Girl Scouts Seeks New Members

Most everyone’s image of the Girl Scouts of the USA is of a girl in a green uniform selling cookies. And truthfully, for most of the organization’s 101-year history, this image rang true.

But times change, and on October 1, the Girl Scouts launches a new national recruitment campaign titled I Can’t Wait To Be A Girl Scout to illustrate that today’s Girl Scouts is not yesterday’s troops.

This reinvention represents many ‘firsts’ for the group. This the first time the Girl Scouts is focusing on two specific demographics — girls in grades K-5 and adult leaders — rather than developing a comprehensive universal message. This is the first time the group is forgoing a big national ad campaign and PSAs in favor of peer-to-peer recruitment strategies. And this is the first break from the traditional troop structure.

Up until now, there was one set way to belong to the Girl Scouts: sign up and join a group of girls who gather in their neighborhood or school. You would attend weekly or monthly meetings, participating in the same programs, and working towards the same patches as everyone else.

This one-size-fits-all model demanded commitment, effort, and free time, from both girls and their troop leaders. And it doesn’t work in today’s overscheduled era. As such, the number of members and troop leaders has been declining over the past few years. “The reality as a youth organization is that today’s childhood has changed from 10-15 years ago,” says the Girl Scouts’ Anna Maria Chavez. “Our number one challenge is competing with all of the things for their attention. The Girl Scouts needs to stay relevant and on their radar.”

The Girl Scouts’ Sarah Gormley adds, “There’s this perception that in order to volunteer, you have to be a mother or father. That’s not necessarily true. You just have to want to give back or share your knowledge.” And they are casting a wide net: parents, non-parents, women, and men. In fact, there are more than 34,000 men over age 18 who serve as troop leaders.

Now, in order to accommodate busy schedules for both leaders and members, the Girl Scouts has developed “several menus of membership options,” says Gormley. The activities themselves remain relatively consistent with prior generations, but there are now multiple avenues to experience them. “There are universal drivers that compel people to join the Girl Scouts, regardless of whether they are five or 50,” says Chavez. “And that is to deliver new experiences that are fun and exciting.”

The series pathway, for instance, is built around specific events and activities. Members can attend a dress design workshop three Saturdays in a row. That’s it, no further commitment required. And leaders can host events concentrated on a unique interest or skill, such as web or fashion design. One troop dad, to that end, recently leveraged his skills as a lawyer to host a series of one-day legal workshops held over the course of a month.

The camp pathway is exactly as it sounds. Girls attend themed camps, such as horseback riding camp, primarily held during the summer months and school vacations. Leaders, for their part, can volunteer for as much or as little time as they have available.

And there’s still the traditional membership option, featuring the iconic cookie program and regular meetings dressed in the green garb. But even this traditional path has undergone some revisions. “We now allow troop leaders to share duties. Lots of working moms don’t have the time to [take on all troop duties] so now you can have three split the work,” says Anna Maria Chavez.

Even the Girl Scouts patches have evolved. Two years ago, the group completely overhauled its Leadership Experience, the program that houses its 139 various badges. Gone are the days when girls were rewarded for their expertise in sewing and cooking skills. Rather, today’s badges teach career and leadership skills.

However, the core fundamentals behind the badge program remain the same: each badge has five steps members must complete to earn a badge. In each step, girls select from three different options. For instance, in order to receive the Money Manager badge, girls can either pretend to be the store owner or to be the shopper.

The Girl Scouts continue to use corporate funding and support to launch new initiatives. Dell, for instance, recently bestowed a $600,000 grant to develop a technology initiative to encourage girls to become game designers. Yet, there has never been a corporate-sponsored Girl Scouts badge. Until Barbie. This summer, the Girl Scouts and Mattel introduced the “Be Anything, Do Everything” Barbie badge to encourage girls to explore career paths.

Still, cookies remain a critical component of the Girl Scouts’ legacy. Even in an economic downturn, these entrepreneurial go-getters continue to sell 50 million boxes of cookies each year, generating $790 million in sales. Thin Mints is the best-selling variety, says Chavez. Although its cookies aren’t available (yet) for purchase online, ice cream and candy bars featuring Girl Scouts-licensed cookie flavors are widely available year-round. And on February 8, the group is hosting the second in what it hopes will become an annual holiday, the National Girl Scouts Cookie Day.

Ultimately, the Girl Scouts must balance between attracting older leaders and younger members, between honoring its past traditions and moving forward to new opportunities, and between the serious (saving the plant) and the frivolous (Christmas caroling). And just how well it handles these balancing acts will determine the next 100 years. “We get that people think of us as cookies, camps, and crafts,” says Chavez. “We adore that. But we are building the pipeline so our economic future is focused and successful.”