Within this page are discussions dealing with funding:
Special terms used here include:
More on 501c3 can be obtained through the 501c3 site
Philip T. Peverada, M.D. asked:
I am scoutmaster of a new troop with 14 boys aged 11 to 12. We plan on attending camp as a troop in July. Although none of the boys is from wealthy families, the majority have caring parents who are able to pay for their camp time.
One boy comes from a broken home and lives with his father and his girl friend. The father is not at all supportive and has never returned any of my telephone calls, nor has he come to any scouting events. The troop paid the Boy Scout joining fees and we obtained an old uniform and handbook for him. The boy is a good kid and tries hard, but lacks any supervision at home. He has no money for camp. Camperships are available from Council and he plans to apply.
My question is what do people suggest he earn as a contribution to camp? The troop has only been in existence for five months so we haven't had a lot of opportunity to raise money. The boys are currently selling candy bars.
On the one hand I feel he needs to contribute, on the other he is the only one who must contribute since all the other boys seem to have supportive families who will contribute the full sum. In future years I hope to have all the boys engage in fund raising for camp, but this year just getting the troop off the ground, originally with 7 boys, and getting things organized took all of our attention.
Responses included:
Dr. Philip, by all means, please don't differentiate him from the other "More Fortunate" Scouts in your unit. The boy with the campership will pay Scouting back ten-fold as he gets older. For him to make a contribution would be separating him from the others and quite possibly cause embarrassment. Allow him to be hard working good kid that he is, Camperships are designed to benefit good scouts like him.
Maybe you could help by organizing odd jobs for him to do. Possibly the families, or neighbors, could use help with yard work this spring. He could earn money by being a "mothers helper" for someone. If your troop has equipment, maybe he could "earn his fee" by cleaning and organizing equipment. Talk to the principal at the school, maybe a teacher would hire him to help clean the classroom at the end of the year. Actually, the troop could do all these things together as a fund raiser, come to think of it... The important thing is to give him an investment of his own in the camp fees, that he earned his way. Good luck,
Philip,
This is always a delimma. You want to help the boy go to camp but want to insure that neither the troop or the council campership funds are being taken advantage of. We have three scouts who will need financial help this year and our troop is assisting from a fund set aside for just this purpose.
Something to consider is what the scout has learned/is learning in the home. Certainly he will be bringing the values and life-practices that he learns at home to the troop meeting. If he is not taught to perservere, to fulfill responsibilities, and follow through with committments at home he will bring this. I'd seize this as an opportunity to help him grow. Above all, be sure the scout gets to camp! That's #1. Then be sure he understands that he has a responsibility to assist in repaying the troop as best he can. Obviously, a private discussion. Provide him with opportunities to do this.
By the way, BP was pretty adamant that, "A scout pays his own way." Rather than hit mom and dad up for another coupla hundred bucks you might be sure you provide opportunities for ALL scouts to earn their camp money once you get your troop up and running. Some will, some won't, but the OPPORTUNITY should be there.....with a large helping of EXPECTATION thrown in.
SOUNDS LIKE YOU? PLEASE HELP ME CREDIT YOUR COMMENTS!
Hello ME-PhilP,
First of All Congratulations for deciding that next and future years you plan to Use Fund Raisers to get ALL the boys to Summer Camp via Individual Scout Accounts. This teaches the boys and the families a great lesson in scouting independence and patrol and troop partnership. I wish every troop did this as the ONLY way a boy can earn his keep in scouting.
I wouldn't lose hope yet that Fund Raisers with either Troop or Patrol Participation will put ALL the Boys over the TOP. Looking at my bottles and cans here in New York I see a little ME symbol that should be near and dear to your Glen Cove Heart. 5c per bottle or 6 and higher if you do sorting and go to the bulker means maybe only 3500 returnables per kid should do it and maybe 6 weekends of scout fun. A little bit more and they can all boy goodies at the Camps Trading Post, Scout Shop.
I Yi Yi you can't believe how many people are GLAD to see a scout collect and return those things.
Disadvantage: Hard Work/Long Hours Advantage: Team Work
As for the Camp idea which is pretty neat, give a call to your Camp Director, Camp Program Director or other honchos in your list to see where or if at his age and experience level he can assist. If a Go it might be nice to have a buddy troop scout go with him. Most Camps pay scouts some minimum yet good amount of $$$ for helping at summer camp, plus they meet other gung-ho scouts and have a blast. The only difficulty if this is a go for you, him, his family, and your Camp Crew is that his disadvantaged status will become a Blast and everyone in your troop will want to be disadvantaged. He could do his volunteering (payback) the weeks before your troop goes to summer camp and then be with you guys having a second blast.
Whatever you do it would be nicer if it was done with TeamWork or is that ScoutWork or ScoutSpirit.
Our Committee Chairman asked us to think up possible solutions to our problem and I can think of no better place to get ideas. : ) I've learned so much in the few months I've been a member of Scouts-L!
Our pack fee covers council fees, Boy's Life and enough for the basic supplies a new scout needs. Handbook, scarf etc. Additional funding for the pack is done throughout the year with popcorn, pizza and candy bar sales. The pack uses 1/2 of the profits for pack activities and supplies needed for awards and advancements etc. and credits the participating boys with the other 1/2. Thus giving boys a chance to earn rechartering and summer camp fees.
Some parents are becoming disgruntled because it is the same boys that participate in each fundraiser and thus are funding the pack for the rest of the boys.
What can we do to make it fair for all the boys?
Responses included:
My opinion only: I don't care what you do, you are never going to get all the boys to participate fully and equally in fundraisers. You could make a rule that says "If you don't help with the fundraiser, you get kicked out of the Pack", but that would only deprive the boys who may benefit the most from the program.
Or, you could talk to the "disgruntled" parents and explain things like "I will do my best ... to help other People ..." I think that includes helping the Cub Scouts whose parents are non-participatory (is that a word?). And if they still have a problem with Bobby not selling any popcorn, maybe it is time to say, "Well, I can certainly see your point, and I really appreciate all you've done to help the Pack with your wonderful fundraising efforts. Maybe you could go have a little talk with Bobby's mom and/or dad, and explain how you feel and how you would appreciate them chipping in a little more."
Once again, these comments represent my opinions only.
Here's how we do it in the Troop. If we were to charge every Scout $150, we would meet our budget. Through what we call Group Fundraisers we can raise (usually) over half our troop budget. We figure the workforce needed, assume some will choose not to work, divide by the number of Scouts and we came up with 3 events per Scout. We asked that each Scout (or parent) work 3 events and reduce their dues to $75. If you fail to work 3, you were charged $25 for each missed event (we have 7 events all together) or you could choose ahead of time to just pay the $150.
Any money earned by the Group Fundraisers that was over and above 50% of the troop budget went to each person who worked extra events (over 3). You can also paricipate in popcorn sales, etc, to earn the remainder of your dues and have some left over for High Adventure trips and the like.
Basically, each Scout is responsible for $150, you can pay with your time, or your checkbook. We will take either.
I hope this makes sense, we spent a long time trying to put it in our guidebook in a manner that everyone would read it the same way.
Pam,
You asked for suggestions on fundraising that would be fair to all of the boys. Any fundraising that keeps the Pack treasury afloat allowing them to have a great Scouting experience is probably going to be fair to the boys.
Huh?
For most of these Cubs, they are not the ones who make the final decision on whether to participate in fundraising - it doesn't happen without their family's support. When a parent won't allow the Cub to help raise funds or is unwilling to support the Cub, he won't be able to do much about it. These same boys need Scouting and maybe more so than the boys whose parents help them more. So anything that would penalize them or limit their ability to participate wouldn't be fair to them.
The parents are the ones who complain about fundraising being fair in most cases like this. I think the real question is whether your fundraising is fair to the families involved. The solution of giving families the choice to either participate or pay a higher fee to make up the difference is probably a good one, if the family has the resources to pay. If they don't have money, this approach may not be a good one as far as the Cub is concerned - it may lead to him not being able to participate.
Maybe their is a middle ground somewhere. Could some of the parents who aren't doing fundraising help in other ways? Would it help if there were incentives? For example, you could hold a special fundraiser's reward activity where only Cubs who participated could attend - say a special Pizza fest, bowling, game night or whatever.
There may well be some parents that just won't participate or allow their son to participate at all and they also may be the ones that tend to freeload on everything else. At this point I guess it comes down to being a little less selfish and sharing a bit more with the boys whose ill fortune it was to have parents that aren't quite so wonderful as the ones doing all the complaining. ;-) If we want the boys to learn a sense of civic responsibility, we have to demonstrate that here. We can either teach them to consider what's good for the community or what's good for me as the way to make decisions by how we make decisions.
There was a recent post regarding how Cub Scout packs fund leader registration fees (this is a great way of supporting leaders!). Some of the replies mention "we build it into our annual dues".
Since one purpose of this list is education about Scouting's principles, I'd like to mention something that is often overlooked in basic training - financing of Cub Scout Pack operations (the BSA suggested way).
The way BSA suggests that packs finance their operations is a combination of WEEKLY dues (paid by the boys) and some type of fundraiser(s). The point of weekly dues (paid in the Den and transferred to the pack) is to teach boys about regular saving and obligations. How many of us pay our mortages, phone bills, etc. annually?
I know from experience that collecting annually is much easier than putting up with the headaches of weekly dues collection, but weekly dues (using the BSA dues envelope & other record keeping forms) is the "by the book" method.
Recently John from NY asked how to fund Roundtables.
John,
In my district in Baltimore we charge $1.00 per person for the monthly handout. This is a 40 plus page monthly themed program. They may copy this for others in their unit. We have the material and the copying donated by local business. With our monthly attendance of 50 to 70 we do fine in financing our RT. All the craft supplies and other props are paid through this. As the RT Commissioner changes we hand down the materials.
Funding Sea Scout Ships
I am preparing a presentation for our Region's upcoming SeaBadge
and would welcome comments on the following notes:
Realities
*Sea Scout Ships typically function on a higher budget than Boy Scout Troops, but
their membership numbers are typically smaller. In this council the typical Ship
averages $4-6K in expenses annually
*Expenses are relentless and continuing. Maintenance, storage, hull insurance are
yearly and significant. Boy Scout Troops in hard times can become relatively dormant
and survive on a shoestring. Sea Scout Ships do not have that luxury. They must
continue to pay certain expenses.
*Debts related to a vessel attach to the vessel and give rise to a lien on the vessel. This
is both a potential strength and weakness. You may not own the vessel.
Financing should not be seen as a negative and unproductive expenditure of valuable
time. It is an educational part of the program "There is no such thing as a gree lunch"
is a lesson that should be learned early in life. Salesmanship and the handling of other
people's money are skills that have more universal application than seamanship. In this
council, during its heyday virtually all financial support came through factory sponsors.
There was no fundraising by most Ships. When the factories headed South, the
non-factory Ships -- who were used to fundraising -- were the only survivors.
Most common sources of funds
*Fundraisers - $4-6k is a very successful fundraiser by most standards, but it requires
good membership, significant parental support, and nerves of steel. It must be periodic.
*Donations - Outside of your council's identity, a nonprofit tax number and 501 © 3
status of your own greatly enhances your ability to get grants and donations from
corporations, foundations, and other institutions.
*Boat brokering - I.e. accepting boats and selling them after two years. (IRS requirement
to lock in value of donation.) There is the possibility of leasing but with many
accompanying legal liability pitfalls. Virtually all donated boats require an up-front
investment to make them either usable or saleable. Storage headaches.
*Cruise books and programs - Sale of advertising for Bridge of Honor, Sea Explorers
Ball, etc. Critical mass must be reached to be viable. Not available to small Ships, must
work with a group of Ships.
*The Old Boy (and Girl) network - If you have kept contact with alumni/ae "contribute to
Ship X in lieu of flowers." Newly formed Ships should take defunct Ships' numbers and
capitalize on the continued identity.
*Community funds and endowments - Best opportunities to cultivate this type of largesse
are through the Old Boy (and Girl) network
*Chartering (bareboat and with crew) - Requires legally sophisticated and active support
network. Significant liability and licensing considerations. Raises question of conflict
with Sea Scouts for use of vessel during finite sailing season.
All financial activities have significant secondary benefits, e.g. recruiting, publicity, and
networking. They increase unit visibility to the public.
Economics, the dismal science, is one of the two greatest challenges for current Sea
Scout leaders. Recruiting is the other.
Responses included:
Roger,
I've inserted a few comments:
Roger Crossland wrote:
Most common sources of funds
*Fundraisers - $4-6k is a very successful fundraiser by most standards, but it requires
good membership, significant parental support, and nerves of steel. It must be periodic.
Absolutely the Truth!!!
*Donations - Outside of your council's identity, a nonprofit tax number
and 501 © 3 status of your own greatly enhances your ability to get grants
and donations from corporations, foundations, and other institutions.
I don't believe this is "legal" in scouting. No unit is officially
allowed to have its own 501c3 status that would make
it compete with the Boy Scouts for that sort of funding. We have an "associated" 501c3
organization that contributes to us, but it is very tricky ground and
really irritates the council.
*Boat brokering - I.e. accepting boats and selling them after two years. (IRS requirement to
lock in value of donation.) There is the possibility of leasing but with many accompanying legal
liability pitfalls. Virtually all donated boats require an up-front investment to make them either
usable or saleable. Storage headaches.
Again, this is an area for which there is a high possibility of stepping
on the Boy Scouts' toes. Check with your council.
*Chartering (bareboat and with crew) - Requires legally sophisticated and active support
network. Significant liability and licensing considerations. Raises question of conflict with
Sea Scouts for use of vessel during finite sailing season.
We actually find little conflict for one major reason: our program focus
is on commercial boating and career training. We survive on our charters,
the crew earns cruising points for them, and it works very, very well.
Since I've become the Scoutmaster at our troop I've followed the example set
by the previous SM. I use the weekly dues collected by our Scribe. We charge
$25 annualy for registration, insurance and Boys' Life. The remainder is used
as a partial dues payment. The rest of the Scouts' dues are collected at $.50
per week.
We have a cashbox that was built as a Star project by one of our, now
departed, Scouts. As SM I'm incharge of the cashbox. Minor expenses like
copies of the Committee and PLC agenda, supplies and such are taken from this
account. Receipts are required before reimbusement from this fund. When the
box gets more than about $20 the excess is given to the Troop Treasurer for
deposit.
This system relies heavily on the honor system and could be abused. The
limited size of the cash reserves, however, will keep the SM from financing
any extended vacations on the Scout's weekly dues. All other troop expenses
are cleared through the Troop Committe before the check is written.
Funding Boy Scout Troops
Designed by Mike Walton