Just Plain Fun

While enjoying a bowl of Edy's Girl Scouts Thin Mint ice cream, I recalled an email from a staff member at a Girl Scouts who objected to the effort spent merchandising such products. She asked, "How does Girl Scouts branded ice cream support our goal of re-branding ourselves as more than just cookies & camping?"

There's a big push at my company to get the word out that Scouting is about more than just the outdoors. We have programs ranging from robotics to financial literacy to environmentalism to you name it. The re-branding effort centers around getting people to think "leadership organization for girls" before they think "Mmmm, Thin Mints."

Upon hearing all of this, my grandmother, a former Girl Scout, long-time troop leader & volunteer, said, "When I was doing it, we had more *fun* with the girls."

That statement, combined with a poorly timed episode of Boston Legal where a mother sues her daughter's school for overworking her children to the point where they fall asleep at the wheel & die, put kind of a damper on my enthusiasm for the re-branding effort.

And I got to thinking, why is it that Girl Scouts needs to change that image? What's wrong with being all about camping and cookies and field trips? Why not be satisfied with the organization's value in helping girls learn about their environment and spend time outdoors?

The unfortunate answer to this question and so many others: Money.

It costs $12 to be a Girl Scout (plus other small but assorted fees depending on how you participate), but for every girl, a council typically invests over $200 toward the volunteer training, program development and facilities that go into her having that experience. The money comes mainly from two places: cookie sales, and donations made by members/alumni, local businesses, and perhaps most importantly, organizations like United Way.

United Way and other large contributors prefer not to fund programs that result in nothing more than fun, memories, and friendships. They would rather see outcomes that clearly show some level of academic accomplishment, skill improvement, or tangible contribution to the community. It's certainly a noble cause, but it's a shame that the direction of the organization is effectively dictated not by its history or its obvious strengths, but by the need to acquire more funding from other organizations with different agendas.

But anyway. This is some damn good ice cream.