Few days ago, a little girl knocked on my door. I opened the door. She told me that she's a girl scout, and she asked me if I could buy a box of cookies from her as a support to their organization, Girl Scout. I glimpsed the two boxes of cookies she held. The boxes looked very, hmm..., Great-valueish [1]. I thought for a second, and decided to buy one box from her.

 

F: How much for one?

G: 4 dollars.

F: Okay, I'm gonna buy one from you. Wait a minute.

(2 minutes later, the dozy guy with 2 george dubs and 8 hard cold quarters reappeared at the door step.)

F: Here you go. What kind of flavors do you have?

G: We have ....

.......
.......

 

Well, the ending was I bought a box of peanut, never-gonna-been-eaten cookies. What a happy ending. The shy girl achieved her business and gained confidence. The warm-hearted guy contributed $4 to charity and confirmed to himself that he's really as good as he thought.

 

Not really. After reading Erich Vieth's Don't buy Girl Scout cookies [2], I started thinking if I did wrong.

 

The primary idea of Erich's post is simple. Local troops keep only a small fraction of sales (around 12%-17%) generated in the cookie business while the bigger part of the money goes somewhere unknown. The Girl Scout headquarter is located at 5th Ave in Manhattan, which among the highest rent places in the world. Nowhere can the financial reports be found on the organization's website. Even worse, local troops have to purchase badges and other supplies with their own money. At the end, Erich came up a solution. Don't buy cookies from Girl Scouts. Whenever a girl sells cookies to you, instead of purchasing the cookies, DONATE THE MONEY DIRECTLY TO THE LOCAL TROOP.

 

The solution seems perfect, well, at least financially perfect. The flaw, as I see, is the solution only concerns on the fundraising aspect of the cookie business. How about the people involved in? Specifically, the girls. To those girls, not only selling cookies door by door is a fundraising activity for their organization, but also is it a way to build up their courage, confidence, business sense. Donating instead of buying the cookies may solve the financial problem, but the real value of the cookie business is also compromised.

 

Are we going to stop purchasing cookies from girl scouts? My answer is NO. I still will buy the cookie whenever asked. The underlying problem is not of those girls. If we have to blame someone, blame the organization being opaque financially, blame how this commercial world works, blame how ignorant the regulators are, and, well, blame Bush.

 

[1] According to Frederick's Encyclopedia:

* great-valueish

Function: adjective

Etymology: brain of Fred

1. pertains to inferior, cheap-looking product.

 

Notes from author of Frederick's Encyclopedia: I usually use Great Value, the brand marketed by Wal-mart, to refer an inferior, cheap looking product. (No offense here. I myself am a Great Value buyer actually.)

 

[2] http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=1178

 

 

Update: Where does my cookie money go?