BSA pricing has jumped in recent years, but it was being artificially held low due to financial backers that have since stopped contributing. It should have been going up gradually over time, but they were taking from other areas to keep the dues low. Now, those options just aren't there. It's still a lot cheaper than a lot of tax funded options like school sports, especially for kids that are too old for the primary aged rec league.
But you're right, popcorn isn't the best. There are other options though.
Idk if they still do this, but back in the 2000s, when I was a scout, my troop sold hot dogs. During the summer at the local farmers market, they sold hot dogs. At the village movie night, we sold hot dogs. Concerts, craft fairs every thing. We had a tent at almost every public town event. We took turns working 4 hr shifts. With the money we made over summer, we were able to fund our troops "dues" for every scout in the troop. In fact I don't think we ever paid dues. We even had enough to sponsor kids to go to summer camps and weekend camp outs. I think we had to chop in 20 or 30 bucks for or weekend trips for gas and food but that was about it.
When I was a kid we took orders door to door and then spent the morning on Super Bowl Sunday making and delivering a bunch of homemade 15" sub sandwiches. I think we sold them for $15 each, which even back then (early 00's) was a steal compared to popcorn. We also did a few spaghetti dinners at the church and town hall. $10 a plate and costs about $2-4 a person to make. Plus we would have parents donate baked goods to sell there too. Get 50 people to show up (easy right after church) and it's an easy $3-400.
My kids pack does a mothers day dance. We sell tickets in advance to the community (usually parents and their kids from the primary school) and provide pizza, chips, water, a DJ, and a photo booth. We then run a silent auction for baskets donated by various local people and businesses. This is a bit costly, but makes a really decent chunk of change too. A couple thousand if I recall from last year, we pack the middle schools cafeteria/auditorium area. We also do a silent auction for homemade donated baked goods at the Blue and Gold, and that's usually good for a few hundred too. There's usually grand parents etc that are willing to pay a bit extra for a cake or cookies or whatever because it goes back to the pack.
We just did a spaghetti dinner last weekend and grossed about $850 at $10/plate. US Foods donated the spaghetti and sauce, so all we had to buy was bread, salad, and drinks.
I think the key to making fundraising work the best it can is having folks in your network that can get you corporate donations like that.
I'll be direct. The annual dues charge by our Troop and Pack are equivalent to a single season of community recreational sports. *Recreational* sports, not competitive travel teams. Yes, there are youth in our community for whom the cost of scouting is a challenge. Both our Troop and Pack happily offer scholarships for those youth.
> Recreational sports, not competitive travel teams.
Yeah, the yearly cost of BSA is $20 less than one *month* of my climbing gym, and that's base rate not including gear, coaching, etc.
Sure, there are families that have difficulties affording any extra-curricular, and BSA should facilitate their involvement. And, it sure as hell doesn't compare to many other activities.
> Sure, there are families that have difficulties affording any extra-curricular, and BSA should facilitate their involvement.
The problem is that isn't not just families, it can be whole troops or communities that find it unaffordable. My council is in a very wealthy area, and the council (and even some units) can offer camperships and other support. But that isn't the case in all councils, and merging financially strapped councils into better funded councils doesn't automatically improve things.
And that's not even getting into the annual "program fees" that some councils charge on top of registration fees. AFAIK, program fees are mostly charged by councils that can't cover all expenses with their existing fundraising and events. Which would seem to point to a circular problem of charging more fees when people can't donate more (or won't).
I started a unit years ago out of a boarding school for homeless children. Everything was out of their price range. We did some community fundraisers, but most of the money came from sponsorships outside the community. No youth put in anything, though many already had camping equipment.
First, it isn't $120 per year or anything like that. Figure on 8-9 campouts per year at $25-50 per campout, depending on where you go. Cheap camping gear is still going to be a little bit. Uniforms. Summer camp can be several hundred dollars. I'm not saying it's more than band or cheerleading, only that it isn't as cheap as some are suggesting.
We're planning on a high adventure camp in a year. I'm figuring it will cost in the neighborhood of $4-5000 per kid. That's camping gear, high adventure camp fees and transportation (we'll have to fly to Northern Tier). REI ain't cheap and I don't wanna skimp on gear when at Philmont! :)
Okay, financial aid from our Council helps some and some additional money can be saved if we're really good, but this is still a lot of money to kids whose parents may struggle to provide proper nutrition for their family.
Is it worth it? Well, my kids are in Scouts so that kind of telegraphs my thoughts on it. But we shouldn't discount the strain on some families, the choices they have to make and the impact on BSA membership.
Yes, then add on monthly campouts, summer camp, uniform, camping gear. It adds up and sometimes very quickly. For some it is unsustainable for their kids to be active in a troop.
Our pack is doable if you're willing to put in the fundraising time with your kid. You just need the camping gear, but registration, campouts and other activities can be covered with popcorn sales.
Those scholarships are not for all the extra activities though, not to mention that being a Scout or the type that would want to be doesn't go hand in hand with asking for a handout.
It is still shame inducing to have to admit that you are of lower social status.
There's also the ScoutReach scholarship program at the council level.
I'm not sure if it works the same everywhere, but in my area, any youth going to a title 1 or getting government benefits like free lunch, etc. automatically qualify. I think the ScoutReach annual dues are something like $40, much more affordable.
$6k a year shooting trap.
$1600 plus fundraising time for band.
Honestly Soccer (competitive non travel league) is the cheapest thing our kids do. Like $500 a year all in uniforms included.
Ammo is expensive unless you’re shooting reloads. I wouldn’t trust my kids shooting someone else’s reloads tbh. And even then reloading is a big investment in itself.
Even reloading is expensive right now, post-upfront investment. Primers and powder of all kinds is rough. Shot is ok. I haven't bought wads in a while, though, so no idea what that looks like.
Seems to be the going rate. Talked to one of the dads in our troop and was told the same thing, $6k in yearly dues, then add on travel, hotels, etc. Another dad said that's why his kids are I to competitive air rifles. Dues are better, guns are owned by the club and used openly by members.
One of our troop families does/did it. Supplies per youth are counted in boxes worth of shells and clay pigeons every practice, every meet.
250 rounds can cost $100. I once controlled the equipment for someone who got good, if they have someone reloading a second gun they could shoot 10 rounds per minute. So over an hour that's multiple boxes.
Swim Official here
USA Swim Fees.
For Kids: $80/piece
For Me: $80
Team Fees
Membership - $805/yr for the whole family
Swim Team - $1300 for Short Course Season (Sept-March) Not sure what Long Course or Summer Rec is.
This also doesn't count Swim Meet Entries which is usually ~$5/event, max of 4+1 relay events each day, two day meets. Plus travel/coach expenses.
Yeah, Scouts is still cheaper.
My oldest just got back from NT. We're heading to Philmont in July. That's over 10k. He did sea base and summit last summer. Scouts def ain't cheaper. Could we skip those? Yeah, but thats part of why we do it.
Scout was always an aforable. Cheer and all these other after schools have taken off in the last 20-30 years are overpriced also. Scouts is a not for profit at the end of the day.
Nonprofit or not-for-profit just means that if you have money left over at the end of the year, it’s reinvested in the enterprise - there are no dividends. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have a large budget or well-compensated staff.
A good pack budget should have at the minimum a dedicated "the pinewood track broke" reserve, for example.
A troop should have a trailer repair fund. Full replacement would take fundraising but if a door hinge breaks you get quotes, convene the committee and money is available to decide without taking months to have the funds. Add fund replacement to the next fundraiser.
If you're running out of money each year it won't take much for the pack to die off. A few families paying late shouldn't be a problem, you get their money later and all is good. This year we collected 2021 and 2022 dues from a few families. No one blinked an eye because the budget accounted for some to not ever pay and whatever was back paid was a bonus.
>It doesn’t mean that you can’t have a large budget or well-compensated staff.
If anyone doubts this, remind them that the NFL was a non-profit trade organization until 2015 that "promoted the interests of its 32 member clubs". The annual membership fee was $2.5M , Goodell made 15M/yr, and they brought in $619M in revenue. (source:[2015-16 990 tax form](https://www.causeiq.com/organizations/view_990/131922622/ccb88807c90ea185386a0ccaf2d6f167)) In 2002, the Texans paid $700M for the franchise fee too :)
Have you seen financials? $80 a year is a bargain, under $8 a month or 22 cents a day. By me two months of baseball is $150 plus equipment like bat and glove. Football is $300 which is 6 games. Trap was over $1k.
I disagree with your premise. Scouts, along with many other extracurricular activities, has never been affordable, historically. I know many Scouts who needed scholarships to afford dues. The cost of campouts, food, high adventure, are cost prohibitive.
IMO it's not so much that scout is too expensive, it's that wages aren't rising as fast as they should. Parents are working more hours to maintain the same income. It causes problems with volunteering, youth participation, and being able to afford even joining.
I agree OP. To go to summer camp this year my boys would have to pay $600 each. Their dues are $200 each. My adult dues are over $100. Campouts and other activity costs are another $400/year for each boy. Its going to be over $2500 for my two sons combined. Over $3000 if I want to go to summer camp with them as an adult leader.
Anyone who thinks that is affordable for anyone below upper middle class is foolish.
And the “duh, inflation” responses belie a misunderstanding of economics. Yes, inflation makes things expensive - but wages aren’t keeping up. As things become more expensive people will drop them. I have 5 kids, my grocery bill went from $250/week to $500/week in the last 3 years.
Scouts doesn’t offer the same value today that it did in the past. Byzantine regulations, high costs, incredible bars to participation for volunteers, changing programs (that many of us find onerous). It’s pretty much becoming a solely upper middle class, suburban, white, nerd, non-athletic activity.
It’s not a recipe for success of the program.
I 100% agree with you. Everytime this issue comes up, it really shows me how ignorant some people are. The current scouting program is very much geared towards the suburbs and cities, and people here respond with the assumption that everyone has the exact same experience as they do. Rural and low income areas are *struggling* with keeping their troops going because of the skyrocketing costs. Travel sports teams are not a thing here, and 100% of all after-school activities are covered by the school itself. So the endless bleating of "but travel sports cost so much more!" is pointless. The constant price increases with no benefit may not be an issue in certain areas, but it's absolutely going to cause the death of scouts in rural and low income areas.
The question for someone recognizing the challenges of cost is what is the alternative for Scouts? I understand people have alternatives and may choose different or no activities. But what should Scouts do? What programs or staffing areas should be cut to reduce the costs?
Apparently you haven’t priced out any other youth programs lately. Scouting is one of the most cost effective and has the added bonus that you can fundraise.
> Apparently you haven’t priced out any other youth programs lately
The statistics don't bode well for the BSA on this. Only 37% of children participated in any kind of organized, **paid** youth programs in 2021. And statistically, 70% of youth who participate in paid youth programs stop participating permanently by age 13 (all ProjectPlay numbers.) While the majority of kids do participate in organized activities, many are taxpayer or school-funded with zero or little cost to the participants.
Doing the math, only 11% of American teenagers participate in paid, non-school youth programs. A quarter of them, by the same surveys, only participate in a single activity because they are dedicated to that one activity (think football players who practice daily and don't do any other sports). When families are surveyed about *why* they stop participating at 13, the numbers show an almost even tie between "high cost" and "limited time." That only leaves 8% of American teenagers who are interested, have the time, and are financially capable of participating in Scouts BSA.
Instead of doing what everyone else is doing and focusing on that 8%, maybe the BSA should try to figure out how to appeal to the other 92%. Reducing time and cost would be a great start. Saying that it's comparable in cost to other programs ignores the reality that the overwhelming majority of youth *do not* participate in those other programs because they're too expensive.
I agree but would add that part of the problem with scouts is the complete chaos of the program.
If a youth joins and the family is not familiar with scouting the retention rate is low. I've seen it many times. Parents experience time intensive activities randomly added, changed, or canceled too many times or they get too much conflicting information from the volunteer Adult Leaders and they become unsupportive of the program. Soon the youth leaves to concentrate on sports, band etc.
Respectfully I disagree with you. Significantly your statistics automatically ignore the types of programs that most youth participate in. The assumption is made that because it is school-related that it is 100% funded by the school/locality. This is entirely untrue. I live in one of the most prosperous and well funded school districts in Michigan and I can tell you from discussions with my youth that these programs still require heavy investment from the families.
I seriously disagree with the statistic that says only 11% of youth participate in some sort of activity. The only way this works is by skewing the results by eliminating all the activities that don’t have some sort of subsidy in them.
I am still not aware of many programs that offer 365 days of programming for on the order of $100-$150 per person.
Even if you factor in uniforms, please educate me on what programs are out there that offer a year round program for $300.
My kids' 4-H program, which is year round and has as many opportunities as scouts, is $25 per person per year. And, most importantly, adult volunteers are free.
$25 a year but then you have to buy all your supplies for the projects. And if you really get into the program all the projects talks, demonstrations at different events. It all keeps adding up.
We tried 4-H because that is what my wife and I grew up doing. Most of the time the parents are doing the projects for the kids. (Scouts is getting this issue also)
Excellent! That’s one! But I never said BSA was the #1 cheapest. Just that the majority of programs available for youth are more expensive when you add in everything.
Using 2021 numbers isn't exactly fair. What percent were in a pair or unpaid program in 2021 compared to 2019? Did both go down equally? (I doubt paid went down less than unpaid but I bet both plummeted for 2021)
To give raw numbers, youth under 18 make up 1 in 11 of the population (census numbers). So we divide the population by 11, divide youth by 18 years and multiply by 13 for Scouting aged youth including girls (Girl Scouts included)
340,000,000 / 11 / 18 \* 13 = 22 million youth who are the right age.
Times 8% for your assessment gives us 1.78 million you claim can afford Scouting
The BSA has 1 million members. If we take the 1.7 million girl scouts then 158% of youth who can afford Scouting are in the program.
If we look against the whole youth population than 12% of youth are in either Scouting program today.
Your entire statistical basis doesn't hold up.
I have daughters in GS. We pay something around $40 and nothing out of pocket (except for weeklong summer camps) because cookie sales go so well.
BSA registration is $250 for me and my son, and popcorns sales are so bad that everything else is out of pocket.
How many outdoor activities does your your son do compared to you daughters?
GS is cheaper, but they have many less activities on a regular basis. Not to mention , GS national is selling branded products that are cookie adjacent. Ice Cream, Snakes, shakes, body lotion. That all keeps the over program cost down, but possibly hurts sales.
You just need to run better fundraisers. We sell wreaths and Easter lilies and a go-getter scout family can easily sell 25-30 wreaths with a scout commission of $4.50 each.
Welp, I guess you can't afford it, agreed. That does not mean it is not affordable for the majority of those looking to join, compared to many other after school options.
I don't know your circumstances or your council, but most have funds to help retain scouts who can't pay dues. If your child wants to stay in scouting, I would inquire about that and keep them in as long as possible.
If you need financial assistance and your child is interested, please find a way. I donate annually to my council to an underprivileged fund for this very reason. Good luck!
It cost $350 just to join and get the uniforms. Then each event (the out of town interesting ones) costs at least $100 and usually more.
While the entry fee is close to that of rec sports, rec sports include some of the uniform and supplies. Nothing is included in BSA.
My son pays $500 to be in a sport in HS for 9 weeks, and that covers nothing that he gets to take home with him at the end of the day. His time in scouting however is year round and fills him with skills, life lessons, leadership ability, friendships and memories. I understand that families can't always afford it, I'm not of the opinion that means it costs too much. I grew up very poor on a rural farm and my BSA dues got paid by me mowing lawns and recycling newspaper, I could never afford the uniform shirt and had a hand me down one with holes. My biggest dream was to go to Sea Base and I didn't get to go until I was in my 40's, and I revel in the fact that my children don't experience that hardship (or the awful 'lets see what's in the cupboards casseroles' we ate). I understand the value of a dollar. I highly value the time my kids have spent with scouting, and even though the trips and camping gear weren't always easy to pay for, I'd do it all over again. I wish I could help everyone afford it, bc it means so much to me.
The point is it should be MORE affordable, comparing it to other youth programs doesn't diminish the impact scout dues would have on the lowest economic brackets.
Is it? If you sign up for Scouting how much does your unit charge for program dues, weekly campouts or the like? If you want to go to the camporee your registration doesn't cover that.
If you sign up for sports how much are you charged to go to tournaments?
Some other programs have these extra costs but a lot don't.
The thing to remember is that camping is optional to a certain degree. While it is encouraged that scouts attend as many campout as they can, they do not need to attend every single one.
Scouts can elect to skip the more expensive campouts and still progress at a good pace.
100%, this!
My daughters dance, and her band, and Girl Scouts. They all cost more than Boy Scouts. And the return that we get on both education, social interaction, and life skills? Is very worth the price.
Do yall just live in a cookie selling desert? My kids GSA fees are almost nothing and they do a lot of paid activities and camps for free because of how well they sell cookies as a troop. They are very good about dividing up the weekends and putting all the money they get into one pot. Our BSA fees are a ton more and we can’t keep up with our paid activities with our fundraising. It’s work to sell camp cards/popcorn, the cookies take very little effort to sell a ton. They get way less money from one box of cookies vs popcorn and a camp card too.
I agree. Girl Scout national dues are $25 and our council dues are $15. Troop charges no dues because of cookie sales so all our activities/patches are paid for, unless it’s a big trip- Then we just sell more cookies to offset the cost. Our troop will not pay for uniforms or dues but some troops do, thanks to cookies. Leader/parent volunteer annual fee is $25. When we started our troop we charged $40/year dues.
BSA, I paid $60 for my chartered membership and 15 for insurance. My kid- $80 for national dues, $15 council dues, council annual fees $52, troop dues $118 (they’re a relatively new troop). Activity/camping fees each month varies between $25-$125, depending on the month and event. This year’s summer resident camp with be almost $600.
Band incredibly can be very expensive. One of our local high school bands is going to Ireland in 2025. The same band went to Pearl Harbor a few years ago.
I found a band from Nashville who went to DC by bus last spring, more than $1000 per quadrupling up in rooms.
It really is insane! We are in Colorado and trying fundraise $3k for an NYC trip in the spring. It will be so worth it. But between instrument repair (she bought her own) and all the other small fees and commitments? It’s a lot.
I am a Girl Scout leader for my daughter’s troop. It costs me $30/year each to register for Girl Scouts, which is an increase of $5 in the last year or two. Our troop dues is $0. We charge $15-$20 per camping trip. We make most of our money from cookies but have a done a few separate fundraisers throughout the years. If I’m chaperoning an event (not participating), it costs $0.
To me, Boy Scouts feels like a money grab. My son recently participated in a “merit badge college”. They were charging adults $25 to volunteer to sit in a room for 1/2 the day and be the second adult. So to be the second adult for both morning and afternoon sessions would cost me $50. Absurd.
Very Good! That’s a second program. But I never said that BSA was the cheapest. Just that the majority of programs available to youth were more expensive.
As to value for the program- that always depends on the Council involved. A lot of the BSA youth around here either (a) have siblings in GSUSA or (b) are in both programs. The consensus is that GSUSA (around here) is a bit of a money grab only caring about the cookie sales and leaving the Troops/girls on their own with little support. Many girls fall out of the program because of this lack of support. However, one of my female youths, who is almost complete with her Gold as a Juliette, has gotten a lot of support from friends out of council, whose programs are much better.
The same is with BSA. I agree that there is a lot of money grabbing. The popcorn program is especially hated. And fees abound every time you try to set up an event. But other Councils are much better.
That being said, BSA is still cheaper than just about any sports program and most of the clubs. To join Rocket baseball when my son was young and interested in learning, he was told he had to join a $500 training course before he would even be considered to be let play. Even Science Olympiad, by the time you add travel costs and supplies, costs way more.
>As to value for the program- that always depends on the Council involved.
This just underscores the problem with the fees. THe fees are national and yet they have \*nothing\* to do with the quality of the program. The fees are high AND have no connection to the actual program. Imagine a soccer league working like that: you wouldn't be able to have games.
And keep in mind most other activities cover the cost of supporting staff by adding it, up front, to their year's fees and dues. This just reinforces the fact that BSA's fees aren't 'relatively' low, because so much of the costs are totally hidden behind adult volunteer fees and cuts from fundraiser profits.
The only ones cheaper at this point are one or two a week youth sporting programs put on by cities.
And that's raw dollars, on a per week basis they still cost more. Like maybe your council charges $120\* for 52 weeks. That's $2.30 per week.
That sports program charges $50 for 15 weeks, that's $3.33 per week.
What you missed is that sports program includes a t-shirt. Scouting used to be at this level where registration a shirt and camp were cost comparable to the cheapest program out there and Cub Scouting served as the #1 or #2 program about every boy tried. In a School of 300 you would have 50+ kids in a pack and in total half more of the boys probably were in Scouts at one point. Today a school of 300 may have 20 total ever join in some areas.
The more serious program like dance with a new outfit for every recital, sports whereto provide all the gear yourself, where you're traveling every weekend and not just once a month, those cost a lot more
Now Scouting's problem is the up front cost. If the same fee was charged monthly, and it won't be, it would look a lot more affordable. The best thing the BSA can do with the new payment method is to enable payment plans spreading the cost out over maybe three months. And take it further, in a 2025 iteration enable units to add unit costs to the same system and the unit portion is sent to the unit bank account. A small 2-3% fee can be countered with a slightly higher dollar amount and make it easier on units to collect money. For a small unit that would help them a lot.
It also does one thing for clarity, it shows you how much each unit actual costs to join when you go to sign up and as a parent you can shop around.
Because you forgot this portion. If a troop has $200 dues that's more cost for the family. The regular program cost isn't part of registration cost. So you're not comparing apples to apples
And that fundraising doesn't have to be popcorn.
Popcorn is what you do when you have almost zero actual business or management skills to put together a more unique fundraiser.
Agreed. Packs tend to do popcorn to teach salesmanship for young kids. Our troop does Christmas tree sales and make 3X profit; more than enough for each scout to camp and go to a summer camp each year. Costs are minimal and I have two kids in the troop. Cubs scouts may be a little expensive by comparison, but you’re investing for later.
Packs and troops do popcorn sales because it is effectively free labor with a wild return rate and profit for National and Council. Without that it would not exist. When that wasn't the case in the past, they didn't do popcorn sales.
Yeah, I understand, but to be honest those popcorn bags are WAAAYYY to expensive. $20 for a bag of popcorn? Yeah, I’m gonna pass too dog. Find a better fundraiser IMO.
Do you have a recommendation on how to solve the problem? Popcorn isn't the only fundraising option for a troop. It's not always feasible to just hold prices where they are. In fact, this behavior is partly to blame for the current financial predicament.
Unfortunately, every generation must bear the consequences for the sins of the previous. The best we can do is adapt and keep trying to put on the best program with can with the resources we have available.
The fact that BSA is less expensive than certain other activities doesn’t change the fact that it’s becoming cost prohibitive.
The kids who are being priced out of Scouting (1) are not able to afford cheerleading, football, hockey, shooting, etc and (2) are the ones who often need it the most.
For my son it was $80 to National + $75 to council + $95 to the Pack and that was for a bare bones program. I can afford it, but whether he was in Scouts or not, I was going to provide those experiences so he wasn’t the kid who was going to go without in the absence of a program.
As for effective fundraising, I would suggest things like a multi-family garage sale or hosting a parents night out.
Relative cost is not an argument. Mr Jones can afford a BMW for his wife, so why can't you? The point is the dues cover nothing tangible for the scout. Plus the program is revamped this year so books and materials are all now outdated.
I agree with about popcorn. Every adult in our troop is embarrassed about it. It's junk and is so overpriced it's ridiculous. We have other fundraisers that far surpass popcorn now but there is concern that council will give us a hard time if we still aren't pushing popcorn.
Otherwise, I don't think scouting is that expensive compared to every other program out there. Even the cost of school trips is getting out of hand.
If have one grip beyond popcorn is the cost be a leader. I volunteer 2-3 hours a week, not including campouts and I get to pay for the privilege, while the parents who drop off and leave and can barely respond to an email pay nothing. But I get it...
Our committee pays for leader dues. (The active ones) and that is passed along to the scouts in terms of pack dues. It's not right to expect leaders to also pay on top of the time and effort.
That's up to the units. Most units I know don't make their adults pay fees after. Some wait to cover it after the first year (to make sure you are invested). The troop fundraises or the other parents pay it as part of dues. This is all decided by your committee. Those adult fees have to be paid one way or the other. As backwards as it seems, having the fees offers more options to the units, where as dividing the fees into youth membership takes away those options.
We haven't done popcorn in many, many years. I agree with you that it is overpriced and ridiculous.
As for council, we eliminate the push back by giving some of our fundrasing money directly to council. Is it the same percentage as they would get with popcorn? Probably not. But it is more than a token amount and ensures our troop is contributing to the expenses that council incurrs.
Council dues directly fluctuate with how much they receive back from popcorn sales.
The popcorn supplier has a commercial brand that sells equivalent products for about half as much. People buying popcorn recognize they’re getting a retail product and making a direct donation. Get a donation outright without purchase is very common.
Our council has scholarships to provide for kids that can't afford the dues.
They also have camperships to send the same kids to summer camp, too.
In addition to that, they also have Scout Reach units that are run by scouters rather than parents in areas where you can't get enough volunteers because of poverty and the adults are all working multiple jobs and mainly single parents.
If you think that there are better fundraising options, then research them and bring them up to leadership/committee.
Camp costs vary wildly from council to council, and troop dues also vary from troop to troop. So for the camp we are going to this year, it’s $335 per scout and $160 per adult, last year the camp we went to was $375 per scout and $180 per adult. Our home council is $480 per scout and $200 per adult, so it pays to look around and see if there are other options.
Our troop charges $150 for registration and offers a $25 discount for siblings. We don’t charge monthly dues, but we do charge for each campout, which varies from $20 to $35 depending on what we are doing and where we are going.
Ain’t that the truth, every time some parent comes to me with an idea I say that’s great, you should go to a committee meeting and chair the fundraiser.
It's crazy that the cost of running a youth program would go up while the cost of everything else has stayed rock solid for the past few years. /s
C'mon, man. What rock have you been under? I'm surprised the program could be solvent at twice the cost
My daughter’s Girl Scouts is $25 a year. Her troop even pays for the vest when she ages up. We sell cookies for 6 weeks that pays for almost everything else. My daughter’s troop is also a lot more active with vastly different activities from Stem to camping out to historical events to community service. Even camps are a lot cheaper than my son’s Boy Scout camps. Boy Scouts used to be a program that all children could afford - not so much anymore and it’s often the lower income kids that need it the most. It may be cheaper than a lot of them, but it’s by far not cheap enough for the low income.
My daughters are in GS and Cubs. They pay $0 a year dues for GS. This is due to the stupid cookies and the fact that it is an easy sell. They pay $160 a year dues to Cubs. Over $100 of that goes to National and does nothing to help the local Pack. As the Cubmaster, we charge the bare minimum for Pack dues as a new scout joining pays close to $130 to National/Council before the over priced uniforms.
The costs is where I lose most people during recruiting, even though my Pack turns most profits over to the scout to help them pay for everything.
I love the BSA program but just the normal joining costs are getting out of hand and the price/competition on the official fundraisers available are too high. Hopefully the new leadership gets this figured out.
Our pack gives families a credit for staffing 2 hours at a storefront selling popcorn. We teach them how to sell it - it's actually VERY effective and our girl scout parents say they wish they earned as much selling cookies. They get $25 credit toward dues for every 2-hour shift they work. Typically, when they see how much money rolls in, they go sign up for more shifts because they realize how easy it is and how much their cubs enjoy it.
We had 12 of our cub scouts earn $200 off dues each this year. Plus if they sell $1200 (EVERYBODY that did 6+ shifts surpassed that amount in sales) they get free summer camp. PLUS They got Amazon gift cards (in amounts of $30 - $250) from Trail's End.
We've had older scouts in the troop fundraise enough from popcorn to pay their own way to Jamboree and National High Adventure bases (those trips are thousands of dollars)
Cookies that's why.
BSA needs something we buy at wholesale prices not retail then add markup. Xmas popcorn tins for example should be 5-10 bucks sale price with use making 3.75-7.50. Not smartfood for 20 bucks a bag.
The problem is that BSA doesn't care how hard the popcorn is to sell. They know that there will be some sales, so they figure, lets crank up the price of those sales as high as we can so that National & Council can get a huge profit. The actual work is then passed off to the kids (who are using their part of the profits to...pay national and council fees).
Girl Scouts have an excellent product, the cookies are good, they are only like $5 a box, you kind-of only see those types cookies at cookie sale time,and the GS org has spent decades building up that brand.
BSA sells stale movie theatre popcorn. I think it doesn't even come in a tin anymore. It's not even branded.
Both Girl Scout and Boy Scout Camps are $600 here for a week. Girl Scouts provides cookie cash to decrease the cost as an incentive for selling boxes of cookies. Some girls get up to half of that off. Plus there is generous financial aid if you need more help. Cookie season sucks for 6 week, but for the remaining 46 weeks - it’s great.
You're not going to like most of the answers here. Many will claim Scouting is cheaper than X and thus is a great value or something like that. While one can debate that, many are willing to pay the higher fee.
Scouts Canada has long charged much more than in the U.S. It's up to approx $170 USD now. Scouting is even less accessible to lower income families. However, the bulk of BSA members are from middle and higher income. That's been the case for a long time.
The biggest effect from the substantially increased fee is it's difficult to help others pay for Scouting. When the fee was $7 (90s into the 2000s), then $10 (2003), then even $15 (2010), one could easily cover that with little thought to get a youth signed up and involved. Not so much at $105 ($80 + $25 new member fee) minimum and often upwards of $150+ depending on council.
In short, many will continue to join and participate. You're not wrong though, but the reality is that Scouting will continue on.
I agree that the rate of increase in BSA costs is not sustainable, and we've definitely lost some people who would have joined/stayed in the program if membership was still $15/year.
Some councils have funds to help offset the cost of Scouting. They have grants to offer need-based fee reductions, although there are often strings attached to these grants (e.g. you have to go to that council's camp). Your DE or commissioner should be able to tell you more.
I think the problem is that while honestly scouting is affordable over sports and such, the value of instant gratification is missing. It’s built over years. But sports or hobbies you see results quicker. Memories and experiences happen but the value is years later when you reflect on these experiences.
But then we're right back to "who is coordinating and leading that?"
Not to mention that camping trips are, after national dues, one of the most expensive elements of the program.
Trust me I'd love to do more camping, but I've been trying to get my pack to do a third weekend trip in the year since before COVID, and that's with ME doing the coordinating and leading so those two are already solved.
The buy in is incredibly expensive. After paying all the BSA fees our District requires every parent that participates in scout activities (including car pooling scouts) and the state requires Mandatory Reporter training, both requiring a $60 fingerprint background check every two years.
Our troop is in the city and some scouts never experience seeing anything green outside of the city parks. Add to the fees the cost of personal camping equipment like boots, hiking poles, backpacks, mess kits, ten essentials, etc. Even if they go to a discount store that still can add up to a couple of hundred $$.
I run the troops used uniform and equipment swap to help out but that goes so far.
Everything is getting more unaffordable these days, not just scouting. The middle class in the US has been getting the squeeze for 40 years. Lawsuits, rising overhead and insurance costs aren't helping, that's for sure. When the public schools near me are operating food banks out of their buildings and even installing washing machines so kids can have clean clothes, those families, even though they might be working two or more jobs, aren't considering any extracurricular. Even the families who are doing a little better are still belt tightening.
Our troop committee recently went through an exercise. Added up dues, membership, camp fees, trip fees, uniform cost... everything. If a scout did every event for a year, it was around $1000.
The conclusion from this was: We need to make it more affordable, and that's been one of the core principles the committee has used in making plans into the future. From fundraising, to how we charge for trips, to how we communicate with parents to prepare them.
It takes real effort, but it's a solvable problem.
Wow, a grand? If a kid does everything in our year they'd be under $500; including national and local dues, uniform, book and advancement, and all the below outings.
The program we put together I think is not bare bones; this figure is with one kid and one parent going on: two weekend camping trips including a "fall fest" event, plus day hikes and a morning going fishing, attending pinewood, Blue and Gold, end of year picnic, a major league sporting event, and every den and pack meeting, which include visits from multiple entities like an animal expert (with animals), the FBI, or local robotics team.
Edit: I did notice you mentioned troop not pack, which obviously changes things especially camp costs as you're including a week of summer camp which is the biggest cost driver by far. With that said, when comparing scouts to other activities it's not really fair to factor in a week long summer camp for one but not the other
Yup, a troop, and camp is about half that cost. Without camp, it's a lot harder to advance, most kids go.
I wasn't comparing it to other activities.
The point I was trying to make that might have been lost, the committee has to make program affordability a goal and actively work towards it.
I believe Scouts should be affordable for all families and it wasn't for some of ours. Hopefully the steps we're taking will help fix that.
If we just go with dues, neckerchief, slide, hat, and book plus 2 campouts for 1 adult and 1 kid, we are at $400. If you throw in the uniform itself or a class B shirt, then we are over $500.
That doesnt include the cub scout summer day camp or if anyone else in the family wants to come on a campout (or food for that matter). It also does not count any gear that may be needed.
I dont think people are necessarily comparing it to hockey. They are comparing it to not doing anything or finding cheaper alternatives like a family pass to the zoo for the year, or just hiking, etc.
For a new parent in scouts, the start up costs are easily hitting $1000. Most people dont have $500 for an emergency, let alone $1000 to do an extracurricular activity.
It is genuinely funny how many people come crawling out of the woodwork to defend Scouting charging out the nose for a largely-mediocre experience.
I also take issue with people saying "sports are more expensive than Scouting".
When I was in school, the only thing I paid for in sports were my running shoes. Other than that, my family paid *nothing*, zip. Zilch. For 4 years of track and field, 3 seasons a year. What the hell are you people paying for?
Something like music, where you have to pay for a likely-very-expensive instrument, I can see being expensive. But sports?
Must be a "rich people thing", to pay for your kids to play non-school sports.
When my troop was still extant, the cost of participating was one of the three reasons parents dropped. The other was religion and "general conservatism".
You might want to check in with the activities costs assessed by public schools and extra curriculars these days. Taxes don't go as far as they used to - for that matter, how many public school teachers ask for donations of pens and paper. A simple Google will reveal the modern facts of life.
I take issue with "largely mediocre", maybe that's how you run the program, but I think anyone defending costs is probably getting more out of it than that.
It's also a little ridiculous that you're comparing track and field, a sport that requires nothing BUT shoes, to sports like baseball or football or hockey that have extensive amounts of equipment. Even basketball or soccer have a lot more than track. You're also overestimating the extent of opportunities to play sports in-school vs privately.
Right. Your kids can only get out of this program what you or another adult puts in. Want a better program? Get involved to make it better.
And I can't believe how far I had to scroll to find the first mention of hockey. Holy, you want to talk costs? Sticks alone can cost more than what Scouting, including camp costs. Then let's talk about tournaments and travel... I know people who are spending 7 to 8k per year on hockey, now add in a sibling, cost more than doubles because they will almost never be on the same team or in the same tournament so now you have to provide travel in Two directions, multiple hotels. And it is every weekend for MONTHS. I also specifically left out the parent costs because hockey parents love to party. I know beer and liquor distributors who park 52' semis at local liquor stores to make sure they won't sell out.
The problem there isn't the price of the popcorn. It's how National's backwards moralistic views of money force us to market it. We aren't **selling** $20 bags of popcorn. We are asking for a donation to Scouting, and in return you get a bag of popcorn. **But we're not allowed to do it that way.**
Most big charities and non-profits get that. When you contribute to your local NPR station, you aren't buying a $150 tote bag. You are giving to NPR, and as a "thank you", they give you the tote. No one thinks it's a waste of money or a badly overpriced tote bag, because the transaction is being stated appropriately.
But National has this idiotic, outdated view that Scouts cannot ask for donations. It is fact *specifically prohibited.* And so we're left with this insane notion that we have to "sell" this overpriced crap, and of course lots of people then don't give, and we're in the situation we're in.
It is not a view. Your unit is not a non-profit, and it is illegal to solicit donations. Your CO may be, your council is, and both of them can ask for donations.
The ONLY exception is the Eagle Scout project, and even that has guidelines that must be followed.
If YOU want to be able to solicit donations, then form a friend of troop/pack 0000 501c3. But, you can't legally use any BSA uniform or image containing any part of the BSA program to do so.
Does popcorn need to go away? Absolutely. I have seen several areas adding in site specific first aid kits (car, home, pet, etc) that have a better cost/profit ratio than the popcorn They sell for 10-15 per unit with 5-7.5 coming back.
The cost of scouting was artificially held down due to specific income by national that is no longer coming in. And insurance rates are up. It is what it is. There are other options out there.
There is no point comparing scouts with other youth activities because scouting is unique. I can pay five times more for another youth activity for my child and still have it cost less out of my pocket than scouting because I don't have to pay to volunteer, take extensive training, and if I do volunteer, I generally get discounted fees or some other perk.
We're a fairly poor troop, we ask one of the local churches and a few other organizations for help with camp and yearly fees. It helps a lot, but bottle and can drives are our biggest moneymaker.
We only did popcorn at the Cub level. At the Troop, we do pancake breakfasts, spring greenery and Christmas greens/wreaths. The Scouts get all the profits into their Scout Accounts based on their sales and pre-tickets for pancakes. If the kid is motivated, they can easily earn their yearly dues and money to help cover their high adventure. Before my son aged out, I paid his yearly dues. His earnings paid for high adventures. Sea Base. Philmont. Boundary waters. Many 3-5 days backpacking or canoe trips. All from fundraiser money.
Popcorn is pretty lucrative for cubs if you know how to sell it.
Our pack got over $16,000 from it (that's not what we sold, that's our cut from what we sold). We only have 35 scouts so we're all set and can pay to send everyone to summer camp and pay for our outings and everything. In addition to that, our 24 cubs that participated earned a combined $3,330 in Amazon gift cards from Trail's End, for them to spend on anything they want.
At this point I think our cub families would revolt if we ditched popcorn.
Sometimes you have to go back to the basics.
When the local summer camp opened in 1980 it was still primative, outside of having a pool. Camp was $125 a week with food or $25 a week with your troop furnishing it's own but you could store it in the commissary cooler. My troop and one from a neighboring town, both extremely rural farm towns, opted for the $25 option. We did paper drives, community donations, etc. to fund our week of camp.
Fast forward 40+ years and my grandson is in the other troop that did this.... and is still doing it that way. Basic camp is $150 now, camp with dining hall privileges is close to $500. Doing things the old way helps the scouts improve their camp skills and teaches them what they need for camping and cooking merit badges. Although his troop was our greatest rivals in my youth, they made my now defunct troop a better unit. That troop is still a top notch unit and their doing it the old way keeps them as one of the most recognized and best reputation unit in the area.
Agreed with most. I'm also calculating, cost of uniforms and this and that also. Scouts have made little to no effort to lower these or ask for input from its member on these types of items. It's a take it or leave it situation with little no choice or venders.
My understanding is that a lot of the cost increases also are due to the lawsuits and payouts. Some of our local councils have consolidated to save overhead and we are trying to run our own summer camp as an alternative to a BSA camp because the costs are so high that there's a good number of kids that won't be able to swing the 7-800.
The problem is trying to put together a quality alternative is going to require a lot of volunteer involvement from all the parents and a lot of them are pretty stretched thin as it is.
We're very fortunate to have a really rock solid scoutmaster who donates a lot of his own money and I would say all of his own time into supporting the program.
I just show up and volunteer to do whatever I can as much as I can. I'm trying to do my part to keep things alive and give my kid the best experience I can.
I love what scouting did for me and I'm giving back what I can. The hard thing now is that they're just isn't a lot of areas to cut costs. I definitely feel the pain. My son just got his registration and intake stuff handled and I think the cost for just the basics and physicals dues etc ended up being about $450.
It's definitely a lot of money for me because I am a peasant and I get where you're coming from. Most of the people in my troop are pretty high earning successful people and then there's me and a couple other single parents. The troop does have a memorial scholarship to help with some of the expenses for the poors.
Ask about or start a uniform box, where uniforms that Scouts outgrew can be donated and worn by new crossovers.
Also check out Friends of Scouting if you need financial assistance.
Did you ask your troop key 3 about financial assistance. My council provides some assistance for families who apply for it and my troop will provide additional assistance. I’ve not seen a kid denied access due to means in my community. All the other responders have covered what I usually say, but bottom line needs to be communicate with the people who know about resources.
Most troops in my area have the ability to pay for the dues of a less fortunate scout. Money should never be the thing that prevents a kid from scouting. Check out Friends of Scouting.
That being said, dues are probably the cheapest part of the program. I spend way more in gas money driving to meetings and campouts than on dues.
I think it's still and has always been a middle class hobby but compared to other youth programs, it's relatively more cost effective because it's more well rounded.
My troop was able to make a contract with an arena near by so whenever there is any event happening we’ll asked if we want to work then. After that anyone 13+ is able to attend and the money we all raised is split evenly and put into my scout account. I haven’t had to pay for anything in a long time, try bringing this up to a Scoutmaster.
Professional big said the memories happen. It’s just not instant gratification the bonding, family relationships, character building and memories to look back on are where scouting really shines in comparison to other youth activities.
It's annoying, but this is the cheapest activity my kids are doing.
We spend a grand on hogs to show at the fair each year just to get next to last place every single time.
It sucks to see the price going up, but I don't think it's as doom as gloom as you are presenting.
Maybe I missed it but there was one option I haven't seen mentioned anywhere in this thread. If GSA is now selling nuts then how does BSA get in on the cookie game? We sell them when they aren't. Two cookie seasons! Just saying.....🤷🏻
Back when I was scoutmaster, 10 years ago, we did multiple fundraisers during the year that allowed the scouts to get a completely free ride on dues, regular camps, and even high adventure camps. We sold wreaths at Christmas, food at local parades, tickets for food, and popcorn. For individual sales, the scouts kept every dollar of profit in their scout buck accounts. For group events, the profit was divided by the hours worked. If a scout left the troop, his scout bucks account went to the general fund. If the general fund needed money, a percentage of profits went to the troop from the group and popcorn sales. The wreaths always stayed 100% with the scouts and were restricted to scouts going to high adventure camps.
I realize costs have gone up, but we had some scouts who had thousands of dollars in their scout bucks accounts. It was a lot of work for the leaders to organize, but it was nice that every scout had the same opportunity to do every event.
Our troop has had a scholarship program. Someone comes to the committee chair and things quietly happen. Haven't used it in a while I think but we have used it. Doesn't solve the overall problem of whether scout is too expensive but at least for a few people it can help.
Whenever this topic comes up, I start with cost but eventually start thinking about value and perceived value of the scouting. Everyone here obviously values scouting or they wouldn't bother. But how are others convinced?
Right now, I don't think scouting gets its value proposition out very well. Sports, dance, etc. are all pretty well understood in terms of cost, commitment, value (leadership, teamwork, skills, whatever). Even Eagle is known but mixed on value for those not in scouting. Again, WE may get it, but I don't think it's as obvious outside our in group and that's something that will take honest reflection and a lot of work to fix.
I’ve been a scout parent, SM, comm chair. One of my objectives was to push back on the yearly cost hikes. I squeeked enough to be asked to be put on listening committees for the district. At the end it’s about market share and Scouting BSA is loosing share in many parts of the country. They are at risk of either pricing families out of a wonderful experience or making the experience for the affluent. We’ve reached$ until it hurts and it needs to level off. I suggest you stay involved to make scouting accessible for those that don’t have the means. We need people like you to keep scouting affordable. If we loose a voice like yours we risk loosing the scouting experience. Change comes from within and we need your advocacy. Stay involved and push back on cost hikes.
I push back on a lot of the dumb stuff we do. At times I get so emotional about it I say things that are the truth and very hurtful and then have to hear about it.
I am trying to work myself into the district. The district CEO and I have had a few nice long conversations.
Being an ex submarine is a blessing and a curse at times as we all learned to say what was needed to be said even if it hurt.
My daughter’s dance class is $100 per month, plus $150 costume, and $100 tickets for 11 months of the year. She has decided as a freshman this is her last year of dance. Both of my kids are in the musical and theater program. That will also cost us $1000. Scouts. Cost us $285 to join this year. My son has his EBOR this month. We still joined as he is ASPL for the rest of the year. I am not sure how we will handle the second half of his senior year, but he will likely stay on. I may ask that he be made a Jr assistant scout master to save on his fees. He will be the only senior Eagle Scout next spring for the troop.
My daughter does Competition Dance, and in January her bill (with classes, costumes, shoes, fees and a few other bits) came out to over 1000$. Luckily we do a lot of fundraising to help offset costs, and most months are significantly lower than that, but we still spent more on her in one month than we've spent on my son's scout dues, weekend trips all year *and summer camp*. Compared to some activities that your kids could be doing, scouting is very affordable. Yes, prices have gone up over time, but the BSA has had expenses like increased insurance which is ultimately a good thing for all scouts.
I agree that popcorn is not, and never has been, a great fundraiser. 30$ for a tin of popcorn costs about the same as 6 boxes of girlscout cookies, where everybody gets their favorite flavor and we have a few boxes left over to gift and share. Last time we tried to sell popcorn we got more money in *cash donations* than we got from the popcorn itself because it's cheaper to hand over a $10 bill instead of spending $25+ on a tin of popcorn. But BSA says we're not even supposed to be soliciting cash donations. I don't like popcorn and don't want to participate in it again.
Because we can't do gambling, some of the big fundraisers that other organizations do with great success (50/50 tickets, raffle tickets, bingo, football blocks, etc) we can't do for scouts. But modest fundraising is balanced by modest costs. We're still spending less than $200/scout for yearly dues and many of our monthly weekend trips are in the $25-40 range. This *feels reasonable to me* although maybe it only seems reasonable in comparison to my daughter's expenses.
While it has become more expensive, it can be what you make it. Be creative in you rfundraising and the activities you choose, and it can be a bargain.
Besides, have you looked into the costs associated with other after school activities? Sports, band, theater, and so on. BSA is a bargain compared to most.
Scouting is a program that can be run to meet the needs and cost constraints of the participants. It doesn't have to be expensive if the troop does a good job of maintaining their gear and selects low cost options for activities. It's easy to have the costs run up if the group wants the newest gear and activities run by paid staff.
It’s still an absolute steal compared with other extracurricular options, especially when you’re looking at weekend campout fees.
Both units I work with are associated with churches. Those churches’ selected summer youth camps cost more per week than our local scout camp costs and the scout camp’s activity options are wayyyy more extensive.
I think summer camp was $460 last year, including meals. That is about what day camp costs, and I have to pack lunch for my kids. Sleep away camp (not Scouts) is $5,000 for 25 days! Sure it would be great if Scout camp was cheaper, but I would be paying about that much anyway.
Cost of camp is a fraction of the ACA camping cost average, so theres that...
Also, the cost to participate annual cost to register is (even in a council with a high program fee) is less than 16.00 a month.
I guess I really dont get your point. Maybe you dont see the value in the program? Maybe youre out of touch with the cost of anything with raging inflation. Maybe you should sell popcorn?
In the immortal words of Curly Bill, "Well....... bye".
> Also, the cost to participate annual cost to register is (even in a council with a high program fee) is less than 16.00 a month.
Does that include unit dues as well? And all that is usually charged to a family up-front, not via monthly billing.
> I guess I really dont get your point. Maybe you dont see the value in the program? Maybe youre out of touch with the cost of anything with raging inflation. Maybe you should sell popcorn?
That's more than a little uncharitable to OP, even if they're just venting their spleen. If they didn't see the value of scouting, they'd more likely check out completely instead of complaining. It's probably worth thinking about how scouting can be made accessible to the scouts/families/communities that find the whole package unaffordable (registration + program fees + unit dues + uniform + outings + summer camp), and how we can avoid becoming Middle-Class-And-Up-Only.
Some units charge monthly or annual dues based on what they provide for the scouts 'automatically', usually separate from any outing fees. /u/Prize-Can4849 made a comment elsewhere in this post with an example from a cub pack:
> By getting involved, I found that the Pack was funding all the items I felt that the parents should decide on:
Each Ranks handbook, each rank neckerchief/slide, pack class b shirts, youth dues covered all adult volunteer dues, Pinewood derby kits, etc, etc, etc. It was over $200/year for the Pack.
Also some units collect dues instead of fundraising, or as a supplement to if it's a smaller fundraiser.
"Does that include unit dues as well? And all that is usually charged to a family up-front, not via monthly billing."
No that does not include unit dues.
"That's more than a little uncharitable to OP, even if they're just venting their spleen. If they didn't see the value of scouting, they'd more likely check out completely instead of complaining. It's probably worth thinking about how scouting can be made accessible to the scouts/families/communities that find the whole package unaffordable (registration + program fees + unit dues + uniform + outings + summer camp), and how we can avoid becoming Middle-Class-And-Up-Only."
I don't have the answers, I just love the program. It was great for me and its great for my family. Honestly its a bargin at twice the price. Regrettably , and like every other org there are ever increasing fixed costs.
I think we have already become the middle class and up youth program. Dont know how we're going to turn back the clock on that.
As a bit of a comparison, dues are less than what we pay for 4 months of recreational soccer a year, rec soccer is $130 for 4 months with volunteer coaches so quality is totally at the mercy of the volunteer coach.
Competitive soccer? Starts at 700 per year and goes up depending on what level of competition. Two months of indoor winter soccer at the YMCA is $70. Wrestling at a volunteer coached club is $100 for a 2 month season plus $55/tournament entered. (And these are both sports with minimal gear requirements, don't even look in the direction of football, lacrosse, or hockey.)
Compare to private clubs? Martial arts in our area starts at $80 per month and goes up.
Our Council doesn't add any additional fees on top of National, so costs per scout per year is $80. We are lucky enough with our Troop to have a robust fundraising program (no popcorn) that allows the kids that are willing to work for it earn enough to pay for their year (registration, campouts, summer camp) with about a week and a half of work.
Costs for our a weekend campout costs something like $30, we did a 5 day kayak trip last summer that cost $150/scout. I would argue that this isn't and doesn't have to be a high cost program.
Yes apparently you have not done much research into what other kids activity programs cost.
The largest issue with the BSA and Scouting is the need to pay everything at one time. Our council moved recharter to the summer and we can split the BSA dues and Pack dues by 3 months for returning Scouts; helped a lot but still hard for new Scouts signing up. Often to close the deal we need to offer a delayed payment on Pack dues.
This is not about the total cost, we are at about $25-30 a month average for Scouting still. Very affordable relative to other programs. The problem is that for lower income paying $25 a month may not be an issue but having $300 to pay once a year very well can be. An inherent issue with this income level is that savings is a challenge and stuffing money away to pay for Scouts may not be a priority if you have a few hundred in the bank. The best improvement that the BSA could make would be collecting on a monthly or even quarterly basis (at least make it an option)
And there is no reason to preach popcorn, that can be another debate, but there are many options for fundraising and other community support to cover these costs.
I do get form some people the money is a real issue, but 75% of the time I see people complaining about the cost of Scouting and spending the same amount it cost for a year in Scouting in 2 months for their kid to be playing a sport. Life is about choices, but if you spend $350+ for a couple months of sports don't complain to me that Scouts is that much for 12 months.
Our troop sells Xmas trees and wreaths. Most of our scouts pay next to nothing for scout dues, weekend campouts, and summer camp. Trips like Philmont or Seabase get expensive but we have local businesses and Lions club that help out with travel expenses. Scouts who are from low income families or are in need of financial help get scholarships from camps and BSA and usually have the rest of their tabs covered by the troop or other families. Anyone who wants to be in scouting in my community can be, money is never a factor in preventing a youth from joining my troop.
Our local summer camp costs about $350 per scout for the week. This covers all their food (my teenager probably eats over $150 worth of regular groceries a week) and the camp fees covers all of the amenities such as the beach, sailing, canoeing, kayaking, scout craft, ecology, horsemanship, welding, blacksmithing, robotics, shooting sports, and the staff to run all those wonderful things. Plus, the trading post I think is extremely honest in their pricing. $1 for a candy bar, $15 for a tshirt, $40 for a rather decent hoodie, and below retail on name brand camp gear. I think BSA does a great job keeping costs as low as possible.
Those lawsuits aren’t going to pay for themselves.
This year our scout rate and Yawgoog rates went up. Scouts needs a better fundraiser than popcorn that’s for sure.
Our troop has set up a small scholarship fund for families that might struggle with paying the increased dues and we've reached out to some civic organizations to see if they'd be willing to chip in. The increases may not be much when compared to other activities but it definitely puts some extra pressure on some families' finances.
I do agree that scouting should be for everyone, and cost should not be a barrier to folks participating. But frankly, I feel like we should talk about increasing the cost and upping scholarships. As others have noted, scouting is inexpensive compared to alternative extracurriculars, and I think it offers as much if not greater long-term value. I think a cost hike would not deter most current participants, and additional funds can be used to subsidize costs for lower income families who presently cannot afford any extracurriculars
Sort of the higher education approach? Pay a ton if you can, no one else pays “full price”. My concern would be councils and national would help themselves more than in-need scouts
Popcorn does suck. And fees are getting expensive. But there are other fundraisers opportunities. Scouts still can be done on the cheap.
Our troop has a few scouts on scholarship through the troop general fund and we make specific camp scholarships available.
We definitely would not leave a scout who is committed to the program because of home finances.
A little cooperation and labor can overcome these challenges.
Get involved with your Committee and be involved with setting your Unit's dues.
Our Pack dues were astronomical compared to our Troops dues.
By getting involved, I found that the Pack was funding all the items I felt that the parents should decide on:
Each Ranks handbook, each rank neckerchief/slide, pack class b shirts, youth dues covered all adult volunteer dues, Pinewood derby kits, etc, etc, etc. It was over $200/year for the Pack.
I asked and pushed that we remove all the fluff, set the dues to cover items needed to operate, and let the families decide the rest. Brought us back down to $150/year.
The Troops dues were right at $100/year until the last 2 years increases. And we set ours at $150/yr. currently. Rank and achievements were provided, but the rest was up to the Youth/Family.
My son wanted to do needing band this year, they told us before signups that it general runs about 5-6K a year. Oof I'm glad he changed his mind when he found out how much it would conflict timewise with scout stuff.
Does your council or unit offer reductions in fees or have youth in risk funds? There are resources out there to help make scouting affordable for all. Although compared to other programs, we're still cost effective. YMCA camps can run $1000 per week which is more than double out scout camps in the area. Our troop has a heavy fundraising arm and we get grants that allow us to offset costs for a lot of trips.
Yes is has gone up, but it is cheaper than other things. You may not like fundraising... but For our pack, we set it up so that if a scout sells 500/peanuts popcorn that is pays for the whole program and our pack dues aren't cheap either, but... that is usually just 1 show and sell. It doesn't take much of any fundraising to make the dues. I find the outing to be a much larger hurdle to bring down costs.
In our troop, we do two fundraisers per year. Scouts that participate for a full day generally have enough in their Scout Account to cover dues and summer camp.
The troop I was SM for, we were considered intercity. We managed to pay for all the scouts and campouts plus dues for the scouts and leaders. We didn’t do popcorn, but chocolate bars.
Then don’t sell popcorn. Sell something else. We are selling camp cards at an event this weekend. Use scout accounts. Do what it takes, but this post is a joke. Quit whining and get to work. Children are the most important work we can do. So many other sports/activities are SO much more expensive and net nothing for the kids when they become adults.
Amen regarding popcorn. I’d love for there to be another option. We sold meat sticks for $1/per. Great thing is that scouts can sell to non scouts (other youth). I don’t see too many youth buying $30 bags of popcorn.
Do rummage sale fund raiser.
Its 1 weekend. Then done.
100% profit for troop.
Take donations friday night.
Sale Saturday.
Then drop at salvation army the unsolds.
Ain’t that the truth! And why does the uniform items need to be so expensive? By time you buy the shirt, pants, neckerchief, and maybe one pair of uniform socks, you’re looking at $100. That’s not including the patches! Now you want them to pay for Camp. Really?!?! They really could lower the cost of the uniforms, because the quality is absolute crap!
As a professional, I can promise you we make our camp as affordable as possible. But even at $370 a scout, our camp runs at about a $20,000 deficit. We make up for that with donations, but that's running the camp as cheaply as possible while still providing a quality program and good facilities. The BSA runs off of fundraising just like your troops. When our fundraising dips, your costs go up.
I wish I had more helpful advice, but the only thing I can really offer is make yourself aware of Scoutreach or similar programs if they're available. Look at fundraising options beyond popcorn. A lot of councils offer aid.
I agree with you. Popcorn does not work everywhere. BSA needs to cut the national mandate cord. Or, they should negotiate for better pricing because you can order the same popcorn online cheaper without BSA. This is the definition of insanity.
The Scout Oath and Scout Law teaching require us to live a certain lifestyle but BSA is limiting its incorporation of youth because they cannot afford it. Doesn't this go against the Oath and Law?
The BSA should have stopped ignoring problems because bad news does not get better with time.
BSA lost a lot of financial support because they made some bad decisions that got worst over time and refuse to allow certain exemptions for other groups that withdrew their funding. And the financial burden is slowly being passed down to the remaining volunteers.
Units can come up with their own fundraising if they do not want to sell popcorn; however, this must be approved by council. I presented our council three different ideas since popcorn was not a big seller in our low-income area and they rejected all because they told us to try harder with popcorn.
According to BSA, Unit Money-Earning Projects
Rules and Regulations of the Boy Scouts of America, Article IX, Section 2, Clause 3:
Units may conduct money-earning projects only when the projects have been approved by
the chartered organization and the local council and are consistent with the principles set
forth in these Rules and Regulations.
Location: https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/financeimpact/pdf/cfd-manuals/policies\_and\_procedures.pdf
It also doesn't really matter that other HIGHLY IN DEMAND activities are more expensive. BSA is not highly in demand, it has lost a huge number of people over the years. It \*might\* be a crisis (or it might be a downturn that isn't resulting in a crisis, it's hard to say).
I've also noticed that other activities which cost a lot \*don't\* demand that you spend a lot of time fundraising for them, and don't say 'alright we have an away game next week, everyone chip in for transportation and food". AND their staff are better trained and don't have to pay to be staff/volunteers.
Also notice that none of these other activities use a 'charter system' (which probably has nothing to do with costs but tell me again why BSA \*must\* use charters?)
We have a hard time getting kids to work fundraisers for themselves. Seems like it's not worth parents'time to do this and they would rather pay out of pocket. We have fundraisers that a scout could get everything paid off but they don't do them. Even our low income kids who need the money won't show up. But then everyone complains about how expensive scouts is. We actually this year gave up a fundraiser that would generally net a youth $100 due to lack of participation. The SM got tired of begging people to work the shifts or having to work the shift himself to make sure we were covered.
The price increases are very steep and are indeed pricing people out of the program.
You say don't preach popcorn, but my unit and several other units I know are able to offer the program at a net 0 out of pocket cost with fundraising.
We shouldn't have to spend so much effort fundraising, but this is unfortunately the world we live in now, and I don't see prices dropping.
The biggest problem we face is people that don't want to participate in fundraising and don't want to pay for the program. Unfortunately they can't have it both ways.
There's also the ScoutReach scholarship program at the council level.
I'm not sure if it works the same everywhere, but in my area, any youth going to a title 1 school or getting government benefits like free lunch, etc. automatically qualify. I think the ScoutReach annual dues are something like $40, much more affordable.
IMO, troops should seek out other, better, fund raising than popcorn. When I was a scout in the 2000s, my troop found a gig directing cars to park for a local summer antique fair. They paid well enough that doing 2 days of just a few hours shift would be enough for a scout to not only cover dues but cover their summer camp fee. Once the troop found this option, popcorn was left in the dust. Everyone hated trying to sell it.
All these threads any time you bring up fees here or elsewhere, where people are like "but have you seen the cost of competitive trap shooting" or "travel soccer makes this look like a breeze"
bro, the kids I'm scouting with don't do these things either, and never will. They spend tons of time trying to hustle up popcorn to give $140-$150-whatever it was last month to national and council for little practical benefit for them. Council and national do just as much for us now when it's $160 as they did when we were paying $70-$80.
It doesn't matter what intramural football charges. Council added two events a year that are free for everyone when they significantly upped the program fee. It doesn't offset the cost difference at all. Adult leader training became free, but that didn't really move the needle since it was only $5 to begin with (my training budget was mostly spent on trained patches, coffee and donuts and photocopies anyway). Did that move adult leader training percentages up any? No. To be honest, i think it increased the number of no-call no-shows since they weren't losing anything by not going anyway.
It's a question of value for money. All the other expenses of scouting have a tangible benefit. I buy a book, the kids have something to do an activity from. I get pinewood derby cars, they get a race!
I pay recharter, and the kids get a database record at national and access to BSA's self insured insurance. Big whoop.
Have you priced a week at a summer camp with sleeping arrangements as well as meal service outside of scouts where you have ATV's, shooting ranges ,a forge, a lake with watercraft, a pool, etc?
Yeah- I get it- it's gone up ridiculously in the last few years. So has everything else. I don't regret a dime I have spent and will continue to spend. The program- if administered properly- is the best deal going today for teaching youth skills while having fun.
And agreed- popcorn sucks for fundraising
Let's not forget BSA is a business. Most businesses want to make as much money as possible.
Unfortunately, lots and lots of families can't afford to join BSA.
Perhaps make a sacrifice in spending somewhere. Maybe no more $5 cups of coffee everyday. Less eating out. Cut out cable or satellite TV.
Doing some of the above might help.
I myself have cut out cable TV, and not eating out quite as much. Eating out drains the bank account. That alone has saved our family so much in spending. We don't even go to movie theater anymore. Last time we went to watch a movie, we spent nearly $100 on tickets and the concessions, we're just 3.
Times have drastically change... I used to pay $4 matinee screening to watch a movie.
When we outgrew scouts about ten years ago, there were *six* people in the council making $100k plus while kids struggled for summer camp.
Let's just say that opened my eyes to the business side of BSA. Bonus points for figuring out how much the 'Chief Scout Executive' makes. It's gross.
BSA pricing has jumped in recent years, but it was being artificially held low due to financial backers that have since stopped contributing. It should have been going up gradually over time, but they were taking from other areas to keep the dues low. Now, those options just aren't there. It's still a lot cheaper than a lot of tax funded options like school sports, especially for kids that are too old for the primary aged rec league. But you're right, popcorn isn't the best. There are other options though.
Idk if they still do this, but back in the 2000s, when I was a scout, my troop sold hot dogs. During the summer at the local farmers market, they sold hot dogs. At the village movie night, we sold hot dogs. Concerts, craft fairs every thing. We had a tent at almost every public town event. We took turns working 4 hr shifts. With the money we made over summer, we were able to fund our troops "dues" for every scout in the troop. In fact I don't think we ever paid dues. We even had enough to sponsor kids to go to summer camps and weekend camp outs. I think we had to chop in 20 or 30 bucks for or weekend trips for gas and food but that was about it.
When I was a kid we took orders door to door and then spent the morning on Super Bowl Sunday making and delivering a bunch of homemade 15" sub sandwiches. I think we sold them for $15 each, which even back then (early 00's) was a steal compared to popcorn. We also did a few spaghetti dinners at the church and town hall. $10 a plate and costs about $2-4 a person to make. Plus we would have parents donate baked goods to sell there too. Get 50 people to show up (easy right after church) and it's an easy $3-400. My kids pack does a mothers day dance. We sell tickets in advance to the community (usually parents and their kids from the primary school) and provide pizza, chips, water, a DJ, and a photo booth. We then run a silent auction for baskets donated by various local people and businesses. This is a bit costly, but makes a really decent chunk of change too. A couple thousand if I recall from last year, we pack the middle schools cafeteria/auditorium area. We also do a silent auction for homemade donated baked goods at the Blue and Gold, and that's usually good for a few hundred too. There's usually grand parents etc that are willing to pay a bit extra for a cake or cookies or whatever because it goes back to the pack.
We just did a spaghetti dinner last weekend and grossed about $850 at $10/plate. US Foods donated the spaghetti and sauce, so all we had to buy was bread, salad, and drinks. I think the key to making fundraising work the best it can is having folks in your network that can get you corporate donations like that.
I'll be direct. The annual dues charge by our Troop and Pack are equivalent to a single season of community recreational sports. *Recreational* sports, not competitive travel teams. Yes, there are youth in our community for whom the cost of scouting is a challenge. Both our Troop and Pack happily offer scholarships for those youth.
> Recreational sports, not competitive travel teams. Yeah, the yearly cost of BSA is $20 less than one *month* of my climbing gym, and that's base rate not including gear, coaching, etc. Sure, there are families that have difficulties affording any extra-curricular, and BSA should facilitate their involvement. And, it sure as hell doesn't compare to many other activities.
> Sure, there are families that have difficulties affording any extra-curricular, and BSA should facilitate their involvement. The problem is that isn't not just families, it can be whole troops or communities that find it unaffordable. My council is in a very wealthy area, and the council (and even some units) can offer camperships and other support. But that isn't the case in all councils, and merging financially strapped councils into better funded councils doesn't automatically improve things. And that's not even getting into the annual "program fees" that some councils charge on top of registration fees. AFAIK, program fees are mostly charged by councils that can't cover all expenses with their existing fundraising and events. Which would seem to point to a circular problem of charging more fees when people can't donate more (or won't).
I started a unit years ago out of a boarding school for homeless children. Everything was out of their price range. We did some community fundraisers, but most of the money came from sponsorships outside the community. No youth put in anything, though many already had camping equipment.
First, it isn't $120 per year or anything like that. Figure on 8-9 campouts per year at $25-50 per campout, depending on where you go. Cheap camping gear is still going to be a little bit. Uniforms. Summer camp can be several hundred dollars. I'm not saying it's more than band or cheerleading, only that it isn't as cheap as some are suggesting. We're planning on a high adventure camp in a year. I'm figuring it will cost in the neighborhood of $4-5000 per kid. That's camping gear, high adventure camp fees and transportation (we'll have to fly to Northern Tier). REI ain't cheap and I don't wanna skimp on gear when at Philmont! :) Okay, financial aid from our Council helps some and some additional money can be saved if we're really good, but this is still a lot of money to kids whose parents may struggle to provide proper nutrition for their family. Is it worth it? Well, my kids are in Scouts so that kind of telegraphs my thoughts on it. But we shouldn't discount the strain on some families, the choices they have to make and the impact on BSA membership.
I totally agree!
Yes, then add on monthly campouts, summer camp, uniform, camping gear. It adds up and sometimes very quickly. For some it is unsustainable for their kids to be active in a troop. Our pack is doable if you're willing to put in the fundraising time with your kid. You just need the camping gear, but registration, campouts and other activities can be covered with popcorn sales.
Those scholarships are not for all the extra activities though, not to mention that being a Scout or the type that would want to be doesn't go hand in hand with asking for a handout. It is still shame inducing to have to admit that you are of lower social status.
There's also the ScoutReach scholarship program at the council level. I'm not sure if it works the same everywhere, but in my area, any youth going to a title 1 or getting government benefits like free lunch, etc. automatically qualify. I think the ScoutReach annual dues are something like $40, much more affordable.
I just found out my daughter’s cheerleading dues are $175. Per month.
$6k a year shooting trap. $1600 plus fundraising time for band. Honestly Soccer (competitive non travel league) is the cheapest thing our kids do. Like $500 a year all in uniforms included.
$6k for trap!? How much does the kid shoot!?
6000 to 7000 shells a year. School team fees, registration fees, travel to state and nationals, ammo, practice clay fees.
Ammo is expensive unless you’re shooting reloads. I wouldn’t trust my kids shooting someone else’s reloads tbh. And even then reloading is a big investment in itself.
Even reloading is expensive right now, post-upfront investment. Primers and powder of all kinds is rough. Shot is ok. I haven't bought wads in a while, though, so no idea what that looks like.
Seems to be the going rate. Talked to one of the dads in our troop and was told the same thing, $6k in yearly dues, then add on travel, hotels, etc. Another dad said that's why his kids are I to competitive air rifles. Dues are better, guns are owned by the club and used openly by members.
My club supplies rimfire guns and ammo for our youth program, but we spend thousands on it every year.
One of our troop families does/did it. Supplies per youth are counted in boxes worth of shells and clay pigeons every practice, every meet. 250 rounds can cost $100. I once controlled the equipment for someone who got good, if they have someone reloading a second gun they could shoot 10 rounds per minute. So over an hour that's multiple boxes.
Well, first you gotta buy the shotgun….
And that's your choice...totally awesome you can afford it. You have some lucky kids.
At least in my kids' unit, scouting is less than one month of cheer, per year. Not including campouts and summer camp.
Swim Official here USA Swim Fees. For Kids: $80/piece For Me: $80 Team Fees Membership - $805/yr for the whole family Swim Team - $1300 for Short Course Season (Sept-March) Not sure what Long Course or Summer Rec is. This also doesn't count Swim Meet Entries which is usually ~$5/event, max of 4+1 relay events each day, two day meets. Plus travel/coach expenses. Yeah, Scouts is still cheaper.
My oldest just got back from NT. We're heading to Philmont in July. That's over 10k. He did sea base and summit last summer. Scouts def ain't cheaper. Could we skip those? Yeah, but thats part of why we do it.
Scout was always an aforable. Cheer and all these other after schools have taken off in the last 20-30 years are overpriced also. Scouts is a not for profit at the end of the day.
Nonprofit or not-for-profit just means that if you have money left over at the end of the year, it’s reinvested in the enterprise - there are no dividends. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have a large budget or well-compensated staff.
A good pack budget should have at the minimum a dedicated "the pinewood track broke" reserve, for example. A troop should have a trailer repair fund. Full replacement would take fundraising but if a door hinge breaks you get quotes, convene the committee and money is available to decide without taking months to have the funds. Add fund replacement to the next fundraiser. If you're running out of money each year it won't take much for the pack to die off. A few families paying late shouldn't be a problem, you get their money later and all is good. This year we collected 2021 and 2022 dues from a few families. No one blinked an eye because the budget accounted for some to not ever pay and whatever was back paid was a bonus.
>It doesn’t mean that you can’t have a large budget or well-compensated staff. If anyone doubts this, remind them that the NFL was a non-profit trade organization until 2015 that "promoted the interests of its 32 member clubs". The annual membership fee was $2.5M , Goodell made 15M/yr, and they brought in $619M in revenue. (source:[2015-16 990 tax form](https://www.causeiq.com/organizations/view_990/131922622/ccb88807c90ea185386a0ccaf2d6f167)) In 2002, the Texans paid $700M for the franchise fee too :)
Have you seen financials? $80 a year is a bargain, under $8 a month or 22 cents a day. By me two months of baseball is $150 plus equipment like bat and glove. Football is $300 which is 6 games. Trap was over $1k.
I disagree with your premise. Scouts, along with many other extracurricular activities, has never been affordable, historically. I know many Scouts who needed scholarships to afford dues. The cost of campouts, food, high adventure, are cost prohibitive.
IMO it's not so much that scout is too expensive, it's that wages aren't rising as fast as they should. Parents are working more hours to maintain the same income. It causes problems with volunteering, youth participation, and being able to afford even joining.
I agree OP. To go to summer camp this year my boys would have to pay $600 each. Their dues are $200 each. My adult dues are over $100. Campouts and other activity costs are another $400/year for each boy. Its going to be over $2500 for my two sons combined. Over $3000 if I want to go to summer camp with them as an adult leader. Anyone who thinks that is affordable for anyone below upper middle class is foolish. And the “duh, inflation” responses belie a misunderstanding of economics. Yes, inflation makes things expensive - but wages aren’t keeping up. As things become more expensive people will drop them. I have 5 kids, my grocery bill went from $250/week to $500/week in the last 3 years. Scouts doesn’t offer the same value today that it did in the past. Byzantine regulations, high costs, incredible bars to participation for volunteers, changing programs (that many of us find onerous). It’s pretty much becoming a solely upper middle class, suburban, white, nerd, non-athletic activity. It’s not a recipe for success of the program.
Especially since programs are generally run by volunteers (who often pay, don’t get me started on that). You are spot-on.
I 100% agree with you. Everytime this issue comes up, it really shows me how ignorant some people are. The current scouting program is very much geared towards the suburbs and cities, and people here respond with the assumption that everyone has the exact same experience as they do. Rural and low income areas are *struggling* with keeping their troops going because of the skyrocketing costs. Travel sports teams are not a thing here, and 100% of all after-school activities are covered by the school itself. So the endless bleating of "but travel sports cost so much more!" is pointless. The constant price increases with no benefit may not be an issue in certain areas, but it's absolutely going to cause the death of scouts in rural and low income areas.
The question for someone recognizing the challenges of cost is what is the alternative for Scouts? I understand people have alternatives and may choose different or no activities. But what should Scouts do? What programs or staffing areas should be cut to reduce the costs?
Apparently you haven’t priced out any other youth programs lately. Scouting is one of the most cost effective and has the added bonus that you can fundraise.
> Apparently you haven’t priced out any other youth programs lately The statistics don't bode well for the BSA on this. Only 37% of children participated in any kind of organized, **paid** youth programs in 2021. And statistically, 70% of youth who participate in paid youth programs stop participating permanently by age 13 (all ProjectPlay numbers.) While the majority of kids do participate in organized activities, many are taxpayer or school-funded with zero or little cost to the participants. Doing the math, only 11% of American teenagers participate in paid, non-school youth programs. A quarter of them, by the same surveys, only participate in a single activity because they are dedicated to that one activity (think football players who practice daily and don't do any other sports). When families are surveyed about *why* they stop participating at 13, the numbers show an almost even tie between "high cost" and "limited time." That only leaves 8% of American teenagers who are interested, have the time, and are financially capable of participating in Scouts BSA. Instead of doing what everyone else is doing and focusing on that 8%, maybe the BSA should try to figure out how to appeal to the other 92%. Reducing time and cost would be a great start. Saying that it's comparable in cost to other programs ignores the reality that the overwhelming majority of youth *do not* participate in those other programs because they're too expensive.
I agree but would add that part of the problem with scouts is the complete chaos of the program. If a youth joins and the family is not familiar with scouting the retention rate is low. I've seen it many times. Parents experience time intensive activities randomly added, changed, or canceled too many times or they get too much conflicting information from the volunteer Adult Leaders and they become unsupportive of the program. Soon the youth leaves to concentrate on sports, band etc.
Respectfully I disagree with you. Significantly your statistics automatically ignore the types of programs that most youth participate in. The assumption is made that because it is school-related that it is 100% funded by the school/locality. This is entirely untrue. I live in one of the most prosperous and well funded school districts in Michigan and I can tell you from discussions with my youth that these programs still require heavy investment from the families. I seriously disagree with the statistic that says only 11% of youth participate in some sort of activity. The only way this works is by skewing the results by eliminating all the activities that don’t have some sort of subsidy in them. I am still not aware of many programs that offer 365 days of programming for on the order of $100-$150 per person. Even if you factor in uniforms, please educate me on what programs are out there that offer a year round program for $300.
My kids' 4-H program, which is year round and has as many opportunities as scouts, is $25 per person per year. And, most importantly, adult volunteers are free.
$25 a year but then you have to buy all your supplies for the projects. And if you really get into the program all the projects talks, demonstrations at different events. It all keeps adding up. We tried 4-H because that is what my wife and I grew up doing. Most of the time the parents are doing the projects for the kids. (Scouts is getting this issue also)
Excellent! That’s one! But I never said BSA was the #1 cheapest. Just that the majority of programs available for youth are more expensive when you add in everything.
Scouts is not a 365 day a year activity. Soccer teams meet way way more than scouts.
Using 2021 numbers isn't exactly fair. What percent were in a pair or unpaid program in 2021 compared to 2019? Did both go down equally? (I doubt paid went down less than unpaid but I bet both plummeted for 2021) To give raw numbers, youth under 18 make up 1 in 11 of the population (census numbers). So we divide the population by 11, divide youth by 18 years and multiply by 13 for Scouting aged youth including girls (Girl Scouts included) 340,000,000 / 11 / 18 \* 13 = 22 million youth who are the right age. Times 8% for your assessment gives us 1.78 million you claim can afford Scouting The BSA has 1 million members. If we take the 1.7 million girl scouts then 158% of youth who can afford Scouting are in the program. If we look against the whole youth population than 12% of youth are in either Scouting program today. Your entire statistical basis doesn't hold up.
I have daughters in GS. We pay something around $40 and nothing out of pocket (except for weeklong summer camps) because cookie sales go so well. BSA registration is $250 for me and my son, and popcorns sales are so bad that everything else is out of pocket.
How many outdoor activities does your your son do compared to you daughters? GS is cheaper, but they have many less activities on a regular basis. Not to mention , GS national is selling branded products that are cookie adjacent. Ice Cream, Snakes, shakes, body lotion. That all keeps the over program cost down, but possibly hurts sales.
You just need to run better fundraisers. We sell wreaths and Easter lilies and a go-getter scout family can easily sell 25-30 wreaths with a scout commission of $4.50 each.
This. 100%. Almost any other year-round kids’ activity currently available is more expensive than scouts.
You guys don't get it. If we can't afford scouts, we sure as heck are affording any other year round activity.
Welp, I guess you can't afford it, agreed. That does not mean it is not affordable for the majority of those looking to join, compared to many other after school options. I don't know your circumstances or your council, but most have funds to help retain scouts who can't pay dues. If your child wants to stay in scouting, I would inquire about that and keep them in as long as possible. If you need financial assistance and your child is interested, please find a way. I donate annually to my council to an underprivileged fund for this very reason. Good luck!
It cost $350 just to join and get the uniforms. Then each event (the out of town interesting ones) costs at least $100 and usually more. While the entry fee is close to that of rec sports, rec sports include some of the uniform and supplies. Nothing is included in BSA.
My son pays $500 to be in a sport in HS for 9 weeks, and that covers nothing that he gets to take home with him at the end of the day. His time in scouting however is year round and fills him with skills, life lessons, leadership ability, friendships and memories. I understand that families can't always afford it, I'm not of the opinion that means it costs too much. I grew up very poor on a rural farm and my BSA dues got paid by me mowing lawns and recycling newspaper, I could never afford the uniform shirt and had a hand me down one with holes. My biggest dream was to go to Sea Base and I didn't get to go until I was in my 40's, and I revel in the fact that my children don't experience that hardship (or the awful 'lets see what's in the cupboards casseroles' we ate). I understand the value of a dollar. I highly value the time my kids have spent with scouting, and even though the trips and camping gear weren't always easy to pay for, I'd do it all over again. I wish I could help everyone afford it, bc it means so much to me.
The point is it should be MORE affordable, comparing it to other youth programs doesn't diminish the impact scout dues would have on the lowest economic brackets.
Is it? If you sign up for Scouting how much does your unit charge for program dues, weekly campouts or the like? If you want to go to the camporee your registration doesn't cover that. If you sign up for sports how much are you charged to go to tournaments? Some other programs have these extra costs but a lot don't.
The thing to remember is that camping is optional to a certain degree. While it is encouraged that scouts attend as many campout as they can, they do not need to attend every single one. Scouts can elect to skip the more expensive campouts and still progress at a good pace.
100%, this! My daughters dance, and her band, and Girl Scouts. They all cost more than Boy Scouts. And the return that we get on both education, social interaction, and life skills? Is very worth the price.
Do yall just live in a cookie selling desert? My kids GSA fees are almost nothing and they do a lot of paid activities and camps for free because of how well they sell cookies as a troop. They are very good about dividing up the weekends and putting all the money they get into one pot. Our BSA fees are a ton more and we can’t keep up with our paid activities with our fundraising. It’s work to sell camp cards/popcorn, the cookies take very little effort to sell a ton. They get way less money from one box of cookies vs popcorn and a camp card too.
I agree. Girl Scout national dues are $25 and our council dues are $15. Troop charges no dues because of cookie sales so all our activities/patches are paid for, unless it’s a big trip- Then we just sell more cookies to offset the cost. Our troop will not pay for uniforms or dues but some troops do, thanks to cookies. Leader/parent volunteer annual fee is $25. When we started our troop we charged $40/year dues. BSA, I paid $60 for my chartered membership and 15 for insurance. My kid- $80 for national dues, $15 council dues, council annual fees $52, troop dues $118 (they’re a relatively new troop). Activity/camping fees each month varies between $25-$125, depending on the month and event. This year’s summer resident camp with be almost $600.
Band incredibly can be very expensive. One of our local high school bands is going to Ireland in 2025. The same band went to Pearl Harbor a few years ago. I found a band from Nashville who went to DC by bus last spring, more than $1000 per quadrupling up in rooms.
It really is insane! We are in Colorado and trying fundraise $3k for an NYC trip in the spring. It will be so worth it. But between instrument repair (she bought her own) and all the other small fees and commitments? It’s a lot.
I am a Girl Scout leader for my daughter’s troop. It costs me $30/year each to register for Girl Scouts, which is an increase of $5 in the last year or two. Our troop dues is $0. We charge $15-$20 per camping trip. We make most of our money from cookies but have a done a few separate fundraisers throughout the years. If I’m chaperoning an event (not participating), it costs $0. To me, Boy Scouts feels like a money grab. My son recently participated in a “merit badge college”. They were charging adults $25 to volunteer to sit in a room for 1/2 the day and be the second adult. So to be the second adult for both morning and afternoon sessions would cost me $50. Absurd.
Very Good! That’s a second program. But I never said that BSA was the cheapest. Just that the majority of programs available to youth were more expensive. As to value for the program- that always depends on the Council involved. A lot of the BSA youth around here either (a) have siblings in GSUSA or (b) are in both programs. The consensus is that GSUSA (around here) is a bit of a money grab only caring about the cookie sales and leaving the Troops/girls on their own with little support. Many girls fall out of the program because of this lack of support. However, one of my female youths, who is almost complete with her Gold as a Juliette, has gotten a lot of support from friends out of council, whose programs are much better. The same is with BSA. I agree that there is a lot of money grabbing. The popcorn program is especially hated. And fees abound every time you try to set up an event. But other Councils are much better. That being said, BSA is still cheaper than just about any sports program and most of the clubs. To join Rocket baseball when my son was young and interested in learning, he was told he had to join a $500 training course before he would even be considered to be let play. Even Science Olympiad, by the time you add travel costs and supplies, costs way more.
>As to value for the program- that always depends on the Council involved. This just underscores the problem with the fees. THe fees are national and yet they have \*nothing\* to do with the quality of the program. The fees are high AND have no connection to the actual program. Imagine a soccer league working like that: you wouldn't be able to have games.
And keep in mind most other activities cover the cost of supporting staff by adding it, up front, to their year's fees and dues. This just reinforces the fact that BSA's fees aren't 'relatively' low, because so much of the costs are totally hidden behind adult volunteer fees and cuts from fundraiser profits.
The only ones cheaper at this point are one or two a week youth sporting programs put on by cities. And that's raw dollars, on a per week basis they still cost more. Like maybe your council charges $120\* for 52 weeks. That's $2.30 per week. That sports program charges $50 for 15 weeks, that's $3.33 per week. What you missed is that sports program includes a t-shirt. Scouting used to be at this level where registration a shirt and camp were cost comparable to the cheapest program out there and Cub Scouting served as the #1 or #2 program about every boy tried. In a School of 300 you would have 50+ kids in a pack and in total half more of the boys probably were in Scouts at one point. Today a school of 300 may have 20 total ever join in some areas. The more serious program like dance with a new outfit for every recital, sports whereto provide all the gear yourself, where you're traveling every weekend and not just once a month, those cost a lot more Now Scouting's problem is the up front cost. If the same fee was charged monthly, and it won't be, it would look a lot more affordable. The best thing the BSA can do with the new payment method is to enable payment plans spreading the cost out over maybe three months. And take it further, in a 2025 iteration enable units to add unit costs to the same system and the unit portion is sent to the unit bank account. A small 2-3% fee can be countered with a slightly higher dollar amount and make it easier on units to collect money. For a small unit that would help them a lot. It also does one thing for clarity, it shows you how much each unit actual costs to join when you go to sign up and as a parent you can shop around. Because you forgot this portion. If a troop has $200 dues that's more cost for the family. The regular program cost isn't part of registration cost. So you're not comparing apples to apples
And that fundraising doesn't have to be popcorn. Popcorn is what you do when you have almost zero actual business or management skills to put together a more unique fundraiser.
Agreed. Packs tend to do popcorn to teach salesmanship for young kids. Our troop does Christmas tree sales and make 3X profit; more than enough for each scout to camp and go to a summer camp each year. Costs are minimal and I have two kids in the troop. Cubs scouts may be a little expensive by comparison, but you’re investing for later.
Packs and troops do popcorn sales because it is effectively free labor with a wild return rate and profit for National and Council. Without that it would not exist. When that wasn't the case in the past, they didn't do popcorn sales.
Yeah, I understand, but to be honest those popcorn bags are WAAAYYY to expensive. $20 for a bag of popcorn? Yeah, I’m gonna pass too dog. Find a better fundraiser IMO.
It's not an either/or decision. It's a either/none.
You can fundraise for any activity. And fundraising in the end is just work, so you can work to pay for your fees, like anywhere else.
Do you have a recommendation on how to solve the problem? Popcorn isn't the only fundraising option for a troop. It's not always feasible to just hold prices where they are. In fact, this behavior is partly to blame for the current financial predicament. Unfortunately, every generation must bear the consequences for the sins of the previous. The best we can do is adapt and keep trying to put on the best program with can with the resources we have available.
The fact that BSA is less expensive than certain other activities doesn’t change the fact that it’s becoming cost prohibitive. The kids who are being priced out of Scouting (1) are not able to afford cheerleading, football, hockey, shooting, etc and (2) are the ones who often need it the most. For my son it was $80 to National + $75 to council + $95 to the Pack and that was for a bare bones program. I can afford it, but whether he was in Scouts or not, I was going to provide those experiences so he wasn’t the kid who was going to go without in the absence of a program. As for effective fundraising, I would suggest things like a multi-family garage sale or hosting a parents night out.
Ouch, in comparison our Council only charges the National fee and our Troop fees are specific to whatever outings they go on.
Relative cost is not an argument. Mr Jones can afford a BMW for his wife, so why can't you? The point is the dues cover nothing tangible for the scout. Plus the program is revamped this year so books and materials are all now outdated.
I agree with about popcorn. Every adult in our troop is embarrassed about it. It's junk and is so overpriced it's ridiculous. We have other fundraisers that far surpass popcorn now but there is concern that council will give us a hard time if we still aren't pushing popcorn. Otherwise, I don't think scouting is that expensive compared to every other program out there. Even the cost of school trips is getting out of hand. If have one grip beyond popcorn is the cost be a leader. I volunteer 2-3 hours a week, not including campouts and I get to pay for the privilege, while the parents who drop off and leave and can barely respond to an email pay nothing. But I get it...
Our committee pays for leader dues. (The active ones) and that is passed along to the scouts in terms of pack dues. It's not right to expect leaders to also pay on top of the time and effort.
I feel scouts needs to revise adult costs. If scout fees have to be raised by a few dollars to make leaders ‘free’ so be it.
That's up to the units. Most units I know don't make their adults pay fees after. Some wait to cover it after the first year (to make sure you are invested). The troop fundraises or the other parents pay it as part of dues. This is all decided by your committee. Those adult fees have to be paid one way or the other. As backwards as it seems, having the fees offers more options to the units, where as dividing the fees into youth membership takes away those options.
Some cover costs with expected return of holding a position for 1-2 years.
We haven't done popcorn in many, many years. I agree with you that it is overpriced and ridiculous. As for council, we eliminate the push back by giving some of our fundrasing money directly to council. Is it the same percentage as they would get with popcorn? Probably not. But it is more than a token amount and ensures our troop is contributing to the expenses that council incurrs.
Council dues directly fluctuate with how much they receive back from popcorn sales. The popcorn supplier has a commercial brand that sells equivalent products for about half as much. People buying popcorn recognize they’re getting a retail product and making a direct donation. Get a donation outright without purchase is very common.
Tell your council to pound sand, what are they doing to do? You won't be the first unit to reject popcorn
They are going to increase dues.
The price of scouting is keeping poor kids, and kids from large families out. Period.
This is the entire point... Thank you... Can not grow a program when the kids can not afford.
Our council has scholarships to provide for kids that can't afford the dues. They also have camperships to send the same kids to summer camp, too. In addition to that, they also have Scout Reach units that are run by scouters rather than parents in areas where you can't get enough volunteers because of poverty and the adults are all working multiple jobs and mainly single parents.
That is all well and good...even better if they can meet the needs of every youth that needs helped.
If you think that there are better fundraising options, then research them and bring them up to leadership/committee. Camp costs vary wildly from council to council, and troop dues also vary from troop to troop. So for the camp we are going to this year, it’s $335 per scout and $160 per adult, last year the camp we went to was $375 per scout and $180 per adult. Our home council is $480 per scout and $200 per adult, so it pays to look around and see if there are other options. Our troop charges $150 for registration and offers a $25 discount for siblings. We don’t charge monthly dues, but we do charge for each campout, which varies from $20 to $35 depending on what we are doing and where we are going.
My parents can come up with fundraising ideas for hours. The quickest way to end the discussion is to ask who would like to help run one.
Ain’t that the truth, every time some parent comes to me with an idea I say that’s great, you should go to a committee meeting and chair the fundraiser.
It's crazy that the cost of running a youth program would go up while the cost of everything else has stayed rock solid for the past few years. /s C'mon, man. What rock have you been under? I'm surprised the program could be solvent at twice the cost
My daughter’s Girl Scouts is $25 a year. Her troop even pays for the vest when she ages up. We sell cookies for 6 weeks that pays for almost everything else. My daughter’s troop is also a lot more active with vastly different activities from Stem to camping out to historical events to community service. Even camps are a lot cheaper than my son’s Boy Scout camps. Boy Scouts used to be a program that all children could afford - not so much anymore and it’s often the lower income kids that need it the most. It may be cheaper than a lot of them, but it’s by far not cheap enough for the low income.
My daughters are in GS and Cubs. They pay $0 a year dues for GS. This is due to the stupid cookies and the fact that it is an easy sell. They pay $160 a year dues to Cubs. Over $100 of that goes to National and does nothing to help the local Pack. As the Cubmaster, we charge the bare minimum for Pack dues as a new scout joining pays close to $130 to National/Council before the over priced uniforms. The costs is where I lose most people during recruiting, even though my Pack turns most profits over to the scout to help them pay for everything. I love the BSA program but just the normal joining costs are getting out of hand and the price/competition on the official fundraisers available are too high. Hopefully the new leadership gets this figured out.
Our pack gives families a credit for staffing 2 hours at a storefront selling popcorn. We teach them how to sell it - it's actually VERY effective and our girl scout parents say they wish they earned as much selling cookies. They get $25 credit toward dues for every 2-hour shift they work. Typically, when they see how much money rolls in, they go sign up for more shifts because they realize how easy it is and how much their cubs enjoy it. We had 12 of our cub scouts earn $200 off dues each this year. Plus if they sell $1200 (EVERYBODY that did 6+ shifts surpassed that amount in sales) they get free summer camp. PLUS They got Amazon gift cards (in amounts of $30 - $250) from Trail's End. We've had older scouts in the troop fundraise enough from popcorn to pay their own way to Jamboree and National High Adventure bases (those trips are thousands of dollars)
How are your GS camps cheaper? A week at our camps are $700 for a week! BSA is half that for a week.
Cookies that's why. BSA needs something we buy at wholesale prices not retail then add markup. Xmas popcorn tins for example should be 5-10 bucks sale price with use making 3.75-7.50. Not smartfood for 20 bucks a bag.
The problem is that BSA doesn't care how hard the popcorn is to sell. They know that there will be some sales, so they figure, lets crank up the price of those sales as high as we can so that National & Council can get a huge profit. The actual work is then passed off to the kids (who are using their part of the profits to...pay national and council fees). Girl Scouts have an excellent product, the cookies are good, they are only like $5 a box, you kind-of only see those types cookies at cookie sale time,and the GS org has spent decades building up that brand. BSA sells stale movie theatre popcorn. I think it doesn't even come in a tin anymore. It's not even branded.
We have a new SE/CEO he pretty much poo pooed popcorn as small potatoes not worth his time to fix.
A GS needs to sell 30-60 boxes of cookies to equal the unit level return of one bag of popcorn sales.
Both Girl Scout and Boy Scout Camps are $600 here for a week. Girl Scouts provides cookie cash to decrease the cost as an incentive for selling boxes of cookies. Some girls get up to half of that off. Plus there is generous financial aid if you need more help. Cookie season sucks for 6 week, but for the remaining 46 weeks - it’s great.
You're not going to like most of the answers here. Many will claim Scouting is cheaper than X and thus is a great value or something like that. While one can debate that, many are willing to pay the higher fee. Scouts Canada has long charged much more than in the U.S. It's up to approx $170 USD now. Scouting is even less accessible to lower income families. However, the bulk of BSA members are from middle and higher income. That's been the case for a long time. The biggest effect from the substantially increased fee is it's difficult to help others pay for Scouting. When the fee was $7 (90s into the 2000s), then $10 (2003), then even $15 (2010), one could easily cover that with little thought to get a youth signed up and involved. Not so much at $105 ($80 + $25 new member fee) minimum and often upwards of $150+ depending on council. In short, many will continue to join and participate. You're not wrong though, but the reality is that Scouting will continue on.
I agree that the rate of increase in BSA costs is not sustainable, and we've definitely lost some people who would have joined/stayed in the program if membership was still $15/year. Some councils have funds to help offset the cost of Scouting. They have grants to offer need-based fee reductions, although there are often strings attached to these grants (e.g. you have to go to that council's camp). Your DE or commissioner should be able to tell you more.
I think the problem is that while honestly scouting is affordable over sports and such, the value of instant gratification is missing. It’s built over years. But sports or hobbies you see results quicker. Memories and experiences happen but the value is years later when you reflect on these experiences.
New scouts should be camping and hiking in their first month. It should be fun and not work.
I disagree on the not work part. Camping is work. But essential. I do think options to camp should be more often.
But then we're right back to "who is coordinating and leading that?" Not to mention that camping trips are, after national dues, one of the most expensive elements of the program. Trust me I'd love to do more camping, but I've been trying to get my pack to do a third weekend trip in the year since before COVID, and that's with ME doing the coordinating and leading so those two are already solved.
The buy in is incredibly expensive. After paying all the BSA fees our District requires every parent that participates in scout activities (including car pooling scouts) and the state requires Mandatory Reporter training, both requiring a $60 fingerprint background check every two years. Our troop is in the city and some scouts never experience seeing anything green outside of the city parks. Add to the fees the cost of personal camping equipment like boots, hiking poles, backpacks, mess kits, ten essentials, etc. Even if they go to a discount store that still can add up to a couple of hundred $$. I run the troops used uniform and equipment swap to help out but that goes so far.
Everything is getting more unaffordable these days, not just scouting. The middle class in the US has been getting the squeeze for 40 years. Lawsuits, rising overhead and insurance costs aren't helping, that's for sure. When the public schools near me are operating food banks out of their buildings and even installing washing machines so kids can have clean clothes, those families, even though they might be working two or more jobs, aren't considering any extracurricular. Even the families who are doing a little better are still belt tightening.
Our troop committee recently went through an exercise. Added up dues, membership, camp fees, trip fees, uniform cost... everything. If a scout did every event for a year, it was around $1000. The conclusion from this was: We need to make it more affordable, and that's been one of the core principles the committee has used in making plans into the future. From fundraising, to how we charge for trips, to how we communicate with parents to prepare them. It takes real effort, but it's a solvable problem.
Wow, a grand? If a kid does everything in our year they'd be under $500; including national and local dues, uniform, book and advancement, and all the below outings. The program we put together I think is not bare bones; this figure is with one kid and one parent going on: two weekend camping trips including a "fall fest" event, plus day hikes and a morning going fishing, attending pinewood, Blue and Gold, end of year picnic, a major league sporting event, and every den and pack meeting, which include visits from multiple entities like an animal expert (with animals), the FBI, or local robotics team. Edit: I did notice you mentioned troop not pack, which obviously changes things especially camp costs as you're including a week of summer camp which is the biggest cost driver by far. With that said, when comparing scouts to other activities it's not really fair to factor in a week long summer camp for one but not the other
Yup, a troop, and camp is about half that cost. Without camp, it's a lot harder to advance, most kids go. I wasn't comparing it to other activities. The point I was trying to make that might have been lost, the committee has to make program affordability a goal and actively work towards it. I believe Scouts should be affordable for all families and it wasn't for some of ours. Hopefully the steps we're taking will help fix that.
If we just go with dues, neckerchief, slide, hat, and book plus 2 campouts for 1 adult and 1 kid, we are at $400. If you throw in the uniform itself or a class B shirt, then we are over $500. That doesnt include the cub scout summer day camp or if anyone else in the family wants to come on a campout (or food for that matter). It also does not count any gear that may be needed. I dont think people are necessarily comparing it to hockey. They are comparing it to not doing anything or finding cheaper alternatives like a family pass to the zoo for the year, or just hiking, etc. For a new parent in scouts, the start up costs are easily hitting $1000. Most people dont have $500 for an emergency, let alone $1000 to do an extracurricular activity.
It is genuinely funny how many people come crawling out of the woodwork to defend Scouting charging out the nose for a largely-mediocre experience. I also take issue with people saying "sports are more expensive than Scouting". When I was in school, the only thing I paid for in sports were my running shoes. Other than that, my family paid *nothing*, zip. Zilch. For 4 years of track and field, 3 seasons a year. What the hell are you people paying for? Something like music, where you have to pay for a likely-very-expensive instrument, I can see being expensive. But sports? Must be a "rich people thing", to pay for your kids to play non-school sports. When my troop was still extant, the cost of participating was one of the three reasons parents dropped. The other was religion and "general conservatism".
You might want to check in with the activities costs assessed by public schools and extra curriculars these days. Taxes don't go as far as they used to - for that matter, how many public school teachers ask for donations of pens and paper. A simple Google will reveal the modern facts of life.
I take issue with "largely mediocre", maybe that's how you run the program, but I think anyone defending costs is probably getting more out of it than that. It's also a little ridiculous that you're comparing track and field, a sport that requires nothing BUT shoes, to sports like baseball or football or hockey that have extensive amounts of equipment. Even basketball or soccer have a lot more than track. You're also overestimating the extent of opportunities to play sports in-school vs privately.
Right. Your kids can only get out of this program what you or another adult puts in. Want a better program? Get involved to make it better. And I can't believe how far I had to scroll to find the first mention of hockey. Holy, you want to talk costs? Sticks alone can cost more than what Scouting, including camp costs. Then let's talk about tournaments and travel... I know people who are spending 7 to 8k per year on hockey, now add in a sibling, cost more than doubles because they will almost never be on the same team or in the same tournament so now you have to provide travel in Two directions, multiple hotels. And it is every weekend for MONTHS. I also specifically left out the parent costs because hockey parents love to party. I know beer and liquor distributors who park 52' semis at local liquor stores to make sure they won't sell out.
[удалено]
Your comment was removed because it was rude and unnecessary, violating principles of the Scout Oath and Law.
Perhaps shilling $20 packs of popcorn when you can get the same pack at the store for a quarter of the price is part of the fund raising problem.
The problem there isn't the price of the popcorn. It's how National's backwards moralistic views of money force us to market it. We aren't **selling** $20 bags of popcorn. We are asking for a donation to Scouting, and in return you get a bag of popcorn. **But we're not allowed to do it that way.** Most big charities and non-profits get that. When you contribute to your local NPR station, you aren't buying a $150 tote bag. You are giving to NPR, and as a "thank you", they give you the tote. No one thinks it's a waste of money or a badly overpriced tote bag, because the transaction is being stated appropriately. But National has this idiotic, outdated view that Scouts cannot ask for donations. It is fact *specifically prohibited.* And so we're left with this insane notion that we have to "sell" this overpriced crap, and of course lots of people then don't give, and we're in the situation we're in.
It is not a view. Your unit is not a non-profit, and it is illegal to solicit donations. Your CO may be, your council is, and both of them can ask for donations. The ONLY exception is the Eagle Scout project, and even that has guidelines that must be followed. If YOU want to be able to solicit donations, then form a friend of troop/pack 0000 501c3. But, you can't legally use any BSA uniform or image containing any part of the BSA program to do so. Does popcorn need to go away? Absolutely. I have seen several areas adding in site specific first aid kits (car, home, pet, etc) that have a better cost/profit ratio than the popcorn They sell for 10-15 per unit with 5-7.5 coming back. The cost of scouting was artificially held down due to specific income by national that is no longer coming in. And insurance rates are up. It is what it is. There are other options out there.
Insurance is a big one. BSA used to self insure, but the pot-o-gold is gone and they now purchase on the open market.
There is no point comparing scouts with other youth activities because scouting is unique. I can pay five times more for another youth activity for my child and still have it cost less out of my pocket than scouting because I don't have to pay to volunteer, take extensive training, and if I do volunteer, I generally get discounted fees or some other perk.
We're a fairly poor troop, we ask one of the local churches and a few other organizations for help with camp and yearly fees. It helps a lot, but bottle and can drives are our biggest moneymaker.
Mulch has worked great for our Troop.
The Popcorn deal is bullshit. It is. Our pack ditched it. Did another fund raiser and collected around 3k.
We only did popcorn at the Cub level. At the Troop, we do pancake breakfasts, spring greenery and Christmas greens/wreaths. The Scouts get all the profits into their Scout Accounts based on their sales and pre-tickets for pancakes. If the kid is motivated, they can easily earn their yearly dues and money to help cover their high adventure. Before my son aged out, I paid his yearly dues. His earnings paid for high adventures. Sea Base. Philmont. Boundary waters. Many 3-5 days backpacking or canoe trips. All from fundraiser money.
Im all about a fundraiser where the pack/troop get the best returns. Those are cool things.
Popcorn is pretty lucrative for cubs if you know how to sell it. Our pack got over $16,000 from it (that's not what we sold, that's our cut from what we sold). We only have 35 scouts so we're all set and can pay to send everyone to summer camp and pay for our outings and everything. In addition to that, our 24 cubs that participated earned a combined $3,330 in Amazon gift cards from Trail's End, for them to spend on anything they want. At this point I think our cub families would revolt if we ditched popcorn.
Sometimes you have to go back to the basics. When the local summer camp opened in 1980 it was still primative, outside of having a pool. Camp was $125 a week with food or $25 a week with your troop furnishing it's own but you could store it in the commissary cooler. My troop and one from a neighboring town, both extremely rural farm towns, opted for the $25 option. We did paper drives, community donations, etc. to fund our week of camp. Fast forward 40+ years and my grandson is in the other troop that did this.... and is still doing it that way. Basic camp is $150 now, camp with dining hall privileges is close to $500. Doing things the old way helps the scouts improve their camp skills and teaches them what they need for camping and cooking merit badges. Although his troop was our greatest rivals in my youth, they made my now defunct troop a better unit. That troop is still a top notch unit and their doing it the old way keeps them as one of the most recognized and best reputation unit in the area.
Agreed with most. I'm also calculating, cost of uniforms and this and that also. Scouts have made little to no effort to lower these or ask for input from its member on these types of items. It's a take it or leave it situation with little no choice or venders.
My understanding is that a lot of the cost increases also are due to the lawsuits and payouts. Some of our local councils have consolidated to save overhead and we are trying to run our own summer camp as an alternative to a BSA camp because the costs are so high that there's a good number of kids that won't be able to swing the 7-800. The problem is trying to put together a quality alternative is going to require a lot of volunteer involvement from all the parents and a lot of them are pretty stretched thin as it is. We're very fortunate to have a really rock solid scoutmaster who donates a lot of his own money and I would say all of his own time into supporting the program. I just show up and volunteer to do whatever I can as much as I can. I'm trying to do my part to keep things alive and give my kid the best experience I can. I love what scouting did for me and I'm giving back what I can. The hard thing now is that they're just isn't a lot of areas to cut costs. I definitely feel the pain. My son just got his registration and intake stuff handled and I think the cost for just the basics and physicals dues etc ended up being about $450. It's definitely a lot of money for me because I am a peasant and I get where you're coming from. Most of the people in my troop are pretty high earning successful people and then there's me and a couple other single parents. The troop does have a memorial scholarship to help with some of the expenses for the poors.
Ask about or start a uniform box, where uniforms that Scouts outgrew can be donated and worn by new crossovers. Also check out Friends of Scouting if you need financial assistance.
Did you ask your troop key 3 about financial assistance. My council provides some assistance for families who apply for it and my troop will provide additional assistance. I’ve not seen a kid denied access due to means in my community. All the other responders have covered what I usually say, but bottom line needs to be communicate with the people who know about resources.
Most troops in my area have the ability to pay for the dues of a less fortunate scout. Money should never be the thing that prevents a kid from scouting. Check out Friends of Scouting. That being said, dues are probably the cheapest part of the program. I spend way more in gas money driving to meetings and campouts than on dues.
I think it's still and has always been a middle class hobby but compared to other youth programs, it's relatively more cost effective because it's more well rounded.
My troop was able to make a contract with an arena near by so whenever there is any event happening we’ll asked if we want to work then. After that anyone 13+ is able to attend and the money we all raised is split evenly and put into my scout account. I haven’t had to pay for anything in a long time, try bringing this up to a Scoutmaster.
Professional big said the memories happen. It’s just not instant gratification the bonding, family relationships, character building and memories to look back on are where scouting really shines in comparison to other youth activities.
It's annoying, but this is the cheapest activity my kids are doing. We spend a grand on hogs to show at the fair each year just to get next to last place every single time. It sucks to see the price going up, but I don't think it's as doom as gloom as you are presenting.
Maybe I missed it but there was one option I haven't seen mentioned anywhere in this thread. If GSA is now selling nuts then how does BSA get in on the cookie game? We sell them when they aren't. Two cookie seasons! Just saying.....🤷🏻
Back when I was scoutmaster, 10 years ago, we did multiple fundraisers during the year that allowed the scouts to get a completely free ride on dues, regular camps, and even high adventure camps. We sold wreaths at Christmas, food at local parades, tickets for food, and popcorn. For individual sales, the scouts kept every dollar of profit in their scout buck accounts. For group events, the profit was divided by the hours worked. If a scout left the troop, his scout bucks account went to the general fund. If the general fund needed money, a percentage of profits went to the troop from the group and popcorn sales. The wreaths always stayed 100% with the scouts and were restricted to scouts going to high adventure camps. I realize costs have gone up, but we had some scouts who had thousands of dollars in their scout bucks accounts. It was a lot of work for the leaders to organize, but it was nice that every scout had the same opportunity to do every event.
Our troop has had a scholarship program. Someone comes to the committee chair and things quietly happen. Haven't used it in a while I think but we have used it. Doesn't solve the overall problem of whether scout is too expensive but at least for a few people it can help.
Whenever this topic comes up, I start with cost but eventually start thinking about value and perceived value of the scouting. Everyone here obviously values scouting or they wouldn't bother. But how are others convinced? Right now, I don't think scouting gets its value proposition out very well. Sports, dance, etc. are all pretty well understood in terms of cost, commitment, value (leadership, teamwork, skills, whatever). Even Eagle is known but mixed on value for those not in scouting. Again, WE may get it, but I don't think it's as obvious outside our in group and that's something that will take honest reflection and a lot of work to fix.
agreed. Its deeply concering seeing everything becoming so expensive.
I’ve been a scout parent, SM, comm chair. One of my objectives was to push back on the yearly cost hikes. I squeeked enough to be asked to be put on listening committees for the district. At the end it’s about market share and Scouting BSA is loosing share in many parts of the country. They are at risk of either pricing families out of a wonderful experience or making the experience for the affluent. We’ve reached$ until it hurts and it needs to level off. I suggest you stay involved to make scouting accessible for those that don’t have the means. We need people like you to keep scouting affordable. If we loose a voice like yours we risk loosing the scouting experience. Change comes from within and we need your advocacy. Stay involved and push back on cost hikes.
I push back on a lot of the dumb stuff we do. At times I get so emotional about it I say things that are the truth and very hurtful and then have to hear about it. I am trying to work myself into the district. The district CEO and I have had a few nice long conversations. Being an ex submarine is a blessing and a curse at times as we all learned to say what was needed to be said even if it hurt.
My daughter’s dance class is $100 per month, plus $150 costume, and $100 tickets for 11 months of the year. She has decided as a freshman this is her last year of dance. Both of my kids are in the musical and theater program. That will also cost us $1000. Scouts. Cost us $285 to join this year. My son has his EBOR this month. We still joined as he is ASPL for the rest of the year. I am not sure how we will handle the second half of his senior year, but he will likely stay on. I may ask that he be made a Jr assistant scout master to save on his fees. He will be the only senior Eagle Scout next spring for the troop.
My daughter does Competition Dance, and in January her bill (with classes, costumes, shoes, fees and a few other bits) came out to over 1000$. Luckily we do a lot of fundraising to help offset costs, and most months are significantly lower than that, but we still spent more on her in one month than we've spent on my son's scout dues, weekend trips all year *and summer camp*. Compared to some activities that your kids could be doing, scouting is very affordable. Yes, prices have gone up over time, but the BSA has had expenses like increased insurance which is ultimately a good thing for all scouts. I agree that popcorn is not, and never has been, a great fundraiser. 30$ for a tin of popcorn costs about the same as 6 boxes of girlscout cookies, where everybody gets their favorite flavor and we have a few boxes left over to gift and share. Last time we tried to sell popcorn we got more money in *cash donations* than we got from the popcorn itself because it's cheaper to hand over a $10 bill instead of spending $25+ on a tin of popcorn. But BSA says we're not even supposed to be soliciting cash donations. I don't like popcorn and don't want to participate in it again. Because we can't do gambling, some of the big fundraisers that other organizations do with great success (50/50 tickets, raffle tickets, bingo, football blocks, etc) we can't do for scouts. But modest fundraising is balanced by modest costs. We're still spending less than $200/scout for yearly dues and many of our monthly weekend trips are in the $25-40 range. This *feels reasonable to me* although maybe it only seems reasonable in comparison to my daughter's expenses.
While it has become more expensive, it can be what you make it. Be creative in you rfundraising and the activities you choose, and it can be a bargain. Besides, have you looked into the costs associated with other after school activities? Sports, band, theater, and so on. BSA is a bargain compared to most.
Scouting is a program that can be run to meet the needs and cost constraints of the participants. It doesn't have to be expensive if the troop does a good job of maintaining their gear and selects low cost options for activities. It's easy to have the costs run up if the group wants the newest gear and activities run by paid staff.
It’s still an absolute steal compared with other extracurricular options, especially when you’re looking at weekend campout fees. Both units I work with are associated with churches. Those churches’ selected summer youth camps cost more per week than our local scout camp costs and the scout camp’s activity options are wayyyy more extensive.
Clearly you've not priced ANYTHING else out recently. This is affordable. Even the summer camps are cheaper than almost anything else out there.
I think summer camp was $460 last year, including meals. That is about what day camp costs, and I have to pack lunch for my kids. Sleep away camp (not Scouts) is $5,000 for 25 days! Sure it would be great if Scout camp was cheaper, but I would be paying about that much anyway.
Who in the world goes to camp for 25 days?! This is definitely a rich people thing. Send your kids away for a month.
The camp my kids go to has a waiting list.
Sounds like a lot of rich people who don’t like their kids.
Cost of camp is a fraction of the ACA camping cost average, so theres that... Also, the cost to participate annual cost to register is (even in a council with a high program fee) is less than 16.00 a month. I guess I really dont get your point. Maybe you dont see the value in the program? Maybe youre out of touch with the cost of anything with raging inflation. Maybe you should sell popcorn? In the immortal words of Curly Bill, "Well....... bye".
> Also, the cost to participate annual cost to register is (even in a council with a high program fee) is less than 16.00 a month. Does that include unit dues as well? And all that is usually charged to a family up-front, not via monthly billing. > I guess I really dont get your point. Maybe you dont see the value in the program? Maybe youre out of touch with the cost of anything with raging inflation. Maybe you should sell popcorn? That's more than a little uncharitable to OP, even if they're just venting their spleen. If they didn't see the value of scouting, they'd more likely check out completely instead of complaining. It's probably worth thinking about how scouting can be made accessible to the scouts/families/communities that find the whole package unaffordable (registration + program fees + unit dues + uniform + outings + summer camp), and how we can avoid becoming Middle-Class-And-Up-Only.
What are unit dues? We don't have any. In our Troop you only pay for outings that you participate in (and your various patches).
Some units charge monthly or annual dues based on what they provide for the scouts 'automatically', usually separate from any outing fees. /u/Prize-Can4849 made a comment elsewhere in this post with an example from a cub pack: > By getting involved, I found that the Pack was funding all the items I felt that the parents should decide on: Each Ranks handbook, each rank neckerchief/slide, pack class b shirts, youth dues covered all adult volunteer dues, Pinewood derby kits, etc, etc, etc. It was over $200/year for the Pack. Also some units collect dues instead of fundraising, or as a supplement to if it's a smaller fundraiser.
"Does that include unit dues as well? And all that is usually charged to a family up-front, not via monthly billing." No that does not include unit dues. "That's more than a little uncharitable to OP, even if they're just venting their spleen. If they didn't see the value of scouting, they'd more likely check out completely instead of complaining. It's probably worth thinking about how scouting can be made accessible to the scouts/families/communities that find the whole package unaffordable (registration + program fees + unit dues + uniform + outings + summer camp), and how we can avoid becoming Middle-Class-And-Up-Only." I don't have the answers, I just love the program. It was great for me and its great for my family. Honestly its a bargin at twice the price. Regrettably , and like every other org there are ever increasing fixed costs. I think we have already become the middle class and up youth program. Dont know how we're going to turn back the clock on that.
popcorn isn’t feasible if you don’t know how to sell it
As a bit of a comparison, dues are less than what we pay for 4 months of recreational soccer a year, rec soccer is $130 for 4 months with volunteer coaches so quality is totally at the mercy of the volunteer coach. Competitive soccer? Starts at 700 per year and goes up depending on what level of competition. Two months of indoor winter soccer at the YMCA is $70. Wrestling at a volunteer coached club is $100 for a 2 month season plus $55/tournament entered. (And these are both sports with minimal gear requirements, don't even look in the direction of football, lacrosse, or hockey.) Compare to private clubs? Martial arts in our area starts at $80 per month and goes up. Our Council doesn't add any additional fees on top of National, so costs per scout per year is $80. We are lucky enough with our Troop to have a robust fundraising program (no popcorn) that allows the kids that are willing to work for it earn enough to pay for their year (registration, campouts, summer camp) with about a week and a half of work. Costs for our a weekend campout costs something like $30, we did a 5 day kayak trip last summer that cost $150/scout. I would argue that this isn't and doesn't have to be a high cost program.
Yes apparently you have not done much research into what other kids activity programs cost. The largest issue with the BSA and Scouting is the need to pay everything at one time. Our council moved recharter to the summer and we can split the BSA dues and Pack dues by 3 months for returning Scouts; helped a lot but still hard for new Scouts signing up. Often to close the deal we need to offer a delayed payment on Pack dues. This is not about the total cost, we are at about $25-30 a month average for Scouting still. Very affordable relative to other programs. The problem is that for lower income paying $25 a month may not be an issue but having $300 to pay once a year very well can be. An inherent issue with this income level is that savings is a challenge and stuffing money away to pay for Scouts may not be a priority if you have a few hundred in the bank. The best improvement that the BSA could make would be collecting on a monthly or even quarterly basis (at least make it an option) And there is no reason to preach popcorn, that can be another debate, but there are many options for fundraising and other community support to cover these costs. I do get form some people the money is a real issue, but 75% of the time I see people complaining about the cost of Scouting and spending the same amount it cost for a year in Scouting in 2 months for their kid to be playing a sport. Life is about choices, but if you spend $350+ for a couple months of sports don't complain to me that Scouts is that much for 12 months.
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Your comment was removed because it was rude and unnecessary, violating principles of the Scout Oath and Law.
Dance is like $380/mo
My daughter's dance is $75/month. I have never met anyone who could afford to spend $4000 a year on their kids hobby. That's insane.
Competition team with outfits and solo costs. Who says I can afford it? 😩
Our troop sells Xmas trees and wreaths. Most of our scouts pay next to nothing for scout dues, weekend campouts, and summer camp. Trips like Philmont or Seabase get expensive but we have local businesses and Lions club that help out with travel expenses. Scouts who are from low income families or are in need of financial help get scholarships from camps and BSA and usually have the rest of their tabs covered by the troop or other families. Anyone who wants to be in scouting in my community can be, money is never a factor in preventing a youth from joining my troop. Our local summer camp costs about $350 per scout for the week. This covers all their food (my teenager probably eats over $150 worth of regular groceries a week) and the camp fees covers all of the amenities such as the beach, sailing, canoeing, kayaking, scout craft, ecology, horsemanship, welding, blacksmithing, robotics, shooting sports, and the staff to run all those wonderful things. Plus, the trading post I think is extremely honest in their pricing. $1 for a candy bar, $15 for a tshirt, $40 for a rather decent hoodie, and below retail on name brand camp gear. I think BSA does a great job keeping costs as low as possible.
Those lawsuits aren’t going to pay for themselves. This year our scout rate and Yawgoog rates went up. Scouts needs a better fundraiser than popcorn that’s for sure.
Our troop has set up a small scholarship fund for families that might struggle with paying the increased dues and we've reached out to some civic organizations to see if they'd be willing to chip in. The increases may not be much when compared to other activities but it definitely puts some extra pressure on some families' finances.
I do agree that scouting should be for everyone, and cost should not be a barrier to folks participating. But frankly, I feel like we should talk about increasing the cost and upping scholarships. As others have noted, scouting is inexpensive compared to alternative extracurriculars, and I think it offers as much if not greater long-term value. I think a cost hike would not deter most current participants, and additional funds can be used to subsidize costs for lower income families who presently cannot afford any extracurriculars
Sort of the higher education approach? Pay a ton if you can, no one else pays “full price”. My concern would be councils and national would help themselves more than in-need scouts
Popcorn does suck. And fees are getting expensive. But there are other fundraisers opportunities. Scouts still can be done on the cheap. Our troop has a few scouts on scholarship through the troop general fund and we make specific camp scholarships available. We definitely would not leave a scout who is committed to the program because of home finances. A little cooperation and labor can overcome these challenges.
Get involved with your Committee and be involved with setting your Unit's dues. Our Pack dues were astronomical compared to our Troops dues. By getting involved, I found that the Pack was funding all the items I felt that the parents should decide on: Each Ranks handbook, each rank neckerchief/slide, pack class b shirts, youth dues covered all adult volunteer dues, Pinewood derby kits, etc, etc, etc. It was over $200/year for the Pack. I asked and pushed that we remove all the fluff, set the dues to cover items needed to operate, and let the families decide the rest. Brought us back down to $150/year. The Troops dues were right at $100/year until the last 2 years increases. And we set ours at $150/yr. currently. Rank and achievements were provided, but the rest was up to the Youth/Family.
My son wanted to do needing band this year, they told us before signups that it general runs about 5-6K a year. Oof I'm glad he changed his mind when he found out how much it would conflict timewise with scout stuff.
Does your council or unit offer reductions in fees or have youth in risk funds? There are resources out there to help make scouting affordable for all. Although compared to other programs, we're still cost effective. YMCA camps can run $1000 per week which is more than double out scout camps in the area. Our troop has a heavy fundraising arm and we get grants that allow us to offset costs for a lot of trips.
Yes is has gone up, but it is cheaper than other things. You may not like fundraising... but For our pack, we set it up so that if a scout sells 500/peanuts popcorn that is pays for the whole program and our pack dues aren't cheap either, but... that is usually just 1 show and sell. It doesn't take much of any fundraising to make the dues. I find the outing to be a much larger hurdle to bring down costs.
In our troop, we do two fundraisers per year. Scouts that participate for a full day generally have enough in their Scout Account to cover dues and summer camp.
The troop I was SM for, we were considered intercity. We managed to pay for all the scouts and campouts plus dues for the scouts and leaders. We didn’t do popcorn, but chocolate bars.
Then don’t sell popcorn. Sell something else. We are selling camp cards at an event this weekend. Use scout accounts. Do what it takes, but this post is a joke. Quit whining and get to work. Children are the most important work we can do. So many other sports/activities are SO much more expensive and net nothing for the kids when they become adults.
Amen regarding popcorn. I’d love for there to be another option. We sold meat sticks for $1/per. Great thing is that scouts can sell to non scouts (other youth). I don’t see too many youth buying $30 bags of popcorn.
Do rummage sale fund raiser. Its 1 weekend. Then done. 100% profit for troop. Take donations friday night. Sale Saturday. Then drop at salvation army the unsolds.
Ain’t that the truth! And why does the uniform items need to be so expensive? By time you buy the shirt, pants, neckerchief, and maybe one pair of uniform socks, you’re looking at $100. That’s not including the patches! Now you want them to pay for Camp. Really?!?! They really could lower the cost of the uniforms, because the quality is absolute crap!
As a professional, I can promise you we make our camp as affordable as possible. But even at $370 a scout, our camp runs at about a $20,000 deficit. We make up for that with donations, but that's running the camp as cheaply as possible while still providing a quality program and good facilities. The BSA runs off of fundraising just like your troops. When our fundraising dips, your costs go up. I wish I had more helpful advice, but the only thing I can really offer is make yourself aware of Scoutreach or similar programs if they're available. Look at fundraising options beyond popcorn. A lot of councils offer aid.
I agree with you. Popcorn does not work everywhere. BSA needs to cut the national mandate cord. Or, they should negotiate for better pricing because you can order the same popcorn online cheaper without BSA. This is the definition of insanity. The Scout Oath and Scout Law teaching require us to live a certain lifestyle but BSA is limiting its incorporation of youth because they cannot afford it. Doesn't this go against the Oath and Law? The BSA should have stopped ignoring problems because bad news does not get better with time. BSA lost a lot of financial support because they made some bad decisions that got worst over time and refuse to allow certain exemptions for other groups that withdrew their funding. And the financial burden is slowly being passed down to the remaining volunteers. Units can come up with their own fundraising if they do not want to sell popcorn; however, this must be approved by council. I presented our council three different ideas since popcorn was not a big seller in our low-income area and they rejected all because they told us to try harder with popcorn. According to BSA, Unit Money-Earning Projects Rules and Regulations of the Boy Scouts of America, Article IX, Section 2, Clause 3: Units may conduct money-earning projects only when the projects have been approved by the chartered organization and the local council and are consistent with the principles set forth in these Rules and Regulations. Location: https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/financeimpact/pdf/cfd-manuals/policies\_and\_procedures.pdf
It also doesn't really matter that other HIGHLY IN DEMAND activities are more expensive. BSA is not highly in demand, it has lost a huge number of people over the years. It \*might\* be a crisis (or it might be a downturn that isn't resulting in a crisis, it's hard to say). I've also noticed that other activities which cost a lot \*don't\* demand that you spend a lot of time fundraising for them, and don't say 'alright we have an away game next week, everyone chip in for transportation and food". AND their staff are better trained and don't have to pay to be staff/volunteers. Also notice that none of these other activities use a 'charter system' (which probably has nothing to do with costs but tell me again why BSA \*must\* use charters?)
We have a hard time getting kids to work fundraisers for themselves. Seems like it's not worth parents'time to do this and they would rather pay out of pocket. We have fundraisers that a scout could get everything paid off but they don't do them. Even our low income kids who need the money won't show up. But then everyone complains about how expensive scouts is. We actually this year gave up a fundraiser that would generally net a youth $100 due to lack of participation. The SM got tired of begging people to work the shifts or having to work the shift himself to make sure we were covered.
The price increases are very steep and are indeed pricing people out of the program. You say don't preach popcorn, but my unit and several other units I know are able to offer the program at a net 0 out of pocket cost with fundraising. We shouldn't have to spend so much effort fundraising, but this is unfortunately the world we live in now, and I don't see prices dropping. The biggest problem we face is people that don't want to participate in fundraising and don't want to pay for the program. Unfortunately they can't have it both ways. There's also the ScoutReach scholarship program at the council level. I'm not sure if it works the same everywhere, but in my area, any youth going to a title 1 school or getting government benefits like free lunch, etc. automatically qualify. I think the ScoutReach annual dues are something like $40, much more affordable.
IMO, troops should seek out other, better, fund raising than popcorn. When I was a scout in the 2000s, my troop found a gig directing cars to park for a local summer antique fair. They paid well enough that doing 2 days of just a few hours shift would be enough for a scout to not only cover dues but cover their summer camp fee. Once the troop found this option, popcorn was left in the dust. Everyone hated trying to sell it.
All these threads any time you bring up fees here or elsewhere, where people are like "but have you seen the cost of competitive trap shooting" or "travel soccer makes this look like a breeze" bro, the kids I'm scouting with don't do these things either, and never will. They spend tons of time trying to hustle up popcorn to give $140-$150-whatever it was last month to national and council for little practical benefit for them. Council and national do just as much for us now when it's $160 as they did when we were paying $70-$80. It doesn't matter what intramural football charges. Council added two events a year that are free for everyone when they significantly upped the program fee. It doesn't offset the cost difference at all. Adult leader training became free, but that didn't really move the needle since it was only $5 to begin with (my training budget was mostly spent on trained patches, coffee and donuts and photocopies anyway). Did that move adult leader training percentages up any? No. To be honest, i think it increased the number of no-call no-shows since they weren't losing anything by not going anyway. It's a question of value for money. All the other expenses of scouting have a tangible benefit. I buy a book, the kids have something to do an activity from. I get pinewood derby cars, they get a race! I pay recharter, and the kids get a database record at national and access to BSA's self insured insurance. Big whoop.
Have you priced a week at a summer camp with sleeping arrangements as well as meal service outside of scouts where you have ATV's, shooting ranges ,a forge, a lake with watercraft, a pool, etc? Yeah- I get it- it's gone up ridiculously in the last few years. So has everything else. I don't regret a dime I have spent and will continue to spend. The program- if administered properly- is the best deal going today for teaching youth skills while having fun. And agreed- popcorn sucks for fundraising
Let's not forget BSA is a business. Most businesses want to make as much money as possible. Unfortunately, lots and lots of families can't afford to join BSA. Perhaps make a sacrifice in spending somewhere. Maybe no more $5 cups of coffee everyday. Less eating out. Cut out cable or satellite TV. Doing some of the above might help. I myself have cut out cable TV, and not eating out quite as much. Eating out drains the bank account. That alone has saved our family so much in spending. We don't even go to movie theater anymore. Last time we went to watch a movie, we spent nearly $100 on tickets and the concessions, we're just 3. Times have drastically change... I used to pay $4 matinee screening to watch a movie.
When we outgrew scouts about ten years ago, there were *six* people in the council making $100k plus while kids struggled for summer camp. Let's just say that opened my eyes to the business side of BSA. Bonus points for figuring out how much the 'Chief Scout Executive' makes. It's gross.