(September 6, 2015 at 4:23 am)I_am_not_mafia Wrote:(September 5, 2015 at 9:00 pm)Aroura Wrote: I DO mind half the Girl Scout year being focuses on sales. AND you cannot opt out. Well, you can, but if you do opt out of sales, you are disallowed from doing your own fundraising. You can only do your own fundraising if you ALSO sell cookies AND nuts. Sigh.
When I read that in that OP I immediately suspected that the CEO has made a deal with a corporation who somehow financially benefits from the sale of cookies. Do the girl scouts bake their own cookies or are they supplied? If they are supplied then I bet the CEO personally profits or benefits from this somehow.
Sorry IANM, I did not see this until just now.
They hire a baker (There are actually 2 bakers, one is Keebler, and the other is a company I'm unfamiliar with). Their cookies are slightly different from each other. Last year, Keebler did not produce enough cookies, and we ran out one week into the season. Our big order was still there though, so they shipped us 600+ boxes on the last weekend of sales, and we were not allowed to extend booth sales, even though we had shit tons of cookies to sell. My kid and I just about broke our necks selling door to door and busines to business. But we did get to try the "other" cookie brand. I like their Thin Mints, but the rest of their cookies were way worse than the Keeeble made ones.
Girl Scouts baked their own cookie through the start of WW2, I think, but around that time, started hiring large bakeries to make the cookies so they would be easier to market.
My understanding is that the money from each box of cookies is divided thusly: (approx, and it varies a little from council to council)
10% goes straight to the troop.
10% goes directly to the girl who sold it, in the form of "incentives" (I hate incentives, they are cheap ass bribes) and "cookie dough", which can be spent on things like camp, new uniforms, and other cool activities. I like the Cookie Dough. That ought to be incentive enough.
About 65% to 70% goes to the local service unit and local council to maintain properties, host camps, and fund events. A council usually encompasses a state or so (I'm in the Oregon and SW Washington council), and the service unit is your smaller local group of volunteers. I don't know how council and the SU's split up that 65-70%)
The remaining 10% to 15% pays the baker.
Not one penny goes to the CEO or management, or so they claim. I have never heard of any scandal in this regard, so I'm inclined to believe this claim. I do not know how GS's fund the upper management, or maintain their 4 overseas properties (They have one in England, one in Switzerland, one in India, and one in Mexico, if memory serves.)
It's something I should probably look into. :p
Hey, on a bright note, my co-leader found us a troop where I can just be a regular mom doing fun GS things, instead of the stress of being Leader. So, I'm hoping that works out....for my daughters sake. She has enjoyed many aspects of GS's. Me and my girl just will not sell cookies to the general public, only to family. Mmmm....Samoas!
“Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end?”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead