Should CEOs Serve on the National Board?

It’s OFFICIALLY National Council Session (NCS) Season! The Late Alert was released a few weeks ago for the 2023 NCS, and now we know what proposals will be on the agenda. Of course, things could change even up to the day of the NCS, but most likely it’ll stay the way it is. There are a number of proposals that will be featured, but I won’t necessarily be writing about each one in detail. I’ll touch on all of them eventually in some form or fashion though.

For this post, I’m going to cover the one submitted by the Greater Atlanta council that aims to amend the Constitution so that the composition of the National Board would include at least three employed council executives (CEOs). I find this a very interesting proposal on many levels. If you haven’t read through it yet, I highly encourage you to do so before continuing.

But before I continue, I need to get a few disclaimers out of the way. I am NOT a National Delegate for my council, and I do NOT represent my council’s views or opinions by any means. However, I am serving in an OFFICIAL capacity on the Farthest North council’s resource team for its Formula for Delegates NCS proposal (more on that later). That said, it should be noted that I DO NOT represent Farthest North for any views apart from the Formula for Delegates proposal, so please don’t hold anything against their proposal if I say something on this blog that you don’t agree with, or worse, makes you mad.

So now that’s out of the way, let’s get to the Greater ATL proposal.

In Greater Atlanta’s words, the purpose of the Council Representation on the National Board proposal is to “(1) improve communication, transparency, accountability and trust between the National Board, GSUSA, councils, and the membership at large and (2) facilitate better decision making by the National Board with respect to movement priorities.”

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you’ll know that I’ve been critical of GSUSA and the National Board for many years, so it’s validating to see that some in council leadership have the same concerns that I do. Among other things, I’ve highlighted the massive spending on a technology platform that doesn’t meet our needs (not to mention being fraught with bugs), the spending on questionable projects such as CircleAround, the overstepping into council operations, and the national staff turnover rate (especially when it comes to National CEOs). GSUSA and the National Board have been tone deaf for the past few years despite pledging to be more receptive in a 2020 commitment letter. I believe that SOMETHING needs to be done because we’re at the point of criticality, but I am not so sure this proposal will solve the problem of an out-of-control national leadership.

I think back to 2020 where the hot topic for the NCS that year was authority over membership dues and who should own it – the National Council or the National Board & GSUSA. I think back to our GirlScoutGovernance.com (GSG) Town Halls where a good number of CEOs lined up to speak in favor of handing over authority to the National Board. I think back to how they all stated that we should trust our national leadership. I think back to how some of us who opposed this line of thinking were painted as a bunch of rabble rousers in certain circles. I think back to how in the GSG Town Halls and on my blog, I tried to explain that the National Council maintaining control over dues was the ONLY way we could keep the National Board and GSUSA in check financially and hold them accountable. And I think back to listening to CEO after CEO parrot the National Board’s rationale (one even read a script) and thinking to myself, “As soon as GSUSA gets what it wants, you’re going to be kicked to the curb and screwed over,” to put it bluntly.

Fast forward a year, and a whole host of CEOs were writing strongly worded letters to the National Board pleading for it to please do something because the newly updated Volunteer Systems 2.0 was sabotaging member registration and overworking council staff, and GSUSA wasn’t listening. NCS proposals such as Greater Atlanta’s and Chicago’s were written as a response to councils’ frustrations with national leadership. And now here we are today.

I don’t say all of this as an “I told you so” taunt but to point out that in late 2020, a very substantial portion of council leadership was emphasizing to everyone (and especially, their National Delegates) that GSUSA and the National Board knew what they were doing and should be trusted – even though IT spending had been out of control at that point for YEARS (anyone remember the scuttled $6.3 million app?), the IT platform was dysfunctional from the start, the National Board had overstepped its Constitutional authority multiple times, and CircleAround was well up and running at that point. Complaints from the membership fell on both national AND local deaf ears. I’m sure not every CEO was on board with what was going on, but if they did speak up, then they were drowned out by the outspoken GSUSA cheerleaders, or in some cases, admonished. If there had been CEOs on the National Board then, would they have done any good if they were of the hive mindset going on at that time?

Greater ATL claims that CEOs can act as “a real-time connection to the experiences of current girls and volunteers in our movement.” How do you measure this to find out if a CEO is effectively plugged into his or her local membership? If they’re not encouraging a healthy environment for the democratic process to flourish in their own council and therefore ensuring that the voice of their membership is heard, then they’re not. I also can’t help but wonder if and when the IT platform is satisfactorily fixed if CEOs will become placated and fall right back into toeing the party line.

Greater ATL also states in its rationale that “Council Executives can provide a valuable perspective to the National Board with respect to sensitive issues such as dues increases and gender expression and assist the National Board in better understanding how their decisions will be perceived at the local level.” Well, that’s really the National Council’s role as “its position as the coordinating head of the Girl Scout Movement in the United States” per Article IV/The National Council/Section 2 of the GSUSA Constitution. If CEOs OFFICIALLY represent the voice of the membership by serving on the National Board, will the National Council become even less relevant than it already is in many eyes? What will be the point of it other than to rubberstamp Constitutional amendments?

When Greater ATL first submitted its proposal for consideration last year, I didn’t know of a better option to solve our current issues with the National Board & GSUSA. But I came to realize that the best solution should involve consulting the National Council more regularly than every three years – whether it be through surveys, task groups, or a special meeting if it’s something urgent and Movement-changing. However, for this to work, CEOs and the National Board will have to actually respect the voice of their national and local delegates when it comes to substantial topics, and National Delegates, council delegates, and council leadership will have to work together to reach their local memberships. In other words, everybody will have to actually USE the democratic process and not engage in a bunch of hand-waving. Can attitudes about delegates change? Is this solution even realistic? I don’t know. But at this point, I’m starting to bleed over into what I want to discuss later on when it comes to the NCS discussion topic about the democratic process, so I’ll stop here.

I have some other reservations about this proposal such as the delineation between operations and governance, but I just wanted to cover my biggest concern and expound on it here. Whether I support this proposal or not, I hope the discussion that will go on during the NCS will be enlightening and constructive!