The Girl Scout task of building girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place is getting realigned.
The spirit and the cookies ”“ both as close to perfection as is possible in this life ”“ remain unchanged. Â
Oct. 1 marks the first anniversary of the Girl Scouts realignment, and therein lie lessons to be learned by other nonprofits as well as by traditional businesses.
Girl Scouts of the USA is in the process of realigning its 313 local jurisdiction areas into about 100 councils nationwide.
Here in the Hudson Valley, the newly realigned The Girl Scouts Heart of the Hudson Inc. council serves 34,000 girls and covers seven counties in the geographic area stretching from the Catskill Mountains to the border of the Bronx, including Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster and Westchester counties.
“As a business, we”™ve definitely increased our capacity to serve our customers ”“ the girls ”“ in much richer ways,” said CEO Carmela Raiti. “By pooling our resources, both financial and human, we”™ve developed a greater potential to deliver our leadership program to more girls. We have a budget to fund adequate staffing as well as enhanced program offerings. We can hire more specialized staff members. Our Girl Scout brand is being presented across our seven-county jurisdiction with greater consistency because we”™re speaking in one voice, as it were. We”™re also planning for the future in accommodating projected population shifts.”
Prior to the realignment, regional offices worked independently.
As part of the new arrangement, the Girl Scouts IT departments consolidated, as did administrative positions. All executive director positions were rolled into one, that of CEO Carmela Raiti.
Raiti works out of the Pleasantville office, headquarters for Girl Scouts Heart of the Hudson.
Although a nonprofit, Girl Scouts is an $8 million dollar annual business. The realignment has made financial sense.
“If you look at the final annual report of the five legacy councils, the expenses total $9.6 million,” Raiti said. “In the first year of operation, Girl Scouts Heart of the Hudson held expenses to about $7.3 million while still retaining 96 percent of our membership throughout the seven counties.”
The greatest challenge that came with the realignment was combining the distinct cultures of each council. Raiti estimates it will be a couple of years before the councils are seamlessly integrated.
A major advantage of the consolidation goes to the girls: Girl Scouts now have more opportunities for field trips and experiences outside their immediate geographic area.
“Girl Scouting is different from other youth-serving organizations in that we provide girls many opportunities to be leaders,” said Sue Dishart, Heart of the Hudson vice president of fund development and partnerships. “They get the chance to try new things, develop new skills, and discover what they”™re good at. If they try something and it doesn”™t work out, it”™s not the end of the world. They can learn from it and move forward to try something else that might be more successful. With the help of caring, committed adults and a positive peer group, our girls learn to make values-based good decisions about behaviors and choices. As our mission statement says, we build girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place.”
Director of communications Jean Havens said from a communications standpoint, it”™s been a challenge creating publications that help members of a much larger whole feel involved and included.
“These publications are different from those of our five legacy councils in that they have broader circulations and attempt to cover our seven counties with items relevant to all members, from the streets of Yonkers to the trout streams of Sullivan County,” Havens said. “For example, there”™s “Pulse,” our biannual hard-copy newsletter, which goes out to all of our members. Then there”™s our monthly electronic newsletter, “Currents,” which is geared toward our adult volunteers but available to anyone who accesses our Web site: www.girlscoutshh.org.”
Havens said there have also been publications developed for special audiences like “Juliette”™s Pearls,” an alumnae newsletter named for the Girl Scouts founder, Juliette Gordon Low, who sold some of her personal jewelry in 1914 to keep Girl Scouting, which she”™d formed two years earlier, growing.
