Girl Scouts Going Under??? (party, teens, teaching, average)

[stormy night]

Now ponder this: Girl Scout cookie sales is the main souce of funding for this organization. The number of cookies in each package has been reduced while the price has gone up. Financially, the Girl Scouts are in trouble.

Now ponder this: Only 15% of cookie sales stays local for each troop. That means 85% goes to national administration. There was an ad for a regional council CEO in Florida last year. The pay offered was $90,000+/yr.. I looked and couldn't find how much the top CEO, Kathy Cloninger rakes in per year, but my guess is that its' a whole lot more than $100,000.

How many regional CEOs are there making over $90,000/yr.? If that was just for a portion of Florida, I'm thinking there must be a LOT. Basically, the girl scout cookie sales go to support those salaries.

I'd have a problem with that. What do you think?

http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/02/20/girl-scouts-shrink-cookies-customers-shrink-sales/?icid=200100397x1218786437x1201325385

[CHTransplant]

Originally Posted by stormy night

Now ponder this: Only 15% of cookie sales stays local for each troop. That means 85% goes to national administration.

Wouldn't most of the proceeds from the cookie sales actually go to pay for the cost of the cookies? So if they locals are getting 15% (essentially profit) that sounds like a pretty good cut to me.

[okpondlady]

In our local council it cost $4 for a box of cookies. Here is the break down.

The Troop itself earns .50 per box sold.

The Girl gets .30 per box to use for credit in the store, for camp, for activities, ect. BOTH of my daughters have paid their own way to camp with cookies sales before. Do you know how good it feels when you are 10 to be able to do that? Two years ago my 16 year old sister paid her way on a trip to ENGLAND to the world jamboree mainly with cookie sales. If a girl (or her family) wants to do the work, they can go ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD with Girl Scouts.

The rest of the # I have is percentages.

56% is for programming. Yes this includes salaries, facilities, feed for the horses at camp, gas for the vans they use on trips, materials for training new leaders. All sorts of stuff like that. In ANY BUSINESS it is necessary to have these things. How many people that have a Master's or Doctorate in Education, Business, or Park Recreation or ANYTHING ELSE for that matter do you know that are going to donate their whole year? Career? I don't know about you but there are VERY FEW people that I know that can donate enough time to keep a major organization like that running. In our local area (NE Half of Oklahoma) there are less than 50 paid employees. From the CEO, Accounting, Store Clerks, to the Rangers that do our maintenance and security at the camps.

22% cost of cookies. No matter what you get for a fundraiser it is gonna cost you something.

13% troop proceeds. I think that is a pretty good chunk actually.

7.5% Cookie Credit. This is what we all work for. Mainly my goal is for my daughter to be able to sell enough cookies that her Girl Scout Year don't take more than it has to out of my pocket. This means camp also.

1.25% incentives for the girls. Yeah those cheesy little prizes the girls love so much.

.25 Service Unit Bonus.. this is money that stays in the troop's local area. We use it for a Halloween party every year to celebrate the founder's birthday and a campout. They girls directly benefit from it.
If you don't want to give anything to the local council (NOT NATIONAL, they don't benefit from cookies sales believe it or not) then go up to the leader that is having a booth sale in front of Wal-Mart or the grocery store and hand them $5. Believe me we can always use donations.

More than anything else, thank you all for buying Girl Scout Cookies. Without you, my daughters wouldn't be the people they are. Girls of Courage, Confidence, and Character who WILL make the world a better place to live.

Girl Scouts of the USA: Official Web Site
STUDIO 2B: The Place for Teens

http://www.girlscoutseastok.org/imag...ews_Dec_08.pdf

[sskkc]

The number of cookies in each package has been reduced while the price has gone up.

Not a true statement here in Colorado. Last year cookies were $3.25 a box, this year they are $3.25 a box. There are an average of 2 fewer cookies per box here though.

Our troop gets 50 cents per box. The rest of the $$ goes to the Council. All of it funds Girl Scouts. As with everything else this year, sales are down. But our little troop (8 girls) is doing well and will have enough funds to cover all registrations, patches/pins, crafts, and some special activities like summer camps & day camps and trips to local entertainment venues.

Girl Scouts aren't "going down". What a negative thing to say about an organization who focuses on not only JUST DOING but DOING POSITIVE things for girls.

We appreciate all the folks who buy cookies from our girls and make all these things possible... even if my little troop of 6 year olds don't fully understand the full implications yet.

so...

THANKS!

[121804]

Originally Posted by okpondlady

More than anything else, thank you all for buying Girl Scout Cookies. Without you, my daughters wouldn't be the people they are. Girls of Courage, Confidence, and Character who WILL make the world a better place to live.

For the size of the cookie & how many are in a box...they are expensive.

That being said, I can't pass them up.

Not only could I eat an entire box of the ones with caramel, choc, & coconut in less than 5 mins , I can never pass up the cookie or candy bar sales from the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts...just the underlying theme itself is so positive & worthwhile, that if anything, the $4 I donate is also teaching a young girl responsibility, tithing, dedication and confidence...and if I can be just one inkling of that sort of thing, than I will give as much as I can.

[lisdol]

Thanks to everyone who buys the cookies!

My daughter is in scouts for the first time this year and she is having a great time. She has 3 brothers and the girl time she gets in scouts is such a boon.

Thanks to all the moms who help out with the troops. I wish I could help more - when my husband is in town and can watch the boys I stay for the meetings and help out, but that is the most I can do.

[SuSuSushi]

Originally Posted by stormy night

Now ponder this: Girl Scout cookie sales is the main souce of funding for this organization. The number of cookies in each package has been reduced while the price has gone up. Financially, the Girl Scouts are in trouble.

I think they need better cookies. The ones they have are sub-par quality, and much better can be found just inside the doors of the grocery stores where the Girl Scouts lurk, trying to get people to buy their inferior goods.

If I wanted to help the Girl Scouts, I'd give them a direct donation because the cookies aren't worth even half what is charged.

[slim04]

From what I remember, the Girl Scouts use a variety of bakeries to make their cookies and they typically charged them about 40 to 45 cents per box. The local troop received 50 cents per box and the rest of the profit went to regional and the national Girl Scout organizations. Exactly where that money goes, who knows?

Because of this, I typically just donate $20 in cash to my local troop. It's the equivalent to me of buying 40 boxes of cookies and I stay thinner.

[Ohiogirl81]

Exactly where that money goes, who knows?

Every nonprofit organization incurs administrative costs: oversight, budgeting, accounts payable and receiveable, human resources, fundraising, marketing, training. At the regional level, that means supporting the individual troops, training troop leaders, providing opportunities for the girls in each troop, etc.

[michiganmom48]

I just bought cookies for 3.50 a box and could not believe how small the boxes got.