Roles of Professional Scouters

[John-in-KC]

Moderator's Note:

 

Tools aren't quite enough to split a topic, so I quoted Gumbymaster and started a topic based on his post.

 

Note: This post is not directly related to Colonial VA Council, but a topic tanget on the role of Professional Scouters.

 

@@ProScouter06, you are correct.  I spoke without direct knowledge of how the professional Scouter spends their time.  My appologies for that.

 

But this too, is part of the problem.  They do not communicate the value they add to the organization.  If I have an employee, and I cannot see what value they bring to my company, they will get notice, and if I still cannot see the value, they will be gone.  The fundraising is a misconception, because this is the most common interaction we have with anyone above a first year DE.  First year DEs have been pretty good people for me to work with.  They really try to help with recruiting - they just don't coordinate with the units well until the plan is already in motion.  They do help operate the Camporees and similar events - but even here to, the volunteers have really organized the event.  Even with the first year DEs, their causal conversations are who (company/business) can you introduce me to who might support scouting.  It is the Commissioners and fellow volunteers that really work to help solve probelms with resources, training, etc.

 

I also recognize that many, maybe even most of the professional staff were at one time Scouts or Scouters, Camp Staff and the like.  Most probably did put their own children (if they have them) through the program.  However, that is the past.  Their actions have immediate effect on the units of today, and a good leader (and they should be leaders, not just managers) needs to take the time to see how those actions play out - some for the better, some not.

 

Now, I also have the benefit of being involved with units that are reasonably self sufficient, we don't have COR issues, we don't have Financial problems, we don't have Leader drama, and thank god we've never had a YPT issue.  Even my district, as a whole, is in good shape. If these things are what the professionals are doing for other units, then I doubley appologize.

 

I have repeatedly asked to see how funds are spent as a condition of my changing my pack program schedule for a FOS presentation during one of our meetings.  The closest they will ever offer is the percentage breakdown of where funds come from and where they go.  Now perhaps I could review the actual line item details if I ingraciate myself within district and council service to eventually get to the council committee or not (is that even filled with volunteers or is it more corporate sponsors?).

 

I recognize that not every Council is the same, not every professional staffer is the same.  My concerns apply equally to Council and National staffing.  I personally recognize that we could not adequately function without a level of professional staff.  But the real question becomes, how many do we need.  How is each one helping move the program forward?  As a nominally non-profit organization, their motivation should not be how much can we save, but how best to spend what we have, how best to cover what we need.  Endowments are great - for the long term, but not at the expense of a quality program now.  Maybe they really do this, if so, they do not successfully communicate that value.  If they found a way to let me see the value, I would sing their praises - and I do look for it.

 

@@ProScouter06, Even within your own description of the work of a DE, there are many non-sequiters - recriuting pushes in December.  And many consequences for not achieving FoS or Membership goals.  If the system isn't working, we need a new and better system - at every level of professional scouting.  We don't need to trial-by-fire and burn out new DEs with unrealistic goals.  The metrics used to judge your performance, as you descrbe it, are still financial metrics.

 

It seems to me what is needed metrics based on program performance.

 

Last week, I presented the performance metrics for my unit to my Chartered Organization.  While we discussed things like the Journey to excellence, Leader training, funds raised, funds spent, and membership numbers; for me the metric I liked best for my cub pack was how many of my scouts bridged, and how many were still in a Troop.  For my 2013 Scouts, 100% were still in a Troop, for my 2014 Scouts, 71% were still in, and for 2015 89%.  These far exceed the common statistics of 30% dropping Scouting in the first year, and 15% per year thereafter.  While this speaks as much to the quality of the Troops we feed into, its a metric I like for how well we prepared them for the Boy Scout transition.  It is a progam based metric.

 

[Stosh]

Using for-profit business metrics to measure a not-for-profit business is kinda misleading.  We're dealing with two different issues here.

 

The for-profit business is a bullet focused operation.  It survives for only one purpose, to produce a profit.  One can quantify whether or not the effort is on target or not.  

 

The not-for-profit business is not focused on one particular goal (profit) but uses a shotgun approach to the mission it is trying to fulfill.  There is no specific target to aim toward and measure against.  Al such program metrics do is subjectively determine absolutely nothing.  The new DE is tasked with finding a new district commissioner.  He knows no one.  So he starts asking around, gets a name from one person, another name from another person and a third name from yet another person.  Calls the first person, "Wanna be the DC?"  "Nope." Calls the second person, "Wanna be the DC?" "Sure, why not." He doesn't bother to call the third person.  

 

Well it doesn't work out that person really screws things up with the Commissioner corps for the district (the planned metrics were never met, not even close)..  Who's fault is it?  Yep the DE's.  The "metrics" of a DE's performance are really the metrics of hundreds of volunteers out there instead that the DE has no control over in the first place.  It's a job destined for failure and the DE has very little he/she can do about it.  

 

If I were a DE and someone moved to some sort of metric type program for the office,  My desk would be cleared by the end of the day.  Been there, done that.  Leave before the career goes down the toilet because the only reason the metrics are mentioned is because someone thinks that's where the results of your work are headed anyway.