“A Shift For Survival: The Impact Of The Girl Scout Realignment On Camps: From Camp Business magazine” (PDF) is an article in Camp Business magazine that you’ll want to view.
Article Highlights
Below I’ve paraphrased information from the article and bolded important points.
Land is the greatest asset and greatest liability for all 109 councils…”
“It is an approach founded on sound business principles designed to create solutions based on fact rather than desire and hope…
There is no question that the next decade will be especially challenging for the Girl Scouts. The decisions ahead may be painful as each council must decide which properties to maintain and which will be disposed…
Currently, there are more than 231 Girl Scout camps listed on the Camp Resource Guide. This number may easily be cut in half over the next decade…
We fully understand that long-time members of the Girl Scout movement will view the disposition of property as a tragedy. The strong emotional ties to the loss of a place where life-long friendships were created have to be acknowledged and dealt with as part of the process.”
About The Authors
Gregory A. Copeland, one of the authors of the article, is a registered Landscape Architect with Domokur Architects in Ohio and an advisor to the National Forum on Children and Nature. The co-author of the article is Elizabeth W. Iszler who has been practicing Landscape Architecture with experience in camp planning and design.
Information To Note
Last year a woman from Novi, Michigan called me saying she discovered LandChoices on the Internet and asked about our Big Camps program to save Boy Scout and Girl Scout Camps. She was writing an article for a magazine that the Girl Scouts read. I believe this woman was Elizabeth W. Iszler, one of the authors of this article.
She told me that the landscape architecture firm she worked with in Ohio was hired by the Girl Scouts of the USA. She said the Girl Scouts were planning to close a large number of camps (170 is a number that sticks in my mind but I may be wrong).
I urged her to include information on conservation easements in the article and to direct readers to our website for free information on preserving land. This information was not included.
Your Input
The thing I find startling about the article, and I may be way off base, is that the landscape architects seem to be making the business decisions for these camps. I’m a huge supporter of landscape architecture and have nothing against the authors personally, but, if this is indeed the case, I’m left wondering why a team of visionary entrepreneurs with business experience and innovative ideas were not hired by the Girl Scouts of the USA instead?
What do you think? Am I interpreting this correctly? Do you know additional information?
Learn More
Read the article (PDF)
Camp Business Magazine
By the way, Camp Business looks like a wonderful magazine. It’s a publication I’d love to review someday on this blog.
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Hi Kirt – and thank you for your dedicated work. What can we do with this information to acheive our goals of saving these camps? Everything we’re being told locally is that these are local decisions being made by local councils. GSUSA is a membership organization, and it seems to me that these decisions should be being made by the membership. Now it’s looking like this was a very concerted effort driven by GSUSA – how do we go about uncovering this?
Hi Anne, You are welcome, thank you for your amazing work. I think what needs to be done right away for camps not threatened yet is for people to look at their councils, fundraising, marketing/PR outreach and make certain the councils, at least partially, are made up of people with a mix of strong business, PR, marketing and fundraising/sales experience. I agree with you, the decisions should be made by members, and they don’t seem to be at all. I think the line “the media is a very powerful tool-use it to change the world” can help. A strong focused media outreach effort will help spread the word and put pressure on decision makers. The other thing we may be able to do is pursue foundation funds, corporate sponosorships, innovative programs like Kurt Johnson’s adopt a camp idea, new fundraising channels, fresh PR programs, stronger websites with better conversion rates for donations, and propose these to local councils as ways to increase revenue so the camps can stay open. Conservation easements on these camps are another avenue to ensure they stay as natural lands. I think we need to contact a well known person in your area to jump on board with you to change the game. Have you tried researching and calling anyone like this that would care greatly about this issue? Perhaps we can talk by phone and drum up some ideas.
Anne, One more thing. I think we should follow what works, the bright spots, and talk with Jenny Morgan who saved her camp in OH (we have videos of her on this blog).
We came across your posting of our article on your blog and would like to clarify a few items:
Greg and I have worked with Girl Scout Councils for over 35 years. We wrote the article out of concern for Girl Scout camping to remain viable and to bring to light some of the issues they are facing with the consolidation.
We are not affiliated with GSUSA. We are hired by individual councils to facilitate the process of evaluating property resources. The work is done in collaboration with staff and volunteers and a team of professional consultants in the fields of program, operations, real estate, and finances. The councils ultimately make the decision on what is going to happen to their land.
Councils have written to us and requested permission to post our article because they are very aware of what is going on and the impact it is having on the councils nationwide.
When you and I spoke, my call was based on research to prepare an article regarding conservation easements. I don’t believe I said that 170 camps would close, but there was the possibility of camps closing due to potential councils not having the resources to keep numerous camps operating within one organization.
Due to the limitations of the publisher, our article needed to stay on topic about the impact the alignment was having on councils.
We are currently are affiliated with a professional organization, Conservation Advisors of North Carolina that assists profit and non-profit groups in the creation of conservation easements and land preservation.
We do see this approach as one of the tools that can help to keep camp properties preserved and operationally viable.
Hi Elizabeth,
Thank you for your comment and additional information. Best regards, Kirt
One of the problems at Girl Scout Camps is that some camp sites were designed for troops of 28 to 32 girls — Juniors, Cadettes, and Seniors (grades 4 through 12)
At the time these campsites were designed, Girl Scout Troops had girls of 3 grades (Juniors in 4,5,6, Cadettes in 7,8,9, Seniors in 10,11.12), and plenty of opportunity for older girls to lead younger girls in the same troop.
This changed with a GSUSA mandate that troops MUST BE single-grade or single-age. This INSTANTLY cut troop size by 1/3.
GSUSA made this change that had such a negative impact throughout all its councils.
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