by Hiruni Manawadu
The Girl Scouts organization has been a childhood staple for many girls for a long time. I am not here to dismiss all the wonderful things that the troops have done. However, my article is about questioning one of the aspects Girl Scouts claims to teach to their members, the fundamentals of business.
When many think of Girl Scouts, their mind goes to cookies. The Girl Scout cookies are incredibly iconic and what many girl scouts spend a good portion of their Girl Scout experience doing. So I interviewed some former Girl Scouts about their experience, and whether they actually learned anything about business, or if they just dashed from door to door and handed cash to their troop leaders.
Annika:
Girl Scouts taught me how to advocate for what i’m selling for, but it didn’t really teach me how the money works and how everything goes, but it did teach me a lot about marketing.
Lucy:
All I remember is talking to friends, going to someone’s house, and not doing much besides eating food. With cookie selling it was really just a competition.
Danni:
We didn’t actually do anything actually cool, we just sat in the cafeteria. We didn’t even sell cookies they wouldn’t allow us to.
So, after listening to some first hand experiences, my initial idea was supported. Girl Scouts is a community that has impacted the lives of many girls, however its work teaching entrepreneurship to scouts seems to be lacking. Not only that, but the prizes used to incentivize the girls to participate seems to have turned the selling into a competition.