Boy Scouts of America
The Boy Scouts of America is America’s largest youth organization with over 2.7 million youth members and over 1 million adult volunteers. BSA is a private organization that was established in 1910 and has had over 110 million Americans as members. The BSA organization has been attacked over 14 times in court by the ACLU for such liberal things as not admitting girls in the boy scouts even though there is an organization called girl scouts.
theUSAparty.com got to do with BSA?
While other Presidents have spoken words of encouragement and support for the BSA organization, this administration (plus the ACLU, Liberals, and the Press) has gone out of its way to attack an organization that does so much good. And since some of the founding members of theUSAparty are Eagle Scouts and our organization is based upon patriotism just like the BSA, we can not sit idly by without offering a possible solution.
Wall of Praise
In 2010, the top corporate donors to the BSA were, in order of top donors, Intel, Emerson, Verizon, 3M, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Pfizer, Valero, UPS, U.S. Bank, Eli Lilly, GE, and Monsanto. (Intel and UPS cut funding to BSA in 2012)
Wall of Shame
This following organizations have turn their backs on 2.7 million kids because a few dozen kids and adults refuse to follow the BSA rules. Chase Manhattan Bank, Levi Strauss, Fleet Bank, CVS/pharmacy, Pew Charitable Trusts, Caterpillar Inc., Chipotle, Merck & Co., and Lockheed Martin. In list of shame also includes about 50 of the 1,300 local United Ways, including those in Cleveland, Miami, Orlando, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle.
The GREATEST LOSER on the Wall of Shame is the Boy Scouts of America corporate office.
Although there are over 1 million adult volunteers in the Boy Scout organization who actually provide the direct support and training of our youth, the top executive received the fifth highest-paid charity CEO in America at $1.6 million. Large corporate sponsors (such as United Way) give money to the council offices; they usually do not give money directly to a troop. A typical BSA council (such as the Blue Grass Council) may have revenue of $2 million, a paid staff of 17 and a CEO with a salary of $155,000; which is more than the median salary ($146,254) for a school superintendent throughout the nation. Or the Dan Beard Council with revenue of $6.7 million, 49 paid staff members, and a CEO with a salary of $235,000; that more than the salary for 95% of all school superintendents in all of America. With so many paid staff members, there is not much money left to improve on camps, sending boys to camp, or other acquisitions. Some of the paid employees of BSA corporate are professional beggars whose main job is to solicit donations from corporate sponsors. Only 1/2% of all of the millions of donations given by corporate sponsors was used to send several needy kids to camp or to buy scout uniforms, most goes to the paid staff at BSA council offices and BSA corporate. BSA must quit telling United Way and other corporate sponsors that their money is used to send boys to camp because it is 99.5% untrue. Because the council offices rely almost totally on corporate sponsors for their salaries, they allow the corporate sponsors to dictate the policies that the volunteer leaders should abide by and we say this must stop!
WHO ARE THE CUSTOMERS?
The greatest problem with the BSA Corporation is identifying the customer. To the BSA council offices, the customer is NOT the thousands of boys or hundreds of adult volunteers; to the BSA council offices, their customer are the corporate sponsors and scout friendly charity organizations, such as Friends of Scouting. According to the website, http://www.scouting.org/About/FactSheets/Funding.aspx, the scout council offices only indirectly receive any money from the boys via fees from scout camps. According to the referenced website, the scout camps are set up to provide money TO the scout council offices not the other way around. Since the BSA council offices do not receive any direct money from the boys and troop units, and only receive revenue from corporate sponsors, it should be very easy to see who the BSA council offices are going to try to please. In order to adjust this method of funding, we propose that scouting become a fee based program so the BSA corporation receive the bulk of their money from their true customer, the boys and troop units.
WE SAY: Boy Scout troops are all-volunteer organizations that receive no money from BSA corporate. Eliminate corporate sponsors from dictating policies by making BSA strictly a fee based program. WE SAY: We understand that the price of some activities may go up in a fee based program. However, a local Boy Scout Camp is already charging 3 times more than a next door church camp; please read “the Tale of Two Camps“. WE SAY: Set up a website (as shown below) that will allow sponsors to directly give to boys who have listed their direct needs.
WE SAY: Get rid of the high paid beggars and cut the salary of an unimaginative and ineffective executive that oversees the largest lost in membership in history. How can the Boy Scout Organization justify an executive salary that is 4 times more than the President of the United States?
WHAT’S THE POINT? The point is, as long as the corporate body of the Boy Scout organization receives money from corporate donors and relies on them for a large share of their salaries; they will have to answer to those donors, even if they have to compromise everything they stand for. If on the other hand, individual troop units and individual boys are appealing for sponsorship and assistance, it is very difficult (even for United Way) to turn down a boy who wants to go to camp or turn down a troop that can’t pay a $1,000 re-chartering fee.
GOAL OF THIS WEBPAGE The 1st goal is to shame corporate sponsors for hurting millions of kids just because of a tiny few. We find it incredible that one woman on the School Board in Pinellas County, Florida did not recharter the Boy Scout “Learning for Life” (which is an organization within BSA that is set up for gays, atheists, etc) because the Boy Scout ban on gays and her son is gay. The mother didn’t want to fund a BSA program for her son because BSA scout program doesn’t allow gays! This is shameful!! The 2nd goal is to shame BSA councils for telling us that all of their money is going into sending boys to camp or upkeep of the camp; when really most of the money is going to get more money for the overpaid scout executives (including COO, etc). $232,000 a year to a Scout Executive to lead a $6M non-profit organization of 50 paid people (many are assistants) is absurd. There are countless CEO’s in the free market with more responsibilities who get paid much less and have a much more streamlined organization. Remember, the more money the corporate office takes in for salaries, the more they will have to compromise and the more shameful acts by people with power.
And Finally, SHAME ON ADULT VOLUNTEER LEADERS who don’t let the boys lead Adult volunteers are the backbone of the Boy Scout Organization. The Boy Scout Organization could not survive for 105 years without the dedication of adult leaders who rarely are given thanks, but are very quick to receive blame if anything goes wrong. Without the adult volunteer leaders giving up an evening each week and countless weekends each year, there wouldn’t be a boy scout organization. To the adult volunteer leaders, the USA Party offers its sincere appreciation. However, shame on you adult volunteer leaders who don’t have a boy-led troop. There is no excuse for adults leading a troop and planning every campout. If a visitor to a troop meeting can’t spot the SPL, then their troop is not following the Scoutmaster Handbook. The main purpose of Boy Scouts is to train boys to become leaders, not for adult men to have some ego trip or relive their youth. How can boys become adult leaders if they are never given the opportunity to lay out a campsite on their own or teach any other knowledge they have gained while coming up through the ranks? And finally, shame on you adult leaders who do not allow the use of knives and axes within troop activities just because you got cut by a knife or axe in the past.