Eagle1993 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 Regardless of the month, all of the numbers show a program either in decline or barely hanging on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PACAN Posted February 17 Author Share Posted February 17 @Eagle1993Probably correct My friend said that over 10% of councils have less than 1000 youth and there are only 5% with more than 10K youth. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tron Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 On 2/17/2025 at 9:56 AM, PACAN said: @Eagle1993Probably correct My friend said that over 10% of councils have less than 1000 youth and there are only 5% with more than 10K youth. Does that mean that we can expect multiple council mergers in the next year or two? It is my understanding that national does not want councils under 5000 youth. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fred8033 Posted February 24 Share Posted February 24 On 2/22/2025 at 5:00 PM, Tron said: Does that mean that we can expect multiple council mergers in the next year or two? It is my understanding that national does not want councils under 5000 youth. I'd hope. If the average salary cost is $50,000 (low considering we also have executives, directors, etc) and that a council probably needs at least three staff (probably way low), the per-scout council cost is at least $150. I assume the majority of council finances happen thru donation or endowments. Even then, council finances have never made sense to me. I don't understand how small councils can stay in business. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle94-A1 Posted February 24 Share Posted February 24 On 2/22/2025 at 6:00 PM, Tron said: Does that mean that we can expect multiple council mergers in the next year or two? It is my understanding that national does not want councils under 5000 youth. Yes. There is a document in the lawsuit that proposes a significant reduction in councils, something like 100-150. 2 hours ago, fred8033 said: I don't understand how small councils can stay in business. A small council that provides quality service will meet their finance goals. I know a council that is having membership issues, but they provide quality service to their members, and their financial goals are exceeded. Contrast to another council I know that has membership growth, but poor customer service. I cannot tell you how much they lost donations, but it is significant. One district's goal is 5.3% of what is was 20 years ago when adjusted for inflation. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tron Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 On 2/24/2025 at 10:17 AM, Eagle94-A1 said: Yes. There is a document in the lawsuit that proposes a significant reduction in councils, something like 100-150. A small council that provides quality service will meet their finance goals. I know a council that is having membership issues, but they provide quality service to their members, and their financial goals are exceeded. Contrast to another council I know that has membership growth, but poor customer service. I cannot tell you how much they lost donations, but it is significant. One district's goal is 5.3% of what is was 20 years ago when adjusted for inflation. I just checked the national map of councils which appears to have been updated 4 Dec 2024 (but does not reflect the realignment of Bay Lakes in WI and MCC in Michigan). That map shows 244 councils. If the settlement documents are binding to any degree that means we're probably looking at a council reduction of at least 100, the low end is at the floor of expectations right? If we look at the cost savings, Scouting America saves anywhere between 18 million and 28 million a year just on council executive salaries (average salary seems to be around 200k) when they merge these councils. This is some EXTREMELY low hanging fruit to find money for program for the scouts. This is just CE money we would save, we don't have good visibility on what council registrars, camping directors, etc ... make those are also all de duplicated roles in a council merger. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PACAN Posted February 28 Author Share Posted February 28 236 End of January 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fred8033 Posted February 28 Share Posted February 28 On 2/25/2025 at 10:25 AM, Tron said: This is some EXTREMELY low hanging fruit to find money for program for the scouts. This is just CE money we would save... Just thinking ... Just like current DOGE, I'm not sure it's really true savings. A good CE would raise at least his salary in donations to the council. Will reducing CEs reduce total donations? Do people donate because the top dog (the CE) asks for the donation ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrjohns2 Posted February 28 Share Posted February 28 On 2/25/2025 at 10:25 AM, Tron said: council registrars I don’t think merging councils reduces the work of the registrar. From a unit “customer service” standpoint, the registrar is the last place I’d look to save money. Now camping director, director of funding, etc, sure. Rangers, DEs, and registrars make my unit go round. The rest, I hope they are proving their value. I can’t tell as directly. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tron Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 10 hours ago, fred8033 said: Just thinking ... Just like current DOGE, I'm not sure it's really true savings. A good CE would raise at least his salary in donations to the council. Will reducing CEs reduce total donations? Do people donate because the top dog (the CE) asks for the donation ? In my council all of the donation haggling seems to be done by the DE's and BOD. Might be different in other councils. My council was a total burning ship 5ish years ago based on 990 numbers. I know my CE is good at getting donations in, but I don't think he's doing it himself, I think his method is work other people to work other people. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BetterWithCheddar Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 On 2/25/2025 at 10:25 AM, Tron said: I just checked the national map of councils which appears to have been updated 4 Dec 2024 (but does not reflect the realignment of Bay Lakes in WI and MCC in Michigan). This is an odd one to me: As I understand it, the former Hiawathaland Council (Michigan's UP) asked to merge with the Bay Lakes Council because they felt they were more similar (culturally) to Northeast Wisconsin than Lower Michigan. So Bay Lakes accommodates, merges OA Lodges, and closes one of its camps. Then 10 years later, the UP says "Haha, just kidding. We're going to stick with Lower Michigan." Is that the gist? Am I missing something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrjohns2 Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 Yep. That is basically what happened. It is my understanding they were cost neutral to the council. Not a drain. My guess was that someone was trying to simply Bay-Lakes to do another merger on the south side, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle1993 Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 (edited) On 3/1/2025 at 12:04 PM, BetterWithCheddar said: This is an odd one to me: As I understand it, the former Hiawathaland Council (Michigan's UP) asked to merge with the Bay Lakes Council because they felt they were more similar (culturally) to Northeast Wisconsin than Lower Michigan. So Bay Lakes accommodates, merges OA Lodges, and closes one of its camps. Then 10 years later, the UP says "Haha, just kidding. We're going to stick with Lower Michigan." Is that the gist? Am I missing something? In the interview, based on info from former SE of Hiawathaland: - National forced them to merge as they believed small councils cannot succeed They joined Bay Lakes as it was in good shape Bay Lakes has been in decline since (membership & financials) They joined MCC Camp Hiawatha no longer in jeopardy due to scouting council realignment Edited March 3 by Eagle1993 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle1993 Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 On 2/25/2025 at 10:25 AM, Tron said: If the settlement documents are binding to any degree that means we're probably looking at a council reduction of at least 100, the low end is at the floor of expectations right? There is nothing in the bankruptcy settlement that forces council reduction. What was discussed during the bankruptcy was a BSA executive meeting at Philmont in August of 2021. This meeting was focused on BSA post bankruptcy. Devang Desai was on the stand talking about this meeting as insurers went slide by slide. Here were my notes (it was illegal to record the hearing so all I could do was quickly type away). Note that we are now nearly 4 years after that meeting ... so I expect some of this has changed. CO model may need to be replaced Councils are in trouble ... $400M of debt. Goal was to become the National Leader in Youth Safety Grow our Membership by making our program more relevant, easy fun. Fully digital program Make a single scout program (that was confusing to me, but on a slide) Slide showed reduction of councils down to 80 (but that was then marked up and changed with "streamline") Need to change how girls are included Outdoor method was mentioned in a lot of slides Goal of eveyone getting to 1st class Expand recruiting & fundraising Now, this was many years ago, so I expect national may have moved on from that meeting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BetterWithCheddar Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 3 hours ago, Eagle1993 said: In the interview, based on info from former SE of Hiawathaland: National forced them to merge as they believed small councils cannot succeed They joined Bay Lakes as it was in good shape Bay Lakes has been in decline since (membership & financials) They joined MCC Camp Hiawatha no longer in jeopardy due to scouting council realignment Thank you. That was a nice video. I had to look up the membership numbers for myself: BLC membership has decreased from 22,600 in 2017 to 8,000 in 2023 (-65%). MCC membership has decreased from 57,000 in 2017 to 25,200 in 2023 (-56%). National membership has decreased from 2,167,800 in 2017 to 981,600 in 2023 (-65%). So while the MCC has lost fewer members on a relative basis, the BLC's situation appears no worse than what the rest of the country has experienced. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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