquiry by the House Ways and Means Committee into the pension liabilities and the sale of camps. "I am worried that America's Girl Scouts are now selling cookies to fund pension plans instead of camping," wrote Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, in a letter last month to the committee chairman. Compounding the problems are tensions at GSUSA headquarters in New York, where several senior executives have quit or been ousted since Anna Maria Chavez took over as CEO in 2011. Last week, some of the roughly 325 employees there were invited to take early retirement, and Chavez said an unspecified number of layoffs were expected in August to offset the revenue losses.
Chavez insists the GSUSA is on the right track, although she acknowledged that sweeping changes in structure and programs over the past 10 years have been difficult for many in the Scouts' extended family.
"Change can be unsettling and it is not surprising that some would prefer for us to remain static," she said. "But doing so would be a disservice to girls who need us now more than ever." Indeed, there's a common denominator between the GSUSA leaders and their critics — earnest expressions of devotion to the Girl Scouts and fervent hopes that it manages to thrive.
"I care so much about this organization, and that's why I hate to see it pulled down," said Suellen Nelles, CEO of a local council based in Fairbanks, Alaska. "We have leadership at the top who are toxic to this organization and need to go."
Connie Lindsey, the president of GSUSA's governing board, said the board had confidence in Chavez, despite the various problems. "Our board supports our CEO," said Lindsey, a corporate executive from Chicago. "We know it's a difficult charge we've given her."
Since 2003, the Girl Scouts have undergone what they describe as a "complete transformation" aimed at making their programs and image more relevant to a diverse population of girls and parents. Changes have affected uniforms, handbooks, merit badges, program materials, even the logo and the fine print on the boxes of Girl Scout cookies. "Our brand, as iconic as it is, was misunderstood — it was dated," Chavez said in an interview in her Manhattan office Friday. Yet today the Girl Scouts have about 2.2 million youth members, down from more than 2.8 million in 2003. Donations to the national office and local councils plunged to $104 million in 2011 from nearly $148 million in 2007.
The biggest change — implemented from 2006 to 2009 by Chavez' predecessor, Kathy Cloninger — was a realignment that slashed the number of local councils from 312 to 112. It was intended to increase efficiency, but resulted in the departure of many longtime employees and volunteers. A handful of councils resisted, and one of them, the Manitou Council based in Sheboygan, Wis., sued to block its merger in 2008 after negotiations failed to resolve its concerns. The council argued that it deserved the same protections as a for-profit franchise operator, and in 2011 the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.
"From a commercial standpoint, the Girl Scouts are not readily distinguishable from Dunkin' Donuts," the court wrote in its opinion.
Also refusing to merge was the council led by Nelles — the Farthest North Girl Scout Council in Fairbanks. Nelles, who contended that realignment weakened local control while saddling councils with new financial burdens, says she's been ostracized by the national office. "Questioning authority is very much frowned upon," she said. "If anyone resisted them at any point, they said we just wanted to hold onto the past."
Among other consequences, the mergers affected the Girl Scouts' national pension plan, because many employees were added to it as an inducement to take early retirement. One council, the Nashville-based Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee, is suing to get out of the pension plan. The lawsuit contends the GSUSA added as many as 1,850 employees to the plan who hadn't contributed to it, leaving local councils with a liability they had not agreed to fund. According to the suit, the pension plan had a surplus of more than $150 million in 2007. It now has a deficit of about $347 million, according to GSUSA figures.
One of the Tennessee council's lawyers, James Bristol, stressed that his clients were not seeking money from the GSUSA, but rather wanted to negotiate a remedy. "They would not negotiate," Bristol said. "They've told us, 'We've got this under control.'"
The GSUSA has filed a motion for the case to be dismissed. It is also asking Congress to pass legislation that would provide relief by stretching out the timetable for local councils to pay into the pension plan. Without such relief, councils could face a 40 percent increase in pension expenses next year, and be forced into layoffs and program cuts, according to GSUSA.
Financial stress already has prompted many local councils to consider selling off old summer camps, both to gain revenue and reduce maintenance costs. In many states — including Iowa, Ohio, New York, Alabama and Missouri — the sell-off plans provoked intense debate. Pro-camp activists argue that camping is integral to the Girl Scout experience; local leaders contend that today's girls are less keen on camping than their predecessors.
A decision by the Girl Scouts of North East Ohio to close several camps prompted a lawsuit by disgruntled adult members, as well as calls for a boycott of cookie sales. The gap between the sides was summarized on the website of Trefoil Integrity, formed by some dissident members. "The board believes that classes in leadership, financial literacy, and robotics competition are what girls need," it said. "Camp supporters believe that leadership is learned through the experiences of real living ... Children need camps as places of quiet, of basic challenges, of connection to nature."
Chavez said the GSUSA respects the views of dissident alumnae and adult volunteers, but is convinced it's making the right choices on behalf of today's girls by offering a balanced program that will produce future leaders. "Camps will always be part of our mission," she said. "But girls aren't living in the past — they're living in the future."
A Girl Scout herself while growing up in Arizona, Chavez, 45, took over as the GSUSA's first Hispanic CEO after serving as chief executive of Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas. She's pleased by a 55 percent surge in the number of Hispanic Girl Scouts since 2000. Under her leadership, a new set of handbooks seeks to nurture such attributes as environmental awareness, healthy lifestyles and critical thinking. New programs seek to boost girls' competency with money matters and encourage them to pursue careers in science and technology.
In the fiscal realm, GSUSA has launched a campaign to raise $1 billion by 2017. To improve relations with local councils, it has created the position of chief customer officer, with the mission of assisting local leaders with operational matters so they can focus more energy on programs. However, the changes have not stemmed the membership decline. GSUSA Treasurer Joan Wagnon reported in March that revenue from membership dues was down 3.8 percent over the past year and nationwide cookie sales for 2012-13 were down about 4.5 percent. The national headquarters' operating budget relies heavily on efforts of the local councils, notably the $12 annual dues paid by individual Girl Scouts plus revenue from sales of uniforms and merchandise. The dues are scheduled to rise to $15 later this year.
The Girl Scouts note that many youth organizations have been losing members, for reasons including competition from youth sports leagues and a perception by some families that they are old-fashioned. The Boy Scouts of America's youth membership declined from 3.3 million in 2002 to about 2.6 million last year. During that period, the Boy Scouts — who have no formal ties with the Girl Scouts — have been entangled in controversy over membership policies that excluded gays and atheists. The GSUSA provided a contrast with inclusive membership policies, although it suffered some defections from families who felt it had become too liberal.
Some adult Girl Scout members say the recent program changes have gone overboard in de-emphasizing traditional outdoor activities and replacing them with curricula that replicates schoolwork. "In trying to be more relevant, they've gone too far the other way," said Cheryl Brown, former CEO of a Girl Scout council in Arkansas. She left the post in 2009, soon after her council was forced to merge with four others. Brown also said pressure from headquarters to boost membership led some councils to recruit girls with no intention of engaging them in the full scope of Girl Scout activities. "It no longer was about the girls — it was about the money," she said.
Booth Kammann, CEO of the Girl Scout Council of the Southern Appalachians, said she encountered membership problems when she took over the Knoxville, Tenn.-based council in 2009 after the realignment. She eliminated programs in which girls were not fully engaged. Coupled with departures of volunteers — including some dismayed by the mergers — Kammann's council now reports a membership of 12,246 girls and 4,615 adults, compared to about 20,000 girls and 7,000 adults in 2009.
Kammann says she has a waiting list of more than 300 girls, yet can't find enough adults to mentor them. Overall, she's optimistic about the Girl Scouts' future, but says the pace of change has taken a toll.
"Do I think there's been some change fatigue? Yes," she said. "It's like rebuilding an airplane when it's in the air."
Nationwide, the shortage of volunteers is a critical problem, according to Chavez, who wants to develop new recruiting strategies as the GSUSA works to improve its finances. "At the end of the day, we're not serving enough girls," she said.
Chavez acknowledged there is room for improved communications within the nationwide Girl Scout family, including the 59 million alumnae, and she plans new efforts to reach out to them for advice, financial support and volunteer service.
"I'm excited — we're actually going to activate our base," she said. "This iconic organization, which has given back to this country for 100 years, needs your help."
Among the skeptical alumnae is Jane Duax, 56, of Davenport, Iowa, who was a Girl Scout back in the 1960s, later served as a troop leader and cookie mom, and recently has been active fighting plans to close four summer camps.
"The leadership has taken on this for-profit mentality, and let go of the not-for-profit service," Duax said. "Maybe they can get a do-over on the pension plan, but there's no do-over with the land. Once it's gone, it's gone."
Joni Kinsey, an art historian at the University of Iowa, credits her Girl Scout experience with kindling her interest in Western art. Now, as a troop leader, she's dismayed at how changes to the organization have unfolded. "Part of Girl Scout culture was that we make decisions collaboratively," she said. "Suddenly it's become an adversarial relationship where it's us against them."
"To those of us who dearly love this organization, having to resort to protest mode is not what we want to do," said Kinsey, 54. "We've been marginalized as this small, discontented group of dowdy older women trying to live in their memories."
The unease is shared by many younger employees, volunteers and alumnae — dozens of whom have joined a group called The Future is Ours.
The group's chair, Amanda Kremer from the Heart of Michigan Council, posted a letter to Chavez online, proposing a dialogue on how to improve the Girl Scouts' finances, boost youth membership and attract top-notch staff.
"We want to make sure that we inherit a financially sound organization poised to last another 100 years," the letter says. "We do not think things are headed in that direction currently." Since posting the letter, Kremer, 26, says she's had two substantive phone conversations with GSUSA chief of staff Nhadine Leung. Kremer described the conversations as positive, saying the national leadership seemed to recognize the severity of the challenges. "What we want is for everyone to feel they have a say — so girls can continue to have the wonderful experiences that we had," Kremer said.