Suggest Councils that should be Combined

[Cburkhardt]

"Let’s go ahead and merge our remaining weak councils during bankruptcy into larger, solid organizations.  The combination of factors councils are experiencing is reducing their cash flow, so a good number of them probably cannot survive financially as-is.  We should be perfectly willing to ask current council leaders to explain with specificity why they might be losing membership or cannot break even.  Folks, organizational sustainability is what a financial reorganization bankruptcy is all about."

This was one of my recommendations in my original post on improving council structures during bankruptcy and focused on a simple financial rationale for merging.  Almost everything I have read in the lengthy reactions to that posting are consistent with the idea that we need fewer personnel at the council level and more closer to the unit.  And, the functions at a council can be fewer and more-targeted.  At a certain level there are Scouters who are very resistant to merging councils, but that resistance needs to be viewed in the context of what is needed at this time -- More unit service and less above-district structure.  Decision-making in the best interests of youth and not to preserve legacy circumstances.  A reasonable number of well-maintained and endowed camps.  Here is what I believe we need to do, all of which requires "top-down" thinking.  I figure we are ready to do this because we have spent four weeks doing mostly "bottom-up" thinking.

• Very small councils should be merged into larger and nearby entities.  Better economies of scale are required if we are indeed going to redeploy resources to provide enhanced support to the units and districts.  Three-district councils probably have 2 DEs, a SE, a field director and other support folks.  Instead, in the same geography there should be 3 DEs, 3 Assistant DEs and perhaps one support person working from home.
• Charters of councils that continue to shrink (adjusted for LDS departure numbers) need to be withdrawn and awarded to new boards and officers who will operate the program effectively. 

• Charters of councils that continue to operate in the red need to be withdrawn and awarded to new boards and officers who will operate council services to at least break-even.

• Councils in a recognized media market should be merged for efficiencies in promoting membership.
• "Mergers of Equals" is a bad strategy.  During the course of a merger solve all leadership issues by putting in-place good people with actual authority.
• Deal with camp evaluations and (if needed) downsizing during the course of the merger.  Remove the camp issue as an impediment to the going-forward council.  
• Legacy program concerns (like OA lodges that will need to be merged) should be handled in a respectful way, but should not obstruct he solutions that are needed. 

Please suggest the names of councils that make sense to merge and why.  When you state your reasoning, I ask that you not include any individual's name and simply relate facts that you actually know.  Don't state: "XXX Council is a dilapidated organization run by incompetent people and needs to be merged with next-door YYY Council that is operated with perfection by wonderful people."  Instead, state something like:

"QQQ council has lost 5% of its membership six years in a row, has ten districts but only six DEs, has spent $100,000 of camp endowment money each year to maintain daily operations for three years in a row, and has only one-third of the volunteer commissioner slots filled.  Volunteer committees have tried hard to remedy these challenges to no effect.  I believe we should merge with next-door ZZZ council, which has a larger camp in well-maintained condition that can accommodate the resulting council, a strong tradition of field service with consistent year-to-year membership growth, a service center accessible to people from the merging council and a council executive board that allows 30 minutes of each meeting to hear from volunteers."

Your comment should be no longer than the example provided, because we just need the basics for this discussion.  We don't want this to become a gripe session and do not want to target any individuals (either by name or otherwise).  If you have not previously posted to this site, please know that -- the less said, with facts to back things up and with neither emotion nor condemnation -- is what everyone here expects.  

After we have some solid suggestions of where mergers might be productive, then we will have a separate posting on how the combination of councils should be conducted.

[dkurtenbach]

I can see how merging councils can result in financially stronger entities.  I don't see how merging councils can result in better unit service.

[The Latin Scot]

My concern is that strong, healthy councils may eventually be forced into adopting weaker neighbors that could hinder their continuing success. For example, my council (Orange County Council in CA) is actually doing pretty well - we are financially stable, we have strong and healthy volunteer numbers, a good reputation in our community, and all of our districts earned gold or silver in their JTE scores (save for one bronze district). Last year we served more than 17,000 youth, and almost 43,000 Scouts attended the various camps in our council last year. We have more than 10,000 adult leaders in our area, which encompasses less than 600 square miles of populated suburbs. We get strong support from our council, and since our geographical area is very small despite being densely populated, we get a lot of meaningful council support. We are having a lot of success. So is it worth it to the powers that be for us to adopt a weak, struggling council next door if it means we lose these supporting advantages and sacrifice the close sense of fellowship we feel with fellow Scouters in our area, just to stretch ourselves out to fix problems not of our making?

I do not know, and I am poorly qualified even to opine about such things. The combination of protectiveness for our special situation and compassion for those who aren't as fortunate causes a lot of mixed feelings, and I don't know how our neighboring district are doing. But that's the kind of question that comes to my mind when I hear talk about these kinds of things. I have been lucky to spend my entire Scouting career in a strong Council, and in its strongest district at that. But it makes me wary of outside problems coming in and negatively affecting the good thing we have going. If such a discussion is to be had, such things will need to be seriously considered.

[Cburkhardt]

Dkurtenback:  The comments on these postings have been replete with thoughts about the need to have more unit-level personnel and an apparent need to trim council services and personnel -- some believe to the bone.  It makes sense to consider mergers or other forms of combinations under such circumstances to reallocate resources to support district operations and units.  This can make particular sense when a council has been proved over a sustained number of years to be dysfunctional -- and we have some of those.

Latin:  I understand.  But think of how your council's expertise could be spread to serve additional Scouts in geography where Scouting suffers from poor council leadership and scant resources.  I guess one approach can be to let the neighbors "go under" with someone later being recruited to pick up the slack afterward.  The next couple of years will be the downsizing environment and marginal councils are going to have gravest difficulty continuing operations.  

These things are going to happen.  More councils will face a need to combine.  Merging will not be easy unless we have an open approach -- and that includes all of us being open to rational combinations with our neighbors.. 

[qwazse]

Hey, @Cburkhardt, Laurel Highlands only has to cross the Potomac, and yours can become a district in our council.

Shenandoah, you say? We are already council hoppers! Non-contiguous is where it's at!

Different area, you say? You have no idea how crestfallen some of our venturing officers were when we BSA redrew our maps!

[Cburkhardt]

Qwazse:  The  casual thoughts are entertaining, but let's have your actual position and analysis.  Otherwise we can't really react to your views.  VOA officer positions are examples of program positions that can easily be maintained -- simply re-configured within the resulting districts/councils/areas/regions.  Districts can, for the most part, remain as-is.  As for areas,  recall my earlier prediction that the current regional and area structures probably will not continue as-is.  Perhaps we will have a fewer number of much-larger areas and no regions at all.  Long-timers will remember that we had 12 numbered "regions" until the early 70s, when the "area" concept was born -- giving us an additional administrative layer.  The great lakes region was "Region 7" -- and the canoe base was called the "Region 7 Canoe Base".  

[desertrat77]

While I agree that councils should be merged and downsized, I think there is an important step that must first take place.

Rather than focusing initially on the poor performance of ABC and XYZ Councils, a centralized board should first examine the records of all executives above the DE level.  Only the top performers should be retained, say 30%.  These top ranked execs can then be divided into regions and develop a game plan for merging councils.

As important as the merger exercise is, it would ultimately prove fruitless if bottom tier execs were allowed to continue in any position of authority.

Edited February 24, 2020 by desertrat77

[elitts]

1 hour ago, dkurtenbach said:

I can see how merging councils can result in financially stronger entities.  I don't see how merging councils can result in better unit service.

Well, it could certainly help when it comes to the administrative end of things.  If you have a bigger council you might have enough work and money to actually have a staff person dedicated to the areas that tend to be frequent problems with the work actually getting done.  For example, getting MBC applications processed accurately and correctly.

[RememberSchiff]

"Top down thinking" has been restructuring councils for as long as I can remember. The promised economies (locally), service improvements,  and increased membership and resources have not been proven, but let's get it right in the next merger, e.g., The Spirit of Adventure Council (unless they merged again and changed their name since I started writing). I expect all Mass will be one council as neighboring NH is (except for one or two counties).  Remember how councils were required to develop strategic plans?  JTE?  If a council met their five year plan or is a Gold Council, why merge it or was all that top down thinking flawed?

How about bottom-up thinking based on the service needs of units,  units satisfaction with that service, and council financials?  Say a more market- driven approach.

Camps should be financially independent of councils.

My $0.02,

Edited February 24, 2020 by RememberSchiff

[Cburkhardt]

Desertrat77:  I think that we should base mergers and combinations on what makes best sense for the Scouts in that geographic territory.  Poor performance metrics of a council (as opposed to individual professional performance reviews) are objective and can't be fudged.  They are really good measures of what is going on.  I'd put the needs of the Scouts in the geography above the pool of professionals.  When a charter is withdrawn from a council, all is on the table.  No volunteer or professional has a claim to any particular position.  A larger council needs only one SE and will always need a bunch of DEs.  

Incidentally, councils that have a charter withdrawn can be reconfigured and portions can be placed into multiple nearby councils.  No single council needs to take the entire geography of a former council.

[Cburkhardt]

RememberSchiff: Keeping the districts as-is, re-prioritizing cash into better DE salaries and working conditions, spinning off the camp ownership/maintenance/endowment functions into third party foundations, reducing above-district expense and administrative tangles all sound like the great bottom-up ideas discussed these past four weeks.  But, they need top-down implementation if they are going to happen.  Things need to be advocated-for because otherwise things …. will …. just …. slide.

     

[desertrat77]

19 minutes ago, Cburkhardt said:

Desertrat77:  I think that we should base mergers and combinations on what makes best sense for the Scouts in that geographic territory.  Poor performance metrics of a council (as opposed to individual professional performance reviews) are objective and can't be fudged.  They are really good measures of what is going on.  I'd put the needs of the Scouts in the geography above the pool of professionals.  When a charter is withdrawn from a council, all is on the table.  No volunteer or professional has a claim to any particular position.  A larger council needs only one SE and will always need a bunch of DEs.  

Incidentally, councils that have a charter withdrawn can be reconfigured and portions can be placed into multiple nearby councils.  No single council needs to take the entire geography of a former council.

I'm definitely tracking, Cburkhardt.  I'm approaching this from the standpoint "council X is a poor performer because of a weak exec team."  Could these poor performing councils be turned around with a team of aces at the helm? 

If we're downsizing organizational structure first and execs second, we're allowing weak performers to stay on board and probably under perform again in the new structure. 

Edited February 24, 2020 by desertrat77

[Cburkhardt]

Desertrat77:  In bankruptcy you do not normally follow written or unwritten long-term employment promises or practices.  Weak performers are outplaced.  It would be great to go through every employee and make a stay/go decision before the structural decisions are made.  However, I anticipate that the practical implementation of new structures is going to take place fairly quickly and on a rolling basis.  There is not really going to be time to conduct the kind of review process you envision.  I think your priorities can still be achieved -- but yes, people will need to make and implement those hard decisions.  Are we all up to it?

[RememberSchiff]

3 minutes ago, Cburkhardt said:

RememberSchiff: Keeping the districts as-is, re-prioritizing cash into better DE salaries and working conditions, spinning off the camp ownership/maintenance/endowment functions into third party foundations, reducing above-district expense and administrative tangles all sound like the great bottom-up ideas discussed these past four weeks.  But, they need top-down implementation if they are going to happen.  Things need to be advocated-for because otherwise things …. will …. just …. slide.

     

The top-down comes in after the bottom-up council restructuring. National or Regions lack the overall picture of council performance that units experience.

How many times have units said if only they could be in another council? 

Another $0.01,

[Cburkhardt]

I'm dropping the top-down/bottom-up language, which distracts and adds nothing to our discussions.  

Mergers and combinations rarely, if ever, bubble-up from district Scouters -- and certainly not unit Scouters.  Merger suggestions originate from area/region/national volunteers and are dealt-with (often resisted) by council Scouters.  The best results happen when active Scouters who see the big picture and have our Scouts best interest uppermost are active in those discussions.  The information and informed views shared these past four weeks is precisely what is needed during those discussions.

This will be happening.