Strange things re Scouting

[Penta]

Maybe this doesn't belong in Open Discussion - Program; I'll let the mods decide, but for lack of a more general forum, I'm putting it here.

 

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Like I promised in the other thread, I'm keeping each week's musings to a separate thread. These Monday mornings where I need to kill time look likely to happen all semester, so I figured I'd warn everybody up front. (No, I can't really study, before you ask. There's no good place to curl up with a textbook.)

 

It's been a weird weekend for me, IRL. Participating in this forum brings back a lot of memories of my days as a Cub Scout, and ever so briefly as a Boy Scout. It's also dredged up a lot of sometimes only tenuously related things. I've had everything floating through my head from the "Philmont Grace" (which is weird, because I never went to Philmont, and can't place where I'd have heard it) to "a script for a commercial I'd run if I could decide the BSA's advertising strategy". Plus some random musings.

 

This is my thread to tap out some of it. It'll probably be weird, but that's life.

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First up: Y'know, it's something that strikes me. You'd never know it from looking at Scouting from the outside, and I don't know how many people in Scouting (especially in the US) really appreciate it, but Scouting is almost curiously international.

 

Scouting's main constituency in the US is what? Fairly conservative types, among parents and adults, no? Not exactly the type to support much that's international, generally speaking? You could probably get a good helping of anti-UN types in the adult populations of most councils, for example?

 

Except for Scouting. Which, while BSA may not advertise the fact, is incredibly international - and something where, while BSA may do things differently, there's still enough of an international consciousness and connection to be a strange juxtaposition when you think about it. I can never figure out why the BSA doesn't bring it up more when advertising, push the international angle a bit. The fact that when a boy joins Scouting, he's not just joining something quaintly American, but something so international as to make the average person's head spin. Something not merely with local reach, but global, with a century's worth of history and tradition to boot.

 

It goes for programming just as much - people who aren't involved (and probably a good many who are involved) likely don't realize, for example, that US Scouts *have* camps in Europe. (They don't realize, too, that the BSA offers awards for being able to speak, read, and translate languages...And actually, now that I look at the requirements for an interpreter strip, I wouldn't be surprised if those are actually *harder* than the requirements to be deemed fluent in a language as used by, say, government. Why the heck doesn't BSA advertise that, that Scouting can teach your kid languages?)

 

Or even think large-scale. National Jamborees get a decent bit of coverage - albeit sometimes for the wrong reasons - but when was the last time the news covered a World Jamboree?

 

So count me confused. Except for the World Crest on the uniform, what clue would most people in the US have that Scouting is as global as it is? Scouting has the history, it has the global reach...Why is it not used more often, leveraged somehow?

 

(For those from overseas: I grant that the global nature of Scouting is probably more apparent, for example, in Europe or Asia. I don't know enough about that to say. I'm speaking about Scouting in the US.)

 

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I've always been interested in the "Where it's come from" aspect of Scouting...On the large scale yes, but also the small scale. Miscellaneous history and related questions I have, maybe people can answer:

 

1. When did Youth Protection Training debut? I don't remember things like the 2-deep rule from when I was a kid, which wasn't that long ago. (The fact that I have to say that, "wasn't that long ago"...Scares me.)

 

2. Similarly...Okay, I know the girls part of the "God, Gays, and Girls" issue triumvirate has always been a nagging issue with Scouting since the Movement began, because boys often as not have sisters. But I do not recall (and I was pretty politically/news-aware, or at least conscious of politics and the news) the other two issues when I was a Scout. Which was, hey, 15-16 years ago? Did they only become issues with Dale v BSA and similar, which seemed to come out of the blue when it was decided in 2000?

 

3. Does the Scouting movement have any sort of archives? I know there's the museum in Texas for BSA...But are there any sort of research archives, either for the BSA or for WOSM?

 

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This isn't really historically related, but it's semi-related...OK, can someone explain to me the legal structure of the BSA?

 

More specifically: I get that the Boy Scouts of America is a C corporation in form, legally a DC Corporation by the Congressional Charter - the same type of corporation legally as the Red Cross (in terms of non-profits) or Coca-Cola (in terms of for-profit companies). Is it for-profit or non-profit? I've always presumed non-profit (they file a form 990, after all), but sometimes I've wondered, especially when I saw that they had a subsidiary (Arrow WV) buy up the land for Summit (which seems strange for a non-profit).

 

The local councils - Okay, so...Legally, are they owned by BSA National as subisidiaries? Are they even incorporated separately from the BSA? Are they owned by others and then licensed by the BSA?

 

About that Charter - Yeah...Other than the Report to the Nation PR thing every year, what impact does it have? I know, politically, the chances of Congress holding hearings on the Boy Scouts are slim-to-nonexistent without BSA kicking up a fight, but setting aside the politics: Is it even legally possible, say, for Congress to go "Ooh. Yes. That Congressional Charter that gives you existence? Gives us oversight ability too, so open up to the GAO, and send your top people to the Hill for hearings."

 

Furthermore - Let's be insane. If the BSA's charter was ever revoked by Congress for some crazy (or not-so-crazy) reason...What happens? Does the BSA cease to exist? Or is there an existence separate from the Congressional Charter? Obviously it'd be a PR black eye, but would it have any practical impact?

 

Kind of related - Til the 50s or so, BSA was headquartered in New York, if I remember right. Then they moved to New Brunswick, NJ, not too far from me actually (45 min away). Then, in 1979, they picked up and moved to Irving, Texas.

 

Why?

 

Related to that: I've heard of BSA National Headquarters described of as everything from "a tiny suite in an office park - you'd never know it was the headquarters of the Boy Scouts if you didn't know to look" to a corporate campus of multiple acres like owned by Microsoft or Google.

 

At the same time, I've heard of Scouting described organizationally in various, contradictory terms: As being weirdly like the Vatican (which has 300 people running a 1.2 billion member Church from Rome) with local councils being autonomous like bishops in their dioceses, or as centralized as any major corporation with everything being run from National. What's the reality on either of those scores? Just how many people work out of National, or for National, anyway?

[perdidochas]

First, I do agree that scouting does strange things. However, I kind of disagree with the whole idea you have that BSA members are somehow anti-international. I guess it's because the Pack my boys were in had an Italian member (Italian Airforce pilot's son), and quite a few of the boys in our Pack have lived part of their life overseas (we are in a military town). Also, anti-U.N. doesn't mean anti-international. I'm against the U.N. because of it's peculiarities. It doesn't mean I don't have a great respect for other countries. (Heck, my Mom was a Green card holder until I was in my 30s, and I have a German cousin). I'm not certain why all this isn't advertised, but honestly, I don't see much advertising at all for Scouting.

 

The YPT stuff started to be developed in the late 1980s (from my Googling of the subject). Not certain when it began to be required, but it was before my time as a leader (which began in 2004).

 

In terms of tax status, from the 2009 financial report:

"Income Tax Status. The National Council and its other affiliates: Learning for Life, the Learning for Life Foundation, and the Boy Scouts of America National Foundation, are exempt from income tax under Section 501©(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and have been classified as organizations that are not private foundations."

 

 

 

 

 

[Penta]

Ah, that answers the form and similar questions...I was wondering exactly that, which bit of the tax code it lives under. Hm.

[Penta]

Hit send too early.

 

Re the international bit - I think I spoke poorly there...In fact, I'm certain I did. I wasn't speaking specifically, I was speaking generally. Scouting tends to lean somewhat conservative (around here, anyway), whereas support for international organizations tends to be a more politically liberal view...Which makes for something of an odd juxtaposition, or at least it did at 6 AM when I was thinking about this.

[emb021]

"1. When did Youth Protection Training debut? I don't remember things like the 2-deep rule from when I was a kid, which wasn't that long ago."

 

late 1980s. I recall having to go thru the first version of YPT around that time (we're talking 88, 89 or so)

 

"2. Similarly...Okay, I know the girls part of the "God, Gays, and Girls" issue triumvirate has always been a nagging issue with Scouting since the Movement began, because boys often as not have sisters. But I do not recall (and I was pretty politically/news-aware, or at least conscious of politics and the news) the other two issues when I was a Scout. Which was, hey, 15-16 years ago? Did they only become issues with Dale v BSA and similar, which seemed to come out of the blue when it was decided in 2000? "

 

Nope.

 

The issues started to come up around the late 80s. You had people making an issue of people must have a religious belief, and not allowing girls in the Boy Scouts, and issues of gays. Dale vs BSA came later.

 

"3. Does the Scouting movement have any sort of archives? I know there's the museum in Texas for BSA...But are there any sort of research archives, either for the BSA or for WOSM?"

 

We have an archive as part of the museum. We also have a museum/archives at Philmont- the Seton Museum. No idea what WOSM has.

 

"More specifically: I get that the Boy Scouts of America is a C corporation in form, legally a DC Corporation by the Congressional Charter - the same type of corporation legally as the Red Cross (in terms of non-profits) or Coca-Cola (in terms of for-profit companies). Is it for-profit or non-profit?"

 

The BSA is a non-profit corporation, litte different then Red Cross, Toastmasters, etc.

 

"The local councils - Okay, so...Legally, are they owned by BSA National as subisidiaries? Are they even incorporated separately from the BSA? Are they owned by others and then licensed by the BSA?"

 

They are locally chartered organization, but answers to National. Little different then local clubs/chapters of national organizations which are local established.

 

"About that Charter - Yeah...Other than the Report to the Nation PR thing every year, what impact does it have?"

 

The Charter was done to give us legal protection. That's all it does. Keep in mind that the BSA was established BEFORE we got that charter. Not having the charter does not make us cease to exist or the like.

 

"Kind of related - Til the 50s or so, BSA was headquartered in New York, if I remember right. Then they moved to New Brunswick, NJ, not too far from me actually (45 min away). Then, in 1979, they picked up and moved to Irving, Texas. Why?"

 

Cost.

 

It was costly to be located in New York. So we moved to New Brunswick, which put us closer to Schiff, which was our national training center. But it got costly to be in NJ, so we moved to Texas (and sold Schiff).

 

 

 

 

[Stosh]

I'm thinking that there might not be enough international emphasis in BSA, but I can assure you it isn't universal amongst the troops.

 

My boys have had the opportunity to meet exchange scouts at summer camp. By the way, the Indonesian scouts have a great uniform! Camo pants! Yep. Three shades of brown with the fleur-de-lis mixed into the camo pattern along with the sprouting coconut, the symbol of Indonesian scouts. The Dominican scout the previous year was female and the boys thought that was great too.

 

A few years ago I heard too late that the Canadian national jamboree was being held less than 500 miles from us and we missed out. It would have been a great opportunity for my boys to have the chance to attend.

 

I had the opportunity to campfire at national jamboree with boys from Barbados, Scotland and New Zealand. Best part of the American jamboree in my book! The Scotish lads were on their 3rd AMERICAN jamboree! They as a group have attended more American jamborees than American scouts!

 

I'm thinking that a lot of what is not happening is not because of apathy or politics, in as much as it is a poor communication system between the different international factions of Scouting. It isn't really a priority for some. Why are the non-BSA scouts around the world more knowledgeable about our National jamboree than we are about theirs?

 

Can that be corrected? Sure, but the effort has to be made by national to make it a priority and at the present time seems quite myopic at best in this area.

 

Stosh

[VigilEagle04]

"More specifically: I get that the Boy Scouts of America is a C corporation in form, legally a DC Corporation by the Congressional Charter - the same type of corporation legally as the Red Cross (in terms of non-profits) or Coca-Cola (in terms of for-profit companies). Is it for-profit or non-profit? I've always presumed non-profit (they file a form 990, after all), but sometimes I've wondered, especially when I saw that they had a subsidiary (Arrow WV) buy up the land for Summit (which seems strange for a non-profit).

 

The local councils - Okay, so...Legally, are they owned by BSA National as subisidiaries? Are they even incorporated separately from the BSA? Are they owned by others and then licensed by the BSA?"

 

One must remember, the main difference between a non-profit and a for-profit company is merely that a non-profit puts the profit back into the company, and the for-profit pays it out. Non-profit is honestly a misnomer when it comes to these things. So when you see an NPO doing something you would expect a regular company to do, that's not all that uncommon.

 

As for the councils, each one is registered separately with their own FEIN and they each file their own 990.

 

At first, I was wondering if the HA bases did the same, but through looking at the 990s for the BSA, I can see revenue from Philmont on there, same for Northern Tier (just did a quick scan), so it appears they are all under the same heading as national. Since the public disclosure form doesn't have all the extra goodies that are normally included, I can't make a positive statement to that though.

[VigilEagle04]

"I'm thinking that there might not be enough international emphasis in BSA, but I can assure you it isn't universal amongst the troops."

 

I agree with this statement completely. The troop I was in didn't have a ton of money, but we still made a trek every 3 years to this camp in Canada that was absolutely awesome, and we don't even live near the border. We looked at the international side of things a good bit, most kids in the troop had something from another country that they had traded for with an international scout. I know my collection contains Ireland, UK, Canada, Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands. We tried to go to things where we would meet these people.

 

That being said, throughout the BSA as a whole, I would say the emphasis is lacking. I have the older Scouts Canada handbook from 2001 when I was up there last. For their highest honor, you had to dig into the international side of Scouting, which I thought was really cool. I forget the actual requirements, but the other month (when I had found the book again) and I was reading it, I was kind of amazed at how much of a difference there was in that regard. I think this is one cue that we should take from the Canadians, IMHO.

[ScoutNut]

You have to understand that while the Scouting Movement is an international movement, BSA is not (other than those councils created specifically for USA youth overseas). That is why it is the Boy Scouts of AMERICA, and not the Boy Scouts of the World, or some such.

 

While BSA might not shout to the hilltops about the international aspect of Scouting, they do acknowledge it. Some councils are more pro-active about it than others.

 

Many councils had some sort of recognition for the 100th anniversary of the Scouting Movement. One of BSA's best known stories is that of the "Unknown Scout", and the origin of the BSA. Part of BSA's Anniversary in February is Lord, and Lady, Baden-Powell's birthday. Many councils have contingent Troops that attend the International Jamboree. My council has hosted Scouts from other countries (rather like exchange students).

 

That said, I think that GSUSA does a bit of a better job of bringing the international aspect of the Scouting Movement home to it's members than BSA. They celebrate Feb 22, the birthday of Lord, and Lady, Baden-Powell, as World Thinking Day. That day is used to remember they are part of an international movement, and to think about their sister Scouts, and Guides, in other countries. Typically GS Troops will pick one, or more, countries, and learn about the Scouting Movement, and the culture, there.

 

As for Youth Protection, 2-deep, and Youth Protection training has been around since I first started as an adult Scouter, 16 years ago. You most likely did not know about it because, as a youth in the program, you were not involved in that side of it. If your Pack, or Troop did youth protection for the youth, which units rarely do, it was the stranger danger type videos aimed at the youth, and had nothing to do with the precautions to be taken by the adult leaders.

 

Going thru the Scouting program as a youth is VERY different from being a trained adult Scout leader in the program. Especially if your main experience in Scouting is at the Cub level.

 

[BartHumphries]

Many non profits buy up land for camps. Take Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall summer camps, for example. The Salvation Army owns quite a collection of houses and the store managers live in the houses rent free (since a store manager is shuffled off to a new store every few years, it doesn't make sense for them to be continually buying/selling a house). I could go on, but many non profit entities own land. The major difference between a non profit and a for-profit entity is whether the vast bulk of the money made in the business is turned around and invested back into the business or whether most of it goes into the hands of the people running the business. In Scouting, it goes back into the "business" and so it's a non profit corporation.

 

You'd be surprised how many, many people actually work for the Vatican. The number is much higher than 300.

[Penta]

Holy. You guys rock.

 

I post incoherently and sleep-deprived* and you guys still give me great info.

 

*To explain: Most nights, I go to bed about midnight and get up at 6-7 AM. Except Sunday nights, lately...Because I have class at 8 AM and have had to get the paratransit bus at 5:30-6 AM, getting into school at 6-6:30 AM, I tend to just forget about sleeping on Sunday nights, opting more for lights-off laying-in-bed and keeping myself awake, so I don't oversleep. So by the time I've written these Monday morning posts, I'm on 24 hours between sleep.

 

Re the Corporate stuff, Charter, etc: This answers most of my questions...It raises new ones, but the ones it raises are very nitpicky and lawyerly. Thanks folks!

 

Re the issue of Scouting's Int'l emphasis: I find myself in deep agreement with VigilEagle's view, from my perch on the outside. It feels really weird that Scouts from other countries know more about BSA stuff than any of us could really claim Scouts from the US know about Scouting around the world. Insofar as my opinion matters, my thought is this: While there is a Scouting Heritage MB, from the Requirements I can find, it seems simultaneously like either a "gimme" or impossible. A gimme if you can get to Philmont or another HA base; impossible otherwise. Which is...strange to me, because Philmont and the like are not cheap. That MB ought really be revised to be achievable without a plane ticket. A "World Scouting" MB could be designed along the same lines, though.

 

Later: Points well taken, ScoutNut. The only time I remember thinking about adminitrivia like that when I was a kid in Scouts was disability stuff - which often required keeping an ear to the ground generally, hence why I initially was surprised to realize I didn't know things from that point in time.

 

Bart: More good points. Re the Vatican - That's how many people are attached to the Roman Curia....As of 1996, granted. 300 is wrong, checking my sources reveals, but the number is not large - checking my sources says 1500 or so at the most expansive definition. Which for 1.2 billion people is tiny. But that's way, way off-topic.

[Beavah]

To answer da legal structure issue...

 

The national council holds a congressional charter. These aren't being awarded any more, but da old ones are still allowed to exist.

 

IRS recognition as a NFP entity for tax purposes is separate from (and doesn't require) incorporation. The national council is recognized as a particular type of NFP, a ©(3), as an educational organization, making donations deductible for the donor as well as income tax exempt for the organization.

 

Local councils are usually incorporated in their respective states, under state law. As such, they are not under the control of and do not report to the national council in any legal sense. That's important for risk protection reasons, eh? If they were controlled by national, then national would be on the hook for their liabilities. A council can go under for financial mismanagement or lawsuits in excess of the BSA coverage limit and not affect the national organization. Because of this, a council executive board has moral and fiduciary duty to the council, not to the BSA, as should an SE.

 

Councils are granted charters to administer BSA programs within a geographical service area for one year terms. In their administration of BSA programs they are expected to comply with national's general guidance, use national's official literature, and even adopt national's model corporate bylaws. They don't have to use all da BSA materials, however. For example, many councils do not offer summer camp program, but those that do should follow NCS. They may also do their own thing in other ways, offer additional non-scouting or scouting-related programs and services, tweak their implementation of scouting support to fit their local area, etc. The BSA grants them a license to do scouting support for an area, that's it. Councils hire and fire their Scout Executive and other employees as they see fit.

 

Councils are members of da national organization, not employees. As members, their representatives attend da annual meeting and vote to elect the national executive board. Councils typically have their own IRS finding as 501©(3) organizations.

 

That membership model repeats itself at da next level down. Chartered Organizations apply for membership in the local council, and are awarded a charter to license BSA program materials for their youth work. As members of the council, they vote at sa annual meeting and elect the council executive board. Their charter grants them a license to use BSA materials in their youth work, but they may also use other materials or do completely unrelated youth work. Where they use BSA licensed materials (like the advancement program), they are expected to comply with the rules for use, but much as a council is not obligated to run a camp, a unit is not obligated to use advancement.

 

Most chartered organizations have their own IRS finding as a not for profit entity, either as a 501©(3) or as a ©(7), but some are small and solely scouting focused and are neither incorporated nor have gone through the trouble of securing an IRS determination.

 

Da structure is a clever one, eh? It insulates each level from legal and financial responsibility for the lower levels, while nonetheless exercising a degree of control through the chartering process. The membership model is so layered and diffuse, and da bylaws written so cynically, that it is well nigh impossible for da scouters in the field to effect any sort of change. They'd have to first convince da COs, then overrun da councils, then have enough council reps to affect da national organization. At each level, legal challenges can tie things up. It's far easier to get a federal law passed.

 

And to add to da confusion, the BSA runs it's own employment service and executive training program, eh? So even though an SE is the employee of the local council board and morally and legally bound to follow da directives of his employer, his long term prospects for advancement depend on national's metrics and staying in good graces. This is what we refer to as a classic conflict of interest.

 

Mostly da system muddles along OK, since we're all good natured souls. Organizationally, though, it's quite a cynical, even unethical setup. And that's probably why yeh see so much us-vs-them stuff at da council level, and everything from such high executive compensation to rank and file dissatisfaction at da national level.

 

Now I've opened da door for Kudu to come in with a BP-esque soliloquy about "corporate scouting", so I apologize.

 

Beavah(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[Kudu]

Now I've opened da door for Kudu to come in with a BP-esque soliloquy about "corporate scouting", so I apologize.

 

Passive-aggressive much?

[Penta]

Gentlemen, may I beg you to leave the spitballs for another thread?

 

Beavah: If I were a bastard ACLU lawyer, I'd use a SE as a test case one day. It'd make for a fascinating trial...And I expect the court look at the current arrangements very curiously. The conflicts of interest would seem to make it practically impossible for SEs to fulfill their agency relationship with the councils.

 

Excellent overview, my dam-building friend.

[clemlaw]

"While there is a Scouting Heritage MB, from the Requirements I can find, it seems simultaneously like either a "gimme" or impossible. A gimme if you can get to Philmont or another HA base; impossible otherwise."

 

Actually, it looks like there's an alternate requirement for Scouts who can't attend a Jamboree or High Adventure. They can visit _or write to_ the National Scouting Museum.

 

I bet the museum has a packet of materials that they send out when they receive a letter from Sammy Starscout saying that he's working on that requirement. So the cost of that merit badge is 44 cents, assuming that the scout doesn't just send an e-mail. :-)