Cancel Girl Scout Cookies?

 

It is that time of year again, time for Girl Scout Cookies.  It is also time for the yearly barrage of Facebook posts claiming that Girl Scouts supports Planned Parenthood (for the truth, read this post), that it exploints child labor, and now, some about how Girl Scout Cookies use palm oil (an ingredient found in the majority of store-bought cookies).  Maybe the cookie sale has outlived its usefulness and it is time to move on.  

Who Benefits from Cookies

GSUSA

GSUSA is the national organization that develops programming and sets policies.  You can read here about how they spend money.  GSUSA licenses the images on the boxes and the name "Girl Scouts"; without their permission there would be no "Girl Scout" cookies.  

GSUSA serves about 1.8 million girls.  They list their royalty income as $9,386,000 or about $5.21 per girl.  I'm sure the lion's share of this is cookies, but it also covers branded merchandise like yogurt or dog treats.  This line item is about 7.4% of GSUSA's budget.  

Local Councils

Every part of the USA is part of a Girl Scout council.  Councils are independently incorporated non-profits which own and operate Girl Scout properties such as camps, Girl Scout huts, Leadership Centers, STEM Centers and office buildings.  Their paid staff recruits and trains leaders, develops local programming, operates the facilities, provides support to troop leaders, provides liability insurance (read about it here) to troops and handles the administrative end of things.  I went poking around on some council websites for information about  their finances and picked some very different councils, at least geographically, to showcase.  Your council should have a similar report available. 

Girl Scouts Louisiana East

This is my council.  We have 10,821 girls and cover about 1/3 of the state of Louisiana, including the two largest cities, Baton Rouge and New Orleans.   Our total expenses in 2019 were $3,581,814 or about $348.49 per girl.  Of that, $2,846,076 or $276.82 or over 79% came from product sales, mostly cookies.  

Girl Scouts Greater Los Angeles

This California council has 46,821 girls.  Their total expenses were $22,723,862 or about $485 per girl.  Product sales provided $18,595,781 or about $397.16 per girl.  About 82% of their council costs are covered by product sales. 

Girl Scouts South Carolina Mountains to Midlands

They serve 7826 girls in the whole state of South Carolina.  Their expenses were $5,321,999 or about 680 per girl.  Product sales netted $3,679,360 or about $470 per girl, about 69% of the cost.

Girl Scouts New Hampshire

There are 10,400 Girl Scouts in New Hampshire.  Their council spends $5,779,184, or about $555 per girl.  They get $3,994,493 from product sales, or about $384 per girl, which is about 69% of the budget. 

Girl Scouts Dakota Horizons

This council covers North Dakota, South Dakota, western Minnesota and a little bit of Iowa.  It serves 8834 girls.  Its expenses totalled $5,612,725 or about $635 per girl.  Product sales provided $3,353,486 or about $379.61 per girl, about 59% of the cost.  

Girl Scouts Greater New York 

This is the New York City council.  It serves 32,280 girls all in New York City (quite different from all the territory covered by Dakota Horizons). It spent $10,225,797 or about $316.78 per girl, and earned $4,094,373 (about $126.83 per girl) from product sales (about 40% of expenses). 

Troops and Girls

One criticism of the cookie sale is that it uses child labor to raise money for the organization, and that the girls get so little of the money.  Girls work for proceeds to their troop (and in some cases to a Juliette account) plus prizes, which can include "cookie dough"--gift certificates that can be used in the council shop or for council programs, including camp. The amount awarded per box varies between councils depending on the price the council thinks the market will bear and the council's needs.  There is no debating it, councils get the lion's share of cookie proceeds.  But what about the girls?  

In my council in 2019, 6394 girls participated in the cookie program (and I suspect that some of the other 4427 bought cookies, they just didn't sign up to sell them--and others were girls who were Girl Scouts only for summer camp).  We sold 1,148,280 boxes.  Like most councils we have tiered proceeds with more money per box going to troops which sell more boxes per girl.  Still, about 50 cents a box is a good estimate of troop proceeds.  If you divide the boxes sold by the total number of girls selling you get an average of 179 boxes per girl.  At 50 cents a box, that means girls and their troops got an average of $89.79 per girl.  I do not know how this compares to other areas of the country.  

Troops plow some of this money back to GSUSA through registration fees and to the council for programming fees and shop purchases, so even this money goes to support the organization, along with providing programming for the girls.  

What's the Alternative?

Of course if we want to cancel cookies, we need to have an alternate plan.  It is easy to say that National or Councils spend too much money and when you break it down per girl, for a volunteer-run organization, the cost does seem high.  However, much of the cost is related to facilities, which cost the same to run whether a council has 10,000 girls, 12,000 girls or 15,000 girls.  Unfortunately the number of girls in the age cohort moving through Girl Scouts now is smaller than the cohort from 10 or 20 years ago. Further, there are a lot of activities available now that might not have been, including Scouts BSA, which means we  have to spend money on recruiting or risk losing the share of girls we have traditionally had.  Sure, we could save money by shutting down our camps, but aren't they a large part of what makes us special?  

So, what other fundraiser can you think of that will earn an average of about $280 per girl, much of which comes from people with no connection to Girl Scouts?  Maybe cancelling Girl Scout Cookies isn't such a good idea.