GSUSA's Proposed Dues Increase: My Opinion

My automatic, almost reflexive thought when I heard that GSUSA wanted to raise girl dues to $85 per year was to say "no way, that's way too much".  But that's really not the way to look at it, as sometimes you have to pay more to have nice things. 

On the other hand, I drive a 2017 Honda Accord and have no intention of changing vehicles any time soon. The one I have is comfortable, drives well and doesn't spend much time in the shop.  I have no reason to upgrade, and prefer to keep my money for other things. 

So, is GSUSA asking us to replace a rusted out beater, and, if so, with what?  Or do they want to trade in the Accord for a new Lexus?  

To come up with the answer, I reviewed  GSUSA's proposal asking for the dues increase.  I also reviewed the latest Annual Stewardship report.  

The proposal, summarized on the graphic below, describes how they plan to spend the money, if dues are increased to a certain level.  I realize I am not going to 100% agree with anyone on the priorities for an organization as large as GSUSA, and that if 1000 people were asked to create a written budget for GSUSA, utilizing certain categories and a given amount of money, you could get 1000 budgets, some of which are very different from each other.  

The Structure of Girl Scouts

Based on comments on Facebook and on a survey I am running, some people do not understand the structure of Girl Scouts, so here is a short overview.

GSUSA

All Girl Scouts in the United States are members of GSUSA, which is a national organization.  It owns the term "Girl Scouts".  It is the "big picture" organization responsible for program development and overall policy.  GSUSA decides what "Girl Scouts" do in this generation.  GSUSA is based in New York City and is supported by our yearly membership dues, licensing fees charged to anyone who uses the terms "Girl Scout" or "Girl Scout Cookies" on their products.  They also get grants and charitable contributions and sell merchandise, including uniforms, program materials and insignia.  You can read more about their finances, both now and historically by reading this post.  The only money GSUSA gets from cookies is the licensing fees they charge the bakers.  

GSUSA does not own camps.  They do own the Macy Center outside of New York City and a couple of buildings associated with Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of Girl Scouts, in Savannah Georgia.  While GSUSA developed a process for reviewing camp needs and expenses, GSUSA does not directly make any decisions about whether to close camps or keep them open, or what facilities to offer. 

GSUSA also provides a small accident insurance policy to all members to cover injuries during Girl Scout activities.  Read about it here. 

GSUSA provides some financial support to councils--generally in the form of directed grants for A, B, or C, as opposed to a general revenue sharing.  They provide IT services to councils (and require the councils to use them and pay for them). 

The cost to operate GSUSA last year was about $116 per girl enrolled in GSUSA. This is more than twice the per-girl cost in 2018; however membership has dropped from 1.8 million girls to about a million girls and there has not been a corresponding drop in the cost of what GSUSA provides. 

Councils

The United States is divided into 112 geographically-based Girl Scout Councils.  These local non-profit corporations own and operate Girl Scout properties like camps, Dream Labs, council offices, STEM Centers and, sometimes, local Girl Scout houses.  They have paid staff that recruit and train leaders and recruit girls.  They provide programming.  Financial aid for needy girls comes from the council budgets. 

Some councils charge council dues, some do not.  Councils get  most of their money from cookies and fall products. They also make some money off the council shop and they have user fees for camps or activities.  

Troops/Groups

These are the small local groups that deliver the Girl Scout program to the girls. They are led by volunteers and are financed by some combination of money from product sales, parental contributions and, someone, additional money-earning projects. 

My Analysis of the Proposal:

GSUSA's proposal is here. My review follows (I'm starting on page 11) Regular type is GSUSA; italics is me.

This evolution includes significantly improving how we deliver programming (e.g., the Girl Scout Experience Box), making it easier to volunteer with simplified processes and tools.

I haven't heard people complaining about difficulty in delivering programming; rather the complaints have been about the quality/content of the programming. Putting bad programming in a box and mailing to leaders isn't making their life easier.

Currently, only 1 in 25 girls in the U.S. is a Girl Scout, and membership has declined for both girls and adults. 

The question is why has it declined.  Is it the program?  Is it other choices? How much of the problem is difficulty in getting volunteers?

The Girl Scout Movement continuously evolves by listening to Girl Scout voices during changing times and learning from research for additional insights.

Again, maybe the folks I know are abnormal, but one thing I hear over and over again is that GSUSA isn't listening to us.  They jammed Journeys down our throats.  They finally got the message that we wanted more badges, but then it became STEM, STEM and more STEM.  People ask for skill-based badges but GSUSA does not provide those.  I've gotten a few surveys from GSUSA and I've rarely felt my voice was heard by the time I finished them.

These dues changes bring the cost of Girl Scout membership more in line with similar organizations

My mom used to ask whether I'd jump off a cliff if other people did. 

To stand effectively for girls, we must commit to making sure no financial barriers prevent girls from joining and staying in Girl Scouts.

And substantially raising dues helps this how?

Feedback highlighted the need to

• be a more welcoming organization where girls from all backgrounds feel that they belong,

• ensure that sufficient financial assistance is available for girls and families,

• invest in publicly sharing the value of Girl Scouting and broadly communicating what Girl Scouts do,

• simplify the volunteer experience and make it more rewarding,

• make the older girl program more visible and engaging, and

• improve technology to make it easier for girls, families, and volunteers to join and participate.

I don't know how you spend your way to being welcoming.  

I am fortunate; money has never been a problem at my house. I don't know how people feel about asking for financial assistance. In other words, are people who can afford $25 per year but can't afford $85 going to ask for financial assistance or are they going to just say it costs too much?  

 Investing in publicly sharing the value of Girl Scouting...I know marketing is a fact of life, but I'm not convinced that the lack of marketing/public awareness is our problem

As far as simplifying the volunteer experience, in my opinion, that is done but giving us a quality program.  My problem with the Daisy Flower Garden Journey would not have been solved by sending me a box of stuff.  

I agree that the older girl program needs massive changes

For a group that is pushing STEM, STEM and more STEM, the technology used by GSUSA is horrible.  It's not that they are clunking along with outdated stuff, they have stuff that, at least for members, has NEVER worked well.  

We have held dues steady for 8 years and have not shared the increased costs of technology, which in turn means the GSUSA expense budget is larger because of national technology costs for all members and all councils. 

GSUSA just settled a lawsuit with a council over the technology issue.  Again, the technology chosen by GSUSA does not work well and never has. 

Managing costs is difficult, as many of GSUSA’s services for all councils are fixed expenses that do not go down when membership decreases. Because Girl Scouts is a membership organization, declining membership reduces the revenue needed to operate the Movement.

Actually, I agree with this and understand the problem, a problem that isn't likely to get much better as the youth population decreases and other opportunities are available to girls. 

Increased dues will:

• make programs easier to deliver for volunteers,

• make technology easier to use, with more integration between platforms, including integrating technology tools that some volunteers already use at your council,

• ensure that processes are easier, faster, and better streamlined, including more ‘turnkey’ training, recruitment tools, and programs,

• clarify and amplify for families and communities the value and impact of the Girl Scout experience and why girls should join and donors should invest,

• eliminate barriers so that every girl who wants to join Girl Scouts can do so and engage in all that Girl Scouting offers,

and

• create new experiences, including opportunities to explore new places and better connect with our global sisterhood.

All sounds good.  The problem quite frankly, is that I don't trust GSUSA to spend money wisely.  The first item on the list on the graphic above is DEIRJ.  About 10% of the text in GSUSA's most recent Annual Stewardship Report is about DEIRJ.   Quite frankly, that's a political philosophy/movement and GSUSA needs to stay out of politics.  The Girl Scout Law governs how we treat others, no matter the color of their skin, their religious beliefs or the language they speak.  To list this as the top spending priority shows how out of touch with membership the GSUSA leadership is. 

There are a lot of technology goals on the graphic above, but again, for whatever reason GSUSA has done a horrible job buying technology.  They are basically asking us to give them money, but they haven't shown they are good at spending what they have.  

Again, in my opinion, the difficulty delivering the program isn't that we don't have boxes delivered, it is that the programming isn't what people want.  People who want robotics badges want robots, not exercises in algorithmic thinking and moving stuffed animals through mazes.  My problem executing the Junior Design in Nature isn't going to be solved by putting a stopwatch, a map and measuring device, a topographical map and a collection of worksheets in a box and sending it to me, along with printed copies of the VTK script.   The problem is the badge is not well written. If done as recommended by GSUSA via VTK, it is a series of math worksheets.  The reason leaders consider the badge difficult to deliver is that they have to figure out a completely different plan for this badge. 

The most recent new badges were last year's Art and Design badges.  I did surveys about them in the spring, and not surprisingly, most people did not follow the VTK/Badge insert closely.  Might they have done so if they could order a "Badge in Box"?  I doubt it, since much of what was skipped was sketching, design talk and revisions. 

During Covid, many councils put up badge plans for home use.  The badge and Journey plans of Girl Scouts River Valleys were popular for years.  GSUSA made the councils take these plans down.  These websites, in my opinion did more to make the program easy to deliver than a Badge in a Box would.  If you want to make the program easier for leaders to deliver, letting councils put up plans would accomplish more than badges in a box would.  

For five years, GSUSA will provide councils a percentage of the total annual girl membership revenue at the following rates: 

a. If girl member dues are $85 or above, 32% of this revenue will be provided to councils.

b. If girl member dues are between $75 and $84, 30% of this revenue will be provided to councils.

c. If girl member dues are between $65 and $74, 25% of this revenue will be provided to councils.

 

My first thought is "What about after five years?"  Is GSUSA going to be able to basically give themselves a raise at that point?  Also, is this revenue going to be distributed on a pro-rata basis or will councils line up to ask for needed funds, such that the rich are subsidizing the poor?  Will councils still be allowed to charge council fees? 

My second though is this:

a. $85*.32=27.20 to council, $57.80 to GSUSA, or an increase of  $32.80 for GSUSA

b. $75*.30=$22.50 to council, $52.50 to GSUSA, or an increase of $27.50 for GSUSA

c. $65*.25=$16.25 to council, $48.75 to GSUSA or an increase of $23.75 for GSUSA

So What Would My Vote Be?

If I had a vote, which I don't, I would grant GSUSA a $20 per girl increase.  I would not raise adult dues.  

Why? 

Because they need more money.  They have certain functions to perform and the cost of performing them has not decreased, even though membership has.  However, as noted above, I don't trust them to be good stewards of the money. 

I would be willing to consider another increase in two years, if GSUSA makes some improvements to the program and/or to technology. 

The way the program is delivered today, via individual badge inserts/VTK plans, should make it easy enough to provide incremental changes to the program, as they have been doing for years. 

We need new/better older girl programming. Put out some non-STEM badges for Cadettes/Seniors/Ambassadors in a format that multi-level troops can use.  Show us that you are committed to things that matter to members.  While the handbook idea plays well on Facebook groups, I'm not convinced enough copies would be sold to justify the cost of a complete program re-do in one fell swoop.  Rather, use new programming to show us that you've heard us and that you can actually do the job.   

Journeys are no more popular today than they were when first introduced, nor do many people realize that learning to do a TAP is the goal of the Journey.  If you are still bound and determined to have the girls do TAPs, come up with a new way to teach them that is focused on the TAP, without the noise of the Journey around it.  

We have new management at GSUSA.  They deserve not to be hamstrung by the errors of the past.  However, they need to listen to members and give us the program we want. 

Any organization that wants to outlive its founders has to balance serving the needs/wants of current members with attracting new members.  If there are groups that are underserved by Girl Scouts then reaching out to them is a good idea, just don't price your current members out of the group to do so, nor should you change the purpose and function of the group to make it more attractive to those who might become members (we tried that with Studio 2-B, remember?).  

GSUSA needs to learn to live within its means (maybe the folks working there would enjoy the financial literacy badges more than my girls do) and to put out a program that is enjoyable for the girls and easy to implement (usually things that are fun for the girls are easy for the leaders).  Maybe that would increase membership so that dues do not have to be increased.  

I think GSUSA is asking for too much money in one fell swoop, and while they have a lot of promises, the last twenty years have not filled me with confidence in their ability or willingness to fulfill the promises.