Clarification / Information on corporate sponsorships

[JerseyJohn]

New to Boy Scout rules and reg's but I have been in Cub scouts a loooooooong time. I am getting involved in the fundraising end particularly to offset costs for 2005 jambo.

 

I am trying to understand the fit between corporate sponsorships and troops. I have no trouble approaching local companies on behalf of the troop however, how does that mix with Scouting.

 

They can simply donate money but they are supposed to receive something of fair value in return. I could take a scout with me and offer troop services, but what?

 

I'm thinking it would be legitimate if the troop sought out local companies and offered grounds cleanup twice, three times a year, or parking lot sweeping, assembling an ad book for distribution at local high school athletic events and other school functions.

 

What services do you offer a corporate sponsor and at what dollar value?

 

The standard run of the mill fundraising promotions are getting stale and while generating revenue, it is a little at a time.

 

I am thinking that obtaining multiple corporate sponsors would allow the boys to earn money the hard way, rather than sell Aunt Sue or Uncle Bill another 10 (fill in your product here)

 

Thanks

John

[matuawarrior]

Jersey John,

 

Welcome to the Forum.

 

Putting on my District Hat. From the Council's perspective, Local Units getting corporate sponsorship is a No-No, unless that corporation is your unit's chartered organization. At least in my Council it is.

 

Most corporations in your area may already be donating to Friends of Scouting. Most of theses corporations were probably told that the BSA will only approach them once a year for FOS. Some areas in the states are managed under United Way or other like institution, sorta like a community chest.

 

When units go out and solicit corporate sponsorship. The donor may think that they may be contributing to the FOS fund. This causes confusion for the FOS committee and the donor. Also, the only time a Scout may wear his uniform for fundraisers is during the annual "Trail Ends Popcorn sale".

 

Anyway, the Unit Fundraiser sheet tells you exactly what you may need to know and do. You can get this at your Council.

 

DS, can get more in depth for you on the professional side of the house.

 

Having Fun,

 

Matua

[Bob White]

Matua is correct. Local scout units are not to seek donations from individuals or from the business community. You may sell an approved product or service. Aproval comes from the Council executive or council finance committee upon review of a unit money-earning request.

 

You can go to a lumber yard for instance and say, "we are a scout troop doing a lashing project, I need about 250ft of 1/4 manilla rope".

 

If they offer you a discount or a donation of rope that is their free choice. What you cannot do is ask them for cash to do the project or to donate the rope.

 

Why, because why yo might get $75 in rope for your troop, you might interfere with a $7500 donation that would help all the scouts in the council. You need a picture view of scouting when it comes to donations.

 

As far as the Jamboree goes, your council has a jamboree committee and if you want a fundraiser to help get a scout or scouts to Jambo it needs to come from that committee. You need to talk with them.

 

Bob White

 

 

[dsteele]

Matua and Bob nailed this one. Units can not solicit funds unless it's part of an approved unit fundraiser.

 

The rules are printed on the back of the unit fundraising permit although I find them difficult to read because the ink is grey rather than black.

 

In the council I currently serve, only two fundraisers are approved by the Executive Board and are authorized for uniform wear -- Trail's End Popcorn and a council wreath sale.

 

We have several units who sell wreaths on their own because they decided it was more important to receive bigger commissions (no portion goes to the council, so they can keep it all.) Our current coulcil president and the executive committee have decided that they will actively oppose any sale of non-council products during the period of September 1 to December 31 beginning next year.

 

Can they do that? Yes, they can. But it's not going to be pretty.

 

DS

[Fat Old Guy]

Of course, the charter org is free to solicit donations and then donate money to the troop.

[Region 7 Voyageur]

Here I go with my first post-

 

Mr. Bob White, I have been reading posts here for a while and I very much respect your opinions. My question is, if a scout working on an Eagle project were to solicit a donation of material from a local business would that be incorrect? Does a scout first need to inquire if that business is a donor to the local council?

[Bob White]

Hi Region7, welcome to the campfire.

If an Eagle Scout seeks donations as part of an eagle project he should do it in the name of the organization it is benefitting and not the scouting movement. it is not the scouting movement using or benefitting from the donation so to use the scouting image or name would be a misrepresentation.

 

In the same way the charter organization can request donations but they should not use the name or image of the BSA when doing so.

 

Bob White

[dsteele]

Bob White is correct. The exact quote can be found in the Advancement Committee Guidelines, but my copy is at the office, so I can't give you the page number from here. If someone wants to send me a private reminder tomorrow, I will check and post the exact quote.

 

DS

[SMT376Richmond KY]

I can relate to this well especially after popcorn sales this year. They were awful, several boys including mine were told by people "No it's too expensive." We earned more money doing our approved car wash than we did with popcorn this year. At the PLC last week the SPL mentioned this and said "So why are we selling poopcorn if we only get a small return." I enlightenend them that the money made helps the council deliver the program. But he asked "then why do we have to pay a deposit at the scout reservation and an fee for each person when we use it if the money we raise goes to support the camp and council and why do we have to pay for $10.00 per person for fall camporee?" I told him the deposit was due to some scouts not living the oath and law and being destructive to tents and the reservation. Could answer the fees though. Especially fall camporee since at roundtable we the volunteer leaders have done everything. We even have one leader in the army reserve that had his CO provide maps for the orienteering courses. We coordinated everything with the camp etc so I can't see why the extra $5.00 was tacked on by district after we the scout leaders computed $5.00 woudl be enough.

 

Also I recently was told that another troop in town was told by concil that they had to give a % of money they earned on other projects besides popcorn to council. However, this was not on my money earning project form for the car wash when it was returned with approval from council.

[Fat Old Guy]

I just had an education on money and Scouting recently, how Council stuff is funded and how district things are funded.

 

DSteele can correct me where I'm wrong.

 

Council gets no part of the registration fee, all of it goes to Texas.

 

The Council gets its money from FOS and other donation streams. This money pays for Council building, the outrageous salaries that the DEs and other professionals get ;-), camps and other council stuff.

 

Camper fees don't cover all of the costs of running a camp, especially the maintenance cost. That's why so much labor is provided by volunteers.

 

District events, like Camporees, are supposed to be self supporting and not lose money. However, if the Camporee is in the red, the Council will cover the losses so the poor sod that bought the patches isn't out $250. District events all pay a 10% "support fee" (read that as "kickback") to Council but I'm not entirely sure what we get for that 10%. They claim that it helps pay for the DEs time at the event but since the DE works 60 hours and gets paid for 40, that time is free :-).

 

Each year my council publishes where the money goes and where it comes from in the council newsletter. It isn't a detailed budget, just an overview but it is an eye opener. Even so, it is aggrevating to be a volunteer and have to pay for that privilege and then be asked to donate cash on top of the hourse that we put in.

 

 

 

[OldGreyEagle]

When you get paid to do Scouting, you are a Professional

When you don't get paid to do Scouting, you are a Volunteer

When you pay to do Scouting, then you are a Scout.

 

[dsteele]

Well said, Fat Old Guy. I won't go into gory details, but FOG is right on track.

 

As to the 10% . . .

 

There are costs that are not readily apparent to district events -- copies of flyers for Roundtable, mailings, secretaries taking phone calls from Scouters looking for more information (professional staff ends up doing this as well) processing the checks required to pay for the patches FOG mentioned, taking the reservation and running the registration lists to assist at check in, receipting in the cash after the event. The list goes on.

 

Some councils actually charge the event for copies, postage, etc. and don't account for what the secretary and DE are not doing while they're scrambling to find the flyer for the event, scanning the council newsletter, etc. to answer the question "what does my kid need to take with him to XX district camporee this weekend?" Why the parent doesn't call the Scoutmaster to ask, I don't know, but I can tell you that some people actually call the office instead.

 

A pet peeve of mine is when the office secretaries aren't given copies of event information for whatever reason. People, logically, will call the Boy Scout office with a Boy Scout question.

 

Sorry for the digression.

 

Anyhow -- a 10% administrative charge isn't much.

 

As to the cost of the camporee -- I've had those discussions and had volunteers say, "Gee, the only expenses we had were the crackerbarrel and the patch. Everything else was done by volunteers."

 

I usually ask them when the last time they rented a porta-john was. Or paid to have the dumpster emptied, or if they knew there's a fee for using the land. Those kinds of expenses aren't often thought about, but they are paid from event registration fees.

 

DS

[SMT376Richmond KY]

Man O Steele

 

"As to the cost of the camporee -- I've had those discussions and had volunteers say, "Gee, the only expenses we had were the crackerbarrel and the patch. Everything else was done by volunteers."

 

I usually ask them when the last time they rented a porta-john was. Or paid to have the dumpster emptied, or if they knew there's a fee for using the land. Those kinds of expenses aren't often thought about, but they are paid from event registration fees."

 

The Scoutmasters handled everything you mentioned for our upcoming camporee. In fact, our new DE wasn't around during the planning he was with the Cubs working with school night issues and recharters the last two roundtables. The Scoutmasters even figured in the patches and the crackerbarrel as well as found a private camp with facilities and figured in the fee for the camp. We have received donations for about everything even the scoutmasters are teaching the orienteering courses and each troop is making the awards so there is really no reason for the extra $5.00 charge. In fact, I had discussed with the roundtable chair at the last meeting that my company would be able donate making the flyers and copyiing them and that we could had them out to the Scoutmasters at the next roundtable so postage would be minimal. Then we get a mailer from council. Gee the waste of money there? The roundtable chair said he had no idea the council was sending out a mailer he was waiting for me to bring them to roundtable. The collection of funds will be at crackerbarrel so no council staff will be doing that either. Each Scoutmaster signed up for a part in the running of the camporee. The DE did charge us to invite Webelos to this event and we have 4 coming and after our discussion at roundtable on cost the PLC decided the Troop would pay for the Webelos camp fee and food. Now with a %50 increase in the entry we will have to come up with alot more $$$ to cover the Webelos or go back on our word and make them cough up the money. Somehow I don't think this would be very trustworthy or courteous.

The roundtable chair told me we will discuss it next week at roundtable. I told him if the cost does go up 50% the the PLC will be informed so they can make a decision on what ativity they want to drop the fall camporee or a later activity. The troop committee already approved a budget at $5.00 entry per person.

[Twocubdad]

DS and I have debated this before and pretty much agreed to disagree. The 10% fee is all well and good for a one-day training event where the total budget may be a few hundred dollars and the council is providing the services DS lists. But in the case of our day camp, 10% represents several thousand dollars and the council provides none of the services DS list to the camp. If our DE chooses to come to one of our planning meetings or the the council receptionist fields a few questions, it's not as if there is any additional cost to the council.

 

Either way, paying a 10% vig to the council is one of the known requirements of holding the camp, so we'll live with it.

 

But I have a huge problem with the pressure we are getting to squeeze our budgets and leave more than 10% on the table at the end of events. Any money left over after an event is absorbed into the council's general operating budget. If it works out that way, that's fine. But trying to squeeze out of the event money that the Scouts have paid and funneling them to other uses is wrong. If the event budget is fat, then the fees need to be reduced and the savings going to the Scouts

[JerseyJohn]

Hi Folks,

 

I appreciate all the information.

 

Bottom line seems to be that the boys must provide a service or sell a product in order to raise troop funds. Furthermore, this activity must be pre-approved and in accordance with established guidelines. I did (join, volunteer, get drafted) to the fund raising comittee and I am trying to learn the rules and reg's so I can stay within them.

 

I'm simply trying to think past candy bar sales, hoagie sales, candles, chips and the like while following the guidelines. Between soccer, baseball, cub's, boy scouts, hockey, PTA, basketball, I simply feel the need need to find something different.

 

My search continues.

Thanks for the info

John