Trust Me

Trust.  It’s a complicated thing.  And it’s an issue for our organization – at least since I’ve been around.

I’m relatively new to the adult world of Girl Scouting as I’ve just started my 11th year as a volunteer.   I started with my first year of Daisies right after the mergers and as the Journeys were launched.  The previous badges and Try-Its were retired right around that time too.  So I basically stepped right into the middle of a battlefield.  I had no knowledge of what things were like pre-merger as I had really very little contact with the Girl Scouting world between the time I completed my Gold Award in 1989 until the fall of 2010.  I am also from a different legacy council growing up, so it’s not like I even had any ties to the council I am in.

But, it became very obvious that there was a disconnect the more I worked on the service unit team and attended council town halls.  I became a council delegate about the same time as I started this blog in the spring of 2014.   I really started to delve into the national scene in 2015 when Suellen Nelles, CEO of the Farthest North council, published a white paper because I felt like it keyed in on things I had picked up on previously but didn’t know where they came from.

Why was all of this happening?  I began to research the Core Business Strategy that was launched in the early 2000s and how it was implemented.  I read Kathy Cloninger’s book Tough Cookies and saw where things went awry, at least from the standpoint of what I was personally seeing and experiencing as a troop leader and from speaking with other volunteers locally and around the country.

I say all of this because I don’t know if a lack of trust has always been an issue for our organization or not or if it’s intensified since the latest mergers.  I have a feeling there’s always been a slight edginess due to our federated governance structure, but that just comes with the territory, and it most likely keeps the checks & balances in place that are necessary.

Either way, the lack of trust we’re experiencing now is something that’s got to be worked out if we’re going to move forward as a Movement.  Right now I feel like we’re spinning our wheels and there’s no clear direction.  Trust has especially come to the forefront due to the National Council Session proposals dealing with membership dues.

I think people on all levels are aware that the lack of trust is an issue because Kathy Hopinkah Hannan, our outgoing Chair and National President, brought it up during the Keynote Speakers presentation from this past weekend.  I also have heard it referenced in discussions about why the National Council should basically hand over its last bit of relevancy to the National Board.  During our first GirlScoutGovernance.com Town Hall, a few council CEOs said more than a few times that we should trust the National Board while pushing that Proposal 2 be passed as written.

But trust is a two-way street.  It is my opinion that overall, the leadership of this organization does not trust the membership.  It therefore doesn’t trust the National Council, which represents the membership.

Let’s be honest.  What happened at the 2008 National Council Session when the National Board claimed authority over membership dues and ran roughshod over the National Council was a power grab, pure and simple.  But since then, it’s morphed from a legal claim into a condescending attitude of “we know best,” and it’s trickled down into council leadership.  I’m not at all saying it’s this way across the board because there certainly are councils who do not subscribe to this mindset.  From a personal standpoint, our council is under new leadership, and there’s been a big push to engage the membership lately.   That’s great to see.  However, I don’t know how many times through the years I’ve personally encountered, heard, and read references to staff (council and national) telling us how important volunteers are to the Movement.  But then our concerns and opinions are ignored when it comes to the bigger picture.  As if we aren’t capable or savvy enough, or that sort of thing should be left to the higher ups because we’re a bunch of yokels that are incapable of putting our heads together to come up with a good solution.  I’m thinking of camp sales, membership dues, and property strategies, just to name a few.  The big stuff.

Here’s an example on the national level that I brought up in a previous blog post:

GSUSA and the National Board made a pledge after the 2017 NCS to do a better job of engaging National Delegates.  That sounded promising!  So for a few months after the 2017 NCS, National Delegates for the 2017 term would receive an email announcing updates on the GSUSA National Delegate website encouraging them to log in and read the latest articles about National Board updates and National Board member interviews.  A survey was also published in July 2019 that included softball questions such as what delegates thought about a possible Gold Award Task Group proposal and whether or not they felt engaged.  But the survey didn’t include any questions or opportunities to share thoughts about membership dues authority and how dues should be set.  Instead, input was gathered this way:

In November 2019, the Dues Subgroup facilitated several Movement-wide leadership discussion sessions on the topic of membership dues at the Girl Scout council CEO and Board Chair conference.  The sessions invited council board chairs and CEOs to discuss their views, concerns, and ideas for approaches to dues setting. 203 Board Chairs and CEOs, representing 104 Girl Scout councils, attended the conference, along with 17 National Board and National Board Development Committee members.  – 2020 NCS Workbook, pg. 54

So there it is.  We want your opinion, but not really.  And while you’re at it, can you rubber stamp this membership dues proposal so that we can all move on and you can go back to your volunteer corner?  Thanks.  But don’t worry, we’ll send out token surveys from time to time so that we can say we’re engaging you!

Sure, we need to trust the leadership.  I get it as that’s all I’ve heard for months now.  But they’ve got to cross the aisle and trust the National Council too.  I’ve said this until I’m blue in the face, but the GSUSA Constitution states in Article IV that the National Council (let’s all say it together) is “the coordinating head of the Girl Scout Movement in the United States.”  It’s the reason why we’ve had success for over 100+ years.  But for the past 10 years, the National Council hasn’t been respected, and what’s happened since then?  The proof is in the pudding.  We have GOT to start putting our trust back into the National Council and the membership.   It by design makes the best decisions for Girl Scouting.  Trust me on this.  Wait, there’s that word again.

I’ve said this before, and I’m going to say it again:

Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair.

The good news is that there’s a way to solve all of this.  It’s called the democratic process.  The bad news is that you’re going to have to read my white paper from last year to find out how this can be achieved.  Now you didn’t think I would go this whole post without bringing up the democratic process, did you?