Legacy Planning and the Future

A few months ago, I received a survey sent to alumni of the University of Georgia Redcoat Band. If you didn’t already know, I’m a rabid Georgia Bulldog alum through and through. My devotion to the Dawgs started at a very young age, and my four years in the Redcoats during my time at Georgia cemented my love for the Red & Black. Once I graduated, I faithfully attended alumni band at Homecoming in the fall for many years until life became too busy with children. I still keep in close contact with my Redcoat friends and participate in the Redcoat community along with other events aside from Homecoming. I consider the Redcoats an extended family that has stuck with me through the decades.

The survey I received had to do with legacy planning and financially supporting the Redcoat Band. For the majority of the band’s 120 years of existence, the athletic department has financed most of the band’s budget. However, the landscape of college football has changed dramatically recently due to the implementation of NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness). In case you’re not aware of the impact of NIL, colleges can now pay their student athletes. It’s a free for all right now, and it’ll take a while to get things under control – if it ever happens. Athletic departments are cutting where they can to subsidize various revenue streams in an attempt to fund NIL. For the past two years, the size of the Redcoat Band has shrunk due to budget cuts, and so the UGA Redcoat Alumni Band, which formed a nonprofit about 20 years ago, has attempted to take up the slack as best as possible. As such, the UGA Foundation partnered with them to support the band through giving and estate planning. Estate planning involves setting aside a percentage of your estate and donating it to an organization. 

A few weeks after I filled out the survey, I received a letter and brochure in the mail from UGA about legacy planning for the Redcoat Band. Currently, I can only donate minimally. We’ve got a daughter in college, and we still have one in high school so we’re in the here and now when it comes to major family expenses. However, my husband and I started working with a financial advisor very early in our marriage, so hopefully when it comes time for us to retire (whenever that will be), we’ll be prepared. The brochure from UGA did get me thinking, but probably not in the way that they anticipated.

As I mentioned, college football has changed dramatically. College marching bands were once well-established parts of the tradition and pageantry of college football, but that isn’t the case anymore, at least not in the power conferences. In an effort to create the most exciting and “hype” atmospheres, enormous jumbotrons, state of the art sound systems, and extensive lighting systems have pushed marching bands to the side. It seems that only diehard traditionalists still consider marching bands an important part of college football tradition. So it makes you wonder what will happen in the next few decades. And I pondered further – should I really go to the trouble of setting up my estate to include the Redcoats when they might not even be around when it’s my time to go?

So you’re probably wondering what on earth this has to do with Girl Scouts, but stay with me. As I thought about legacy planning for the Redcoats, I also remembered the push in 2020 from GSUSA to join the Juliette Gordon Low Society. Per GSUSA’s website, you become part of the JGL Society when you leave a gift in your will, trust, or other account for Girl Scouts. Back in 2020, I requested some information about it, but I wasn’t ready at the time to commit. However, it’s always stayed in the back of my mind when we meet with our financial advisor, and I’m beginning to think about what comes next now that I’m in my 50s.

But like the Redcoats, I wonder about the future of Girl Scouts. What will Girl Scouts look like a few decades from now? The number of volunteer-led troops continues to decline, and it’s harder than ever to try to get volunteers to join. I think we’re entering into another phase where we’ll eventually transform to a different delivery model of the program. Instead of volunteer-led troops, I believe we will eventually see a majority of girl membership coming from afterschool programs run by staff. Here’s an example.

We’ll have pockets of volunteer-led troops scattered around the country, so I think there will still be volunteers, but not nearly as prevalent as in the past. However, reliance on this afterschool model will transform councils, because afterschool troops by and large cannot sustain councils, at least not the way they run today. Girls in afterschool programs usually do not attend events or summer camp outside of the meeting time after school. Due to this, I foresee the vast majority of camps being sold except around major metropolitan and affluent areas. Additionally, when it comes to cookies, girls in afterschool programs usually only sell to family and friends and do not participate in booth sales. Councils won’t be able to rely on cookie sales to support themselves, so it’s possible that councils will continue to merge into larger and larger areas to form regional councils. Or we could have a complete restructuring and move away from the federated model of councils altogether.

Afterschool troops and models other than the stereotypical volunteer-led troop aren’t anything new to Girl Scouts. They’ve been a part of us for decades. But it seems we’re seeing an acceleration of it now. Plus more and more camps and program centers are being liquidated. Some councils have completely closed brick & mortar shops altogether or have reduced down to just one in the entire council. Cookie sales will continue to be a struggle due to the economy and due to the fact that we’ve hit a price ceiling for the average consumer.

While I’ve been a very vocal critic of the Core Business Strategy and blame it for many of the issues that we’ve been facing the past two decades, I don’t think everything can be attributed to it. In my opinion, we would still be dealing with some of the same challenges due to societal trends.

I don’t believe any of this will happen overnight. It’ll be a slow process. But it does give me pause when I consider joining the JGL Society because I admittedly have doubts that we will be the same organization a few decades from now. I realize change is inevitable, but none of us have a crystal ball, and I have real questions about where we’re headed and if I should commit to funding it far in the future.