BSA’s Order of the Arrow is reducing its mockery of Native American tribes at National Order of the Arrow Conference 2024, its biannual national conference: It’s deleting American Indian Affairs activities (AIA)!
AIA explainer
A good deal of OA’s AIA is performance art, and much of that art is brownface cosplay, mainly in two forms:
Doing Native American-themed performance art without permission of the tribes whose customs they purport to represent.
Just “playing Indian”, acting out a whiteboy caricature of indigenous peoples or amalgams of tribal customs.
And let me be super clear about a point: Some may allege tremendous research and earnest interest in authenticity. That’s great, and I am glad you did that. However, if you are performing without written permission of the tribe you claim your performance to commemorate, you have not separated yourself from brownface cosplay.
While there is technically more to AIA, like static art, the brownface cosplay-dominant performance art gets most attention.
Commentary on (phony) tribal permission
Since before I was a youth in Scouting, OA has swum in allegations of local tribal authorizations of AIA activities. Such authorizations indicate relationships that would be highly valued under a system that alleges to respect Native Americans.
I have yet to see any lodge publicly share evidence of such an agreement. That absence speaks volumes.
I have also repeatedly heard local allegations of individual Native Americans endorsing local AIA activities. They, too, are likely phony. But even if not, they are irrelevant: Tribal customs are owned by tribes, not individuals.
All this notwithstanding, the concern is non-natives appropriating tribal customs under the color of BSA. How Native Americans express their own tribal customs is a private matter between that person and his or her tribe, outside the scope of this document.
BSA (OA) fights society for improper ends
Society has wrestled with cultural appropriation of Native Americans for a century. In the past few decades, society’s viewpoint has coalesced on that the appropriation is harmful. Controversies over Native American-themed sports mascots follow this reasoning.
Another anachronism is that it’s OK to “play Indian”. This is why brownface cosplay remains rampant in the Order of the Arrow.
An example of OA endorsing “playing Indian”
AIA’s sibling in OA is Inductions and Ceremonial Events (ICE). These are OA’s core ceremonies, which are whiteboy riffs of indigenous customs.
Approved attire for ICE ceremonies includes “American Indian attire”. This allowance is accompanied with “should”s regarding the attire’s authenticity and approval by tribes it reflects. Because “should” is not “must”, OA members remain free to use phony or unsanctioned-by-a-tribe Native American-ish costumes when they “play Indian”.
It’s hard to see how CU Boulder would tolerate OA’s mockery of Native American tribes.
To match CU Boulder’s ethos, OA should go further and fully implement the above-mentioned desire of its national and regional recent youth leaders, which is “ending the use of American Indian iconography and activities in our programs”. Given that OA is thematically soaked with cultural appropriation, more NOAC changes are needed than just pausing AIA.
CU Boulder probably did not force this
A reasonable person may suspect that OA removed NOAC’s brownface-cosplay activities due to a CU Boulder agreement. I have not seen convincing evidence of this. This suggests that OA leadership may simply be doing the right thing.
This is the RFP sent out by BSA to multiple universities:
This is a good sign. It suggests OA’s national leadership chose to pause AIA without being forced to.
When will OA get its act together?
OA still has no public statement that attests it has decided to stop mocking Native American tribes.
It was time to rip that band aid off decades ago. OA’s brownface was controversial and managed poorly when I was a kid. I am now old, and OA is still mocking Native American tribes!
How much longer do we have to wait for OA to clean up its act? Public clarity from OA leadership is crucial!
25 recent national- and regional-level Order of the Arrow youth officers, who were in office 2016-2022, have called for OA to end its cultural appropriation. Several of them affirmed this letter’s authenticity to me.
They call for an end to all cultural appropriation, more than just the brownface cosplay I’ve written about previously.
Many who support perpetuating cultural appropriation also weaponize “youth-led” as a thought-terminating cliché. I encourage you to reflect on “youth-led”. Perhaps it’s your own anachronisms that need termination?
The letter, copied and pasted without editing:
Members of the National Order of the Arrow Committee,
We are __ current and former national youth officers of the Order of the Arrow, who were elected to represent the interests and voices of Scouting’s youth during our times in office. We believe our organization succeeds only when our traditions align with our values, so we wholeheartedly support ending the use of American Indian iconography and activities in our programs.
We joined the OA and ran for national office because we believed in our organization’s mission. That mission is about positive youth leadership. It creates extraordinary opportunity we each benefit from in our daily lives. We want to see that promise continue for today’s members and every young person who could one day wear a sash.
But we remain worried that mission won’t survive if the OA doesn’t do the right thing. Honoring American Indian communities requires the utmost reverence, and we know our practices cause offense to many. That doesn’t align with our admonition. We must live up to our shared value of loving one another. Just because these traditions are old does not mean they are right.
This isn’t just a moral argument; these programs hold increasingly less relevance with today’s youth. Many non-members avoid associating with the OA entirely because of these practices. If we wish to survive, we cannot prioritize traditions at the cost of blundering our aspiration of promoting positive youth leadership as an integral part of the Boy Scouts of America.
The need for change has been clear. We took an oath to faithfully fulfill our duties as national youth officers—duties developed by the committee—including recommending items of policy or other actions for the good of the Order. The National OA Committee should act on the repeated recommendations it has received from sitting national officers to end these programs.
In advance of your December meeting, we write to make clear that ending these practices has unanimous support among the OA’s top youth leaders for the past __ years. We come from __ different lodges in __ states. We are Scouting’s future advisers and parents, and we believe a successful tomorrow is realized when we live by our values.
Some may say it’s not the opportune time. We say it’s never a bad time to do the right thing. We urge you to vote to end these programs, so we can all see our true mission succeed.
In brotherhood,
[25 signatures redacted]
I am not including names of signatories. If any wish to be mentioned, I am happy to publish their names.
It is my understanding that BSA’s Chief Scout Executive, or one or more of his direct reports, is standing in the way of reform. Why don’t you support ending brownface cosplay, Roger?
BSA’s national organization tried to decimate Cub Scout camping. The base erupted, and national partly backed off! With its reaction, national yet again affirmed how it’s a culturally-rotted enemy of Scouting.
Scouting is among America’s most valuable traditions. We have to save it from the national organization. A necessary step is not allowing national to hide its malfeasance. That’s why I wrote this.
Timeline of BSA’s rule on allowed nights of camping for Cub Scout pack-organized campouts.
A story of arrogance
For decades, BSA did not regulate the length of a Cub Scout pack-organized campouts. It could be as many nights as the pack wanted.
True, BSA’s rules for Cub Scout pack-organized camping included the word “overnight” or “overnighter”. But that was widely understood only to distinguish from “day camp”, a kind of camp that does not include overnight stays. The national office’s own use of this word affirmed this understanding.
In February 2023, BSA blindsided its largest program, secretly adding a word to Cub Scout camping rules: “single overnighter” (August 2022 version, lacking “single”, and February 2023 version). This secret edit decimated camping programs of most packs, demoralizing families and volunteers.
Yet again, BSA’s national organization eroded trust. But this organization does not care: Following its longstanding habit, it acted hubristically, demonstrated hostility, and stalled for a long time before correcting itself. It has yet to apologize. (I’m expecting to see this same culture in Netflix’s upcoming Scouts Honor documentary. Not only is this rotted culture behind decades-long delays in addressing sex abuse, it’s behind this assault on Cub Scouts, it’s why national still clings to a “separate but equal” regime for girls, and it’s why the Order of the Arrow program has rampant brownface cosplay.)
As usual, the top-secret national-level volunteer committees made no public statements. Sitting on their hands is no surprise: too many of these committees are do-nothing, inertia-bound puppets of BSA’s bloated bureaucracy. (Some national committees are exceptions, and I value you! You must be more public and distance yourself from the puppet committees.)
Our national organization is arrogant. Arrogance prevents reform. Until we see clear signs that national wishes to reform, we must keep asking, “What is national’s next blunder?”
Why national thought it could get away with it
(This section is a brief diversion from the article’s topic. It provides context. I will eventually separate it into its own article.)
BSA’s national organization has an anti-leadership culture of mindless rulemongering. This culture expects all BSA members to have an obsession with rules in the mold of the Pharisees of the Bible. This is among the worst attributes of BSA’s moribund bureaucracy.
The national organization also benefits from a myth that rising to national is a sign of extraordinary competence. Place this atop mindless rulemongering, you get a “worship the gold epaulets” mentality. (Employees or volunteers with national roles wear gold epaulets.)
The rulemongering and gold-digging cultural aspects foster a third aspect: UNQUESTIONING OBEDIENCE! Following rules is simply one’s highest calling (again, more anti-leadership claptrap). Faced with ambiguity, the solution is to fabricate yet more rules, which induces a need for yet more bureaucracy. It’s a self-dealing system, creating phony work for long-tenured professionals and volunteers. It also negates concerns of the base, because of course the problem is you peasants declined to obey or follow our rules. (Incidentally, that explains national’s hostility to feedback.)
The alternative to this culture is thoughtful navigation of gray areas. That would be actual work, contradicting a fourth aspect of the national organization’s cultural problems: its main purpose is to provide cushy, make-work roles for those who were loyal to national’s bureaucracy for long enough.
Volunteer or professional, BSA’s career- and volunteer-role-advancement system’s terminal promise is to promote you far past your Peter-principle competence limit to a cushy “my career is here to die”, do-little, competence-optional role. No real performance expectations, just smile and wave. Professionals lightly manage fawning volunteer patsies they hand-selected into some puppet committee. All feign productivity and usefulness by reviewing numbers, signing NDas, and wasting everyone’s time with bureaucratic delaying tactics like pointless pilot programs and endless surveys that never lead to change.
Life is great, brought to you by UNQUESTIONING OBEDIENCE!
This time, it failed. The base erupted. The Cub Scout Volunteers Facebook group and other social-media forums exploded. Rulemongers were shoved aside, so national lost its usual defenders. Scores pledged to openly flout the new rule.
(Heading off a likely response: Rejecting mindless rulemongering is not endorsing anarchy. Many BSA rules are crucial, such as those that protect youth from abuse or the advancement program. Mindless approaches distracts what’s important and harms our ability to navigate gray areas.)
National used stupidthink to fabricate a rule
Insiders with direct knoweldge of the national organization’s thinking shared some insight, revealing how stupidity passes as rational thought in Irving. These insights are part of a false narrative, that national’s secret, February 2023 change was minor, just clarifying a longstanding policy.
Stupidthink #1: Just read the dictionary
In a robust social-media conversation on the secret revision, a national source shared the Merriman-Webster Dictionary and Dictionary.com definitions for “overnight”:
National’s thinking: If a policy is vague, look up its words in a commodity dictionary.
Paraphrase: “You dummies, why didn’t you check the dictionary?”
Let’s check those definitions: Dictionary.com‘s definition of “overnight” includes an adjective form: “done, made, occurring, or continuing during the night”. This definition does not convey a one-night limit. With several definitions that generally do not convey a one-night limit, Merriam-Webster‘s definition also does not clarify.
What this source conveyed, in a backhanded way, is national knew its policy was too vague to connote a one-night limit. In national’s culture, its appears to see its own quality problems as invitations to concoct arbitrary policy.
Stupidthink #2: It’s always been this way
A national-organization source conveyed that national believes the rule was always one-night campouts. The source backed that up by sharing an excerpt from the 1991 Guide to Safe Scouting:
Excerpt from the 1991 Guide to Safe Scouting.
This only affirms that national’s ambiguous language is a decades-old feature, not a bug.
If “overnight” was ever meant to be a single-night limit, that clarity exists only in the fever dream of some 1990s-era bureaucrat. Since this bureaucrat did not document his dream, we do not know his intent. Therefore, this 1991 excerpt does not provide useful guidance.
Stupidthink #3: BALOO conveys a single-night limit
Per a national source, the single-night limit “is reinforced by required BALOO training”. That is false. Nowhere in the BALOO training material is a single-night limit conveyed. While forms of “overnight” are used, they come across in the same way as the pre-February 2023 Guide to Safe Scouting.
The source further reinforced the fake news by sharing that BALOO “uses example of an overnight activity in the training”. While that is true, it is a mere case study in a training program. Case studies are not rules.
Stupidthink #4: National uses “overnight” consistently
Another national source conveyed that national consistently uses “overnight” to mean one night. Yet more fake news!
A trivial inspection of authoritative national documents reveals uses of “overnight” in ways that do not convey a one-night event:
Accompanying the secret revision to the Guide to Safe Scouting was a secret revision to the Language of Scouting. As of February 21, 2023, its definition for “Webelos Scout overnighter” was “[a] one- or two-night campout”. A key national document legitimized an allegedly disallowed form of Cub Scout camping? That document was secretly changed no later than March 7, 2023 to read “[a] one night campout”. Why “secret”? Despite this revision, the document’s revision date, at its top, remains “February 2020”. Someone was covering tracks!
Tenderfoot rank requirement 1.a.: “Present yourself to your leader, prepared for an overnight camping trip.” If the Scout prepared for the troop’s multi-night campout, this requirement cannot satisfied?
Scouting’s Barriers to Abuse: “All adults staying overnight in connection with a Scouting activity must be currently registered as an adult volunteer or an adult program participant.” Wait, so adults staying two or more nights don’t need to be registered?
Guide to Safe Scouting, Camping section: “Local council approval is needed for unit-coordinated overnight camping activities involving other units not chartered by the same organization.” Got it, so I can evade this requirement if I plan a two-night campout? Even more rich: This is the same document that BSA secretly revised in February 2023 to add “single” to the Cub Scout part! The very document that was revised is incoherent about the meaning of “overnight”!
The base never bought it
Fortunately for Scouting, few packs denied adventure to their Cub Scouts: The vast majority provided multi-night adventures before February 2023. My evidence comes from polls in some Facebook groups right after the February 2023 change. They got a huge response:
Survey in huge Cub Scout volunteer social-media groups affirming overwhelming delivery of multi-night, pack-organized campouts.
We were all open about it, not because we were flouting anything, but because multi-night campouts were not prohibited. If you told my council’s Cub Scout leaders that national limited Cub Scouts to one-night campouts, you would have been laughed out of the room.
BALOO training is essential training on Cub Scout pack camping. At least one leader present on a Cub Scout pack-organized campout must have completed that training. In my council, our BALOO trainers did not teach a one-night restriction. In fact, when I took BALOO training, we did a planning exercise for a two-night campout! And that is appropriate as, per above, the BALOO training materials do not convey a single-night limit.
If any council should have been aware of this one-night rule, it’s my council!
Circle Ten is large and reasonably run. Council administrators are aware of and follow national’s rules.
The national office is in our geographic territory:
BSA’s national office is in Circle Ten Council’s territory (source).
The proximity lubricates relationships between council members and national employees and volunteers, many of whom are neighbors. It is common to see a national employees and volunteers at Circle Ten events.
It is also common to see professionals or volunteers move between my council and national positions. Our current Scout Executive came from national in 2017! Even better, he was a national Cub Scout division director! If a one-night limit was a rule, certainly my Scout Executive would have known.
Circle Ten Council has unparalleled proximity to and interplay with the national office. If national truly intended for Cub Scouts to be limited to one-night campouts, Circle Ten Council would have known. But we didn’t, and across the board, our Cub Scout packs openly practiced multi-night, pack-organized campouts! Why? Because there used to be no limit on camping nights!
Wait a second, some bought it
In the above chart, a minority of packs limited their campouts to one night.
Based on social-media discussions, some just preferred this. For example, if your pack is only 10 miles from a campground, a single-night campout can be convenient. That’s fine if it works for you!
But some packs are in councils that concocted a one-night limit. This is mere rulemongerism. Only reflecting local poor practices, it does not advance a case that national had a one-night rule.
Nobody knows why national did this
Why did national make this secret change? It may have been stupidthink. It may have been insurance. We don’t know!
The national organization is invited to explain itself publicly.
How national screwed the pooch
National screwed the pooch:
It never consulted the base before making this change.
It felt entitled to decimate a key program.
It capriciously enacted an arbitrary change.
It showed no remorse for its actions.
Its professionals and volunteers who have responsibility for or influence over this clammed up for six months.
Responsible or accountable parties from national stopped participating in social media, except for denying crisis by posting unrelated PR glurge.
It threatened volunteers, which leads me to the next section…
National threatens adult memberships merely for disagreeing
Imagine you’re an adult leader. You were just blindsided by a devastating announcement: BSA decimated most Cub Scout camping.
In social media, you engage in a robust but respectful discussion to understand what just happened and why.
In that conversation, someone connected with national posts dictionary definitions of “overnight”. (I commented on that above.) A volunteer recognizes the definition-sharer as being connected to national. Without outing this person, that participant provides helpful feedback (top comment is the volunteer’s feedback, bottom comment is the national-affiliated person’s reply):
Color commentary on the national person’s reply:
It starts with a false accusation that the volunteer is contradicting BSA policy. Um, no? There is no policy forbidding disagreement.
Next is fake news, that the one-night limit is “not new policy”. As per above, the one-night rule was created in February 2023. Before then, there was no limit on nights of camping.
Next is an absurd allegation, that Cub Scouts will be harmed by a second night of family camping. National has yet to substantiate why it believes this. Evidence-free assertions do not become rational simply because the person making the assertion wears gold epaulets.
Finally, a threat to expel volunteers for disagreeing with the national organization. This is the reply’s last two sentences. It’s damning commentary on national’s hubris.
A national-affiliated person mentions the Scouter Code of Conduct in this context for one reason: To threaten expulsion of a volunteer.
Disagree with a national-organization epic screwup? Face expulsion!
What the hell is wrong with our national organization?
It’s hard to set aside national’s blunder. It’s mind-bogglingly stupid for an adventure-focused organization to decimate its largest adventure program. It’s even stupider to do it secretly!
Then national amplified its blunder by hurling threat grenades at volunteers, clamming up, seeking no feedback, and not apologizing.
None of this is acceptable performance.
Yes, national finally relented. After stonewalling for half a year, a new, two-night limit on pack-organized camping starts September 1, 2023.
National is so chickenshit, the news had to first be leaked through local representatives. A few weeks after the leaks began, national finally bothered to communicate over an official channel. That mere peasants–err, I mean parents and volunteers–had to first find out via leaks conveys how unimportant our national organization thinks we are.
While it’s great that two nights of camping are now allowed, it’s just a correction of an epic screw up.
At the top, I wrote “partly backed off”. Remember that before February 2023, BSA did not limit camping nights for Cub Scout packs. The new rule bans three-night pack-organized campouts, which makes me sad. I led my old pack on phenomenal three-night adventures to Enchanted Rock/Fredericksburg, Caprock Canyon, and San Antonio. These were safe and reasonable, provided exceptional adventures, and created lifetime memories. We pulled them off without a hitch. Now they are banned.
How do we fix this?
National corrected itself, so move on? Not if you value Scouting!
If we allow the national organization to keep sweeping its blunders this under the rug, we are not holding it accountable. Without accountability, national will keep attacking Scouting!
National has a cloistered culture. Fed by a defective career-advancement system that mainly rewards those most loyal to its moribund bureaucracy, national views itself as its main customer. This is evidenced by its resistance to feedback and endemic throwback-reactionary culture.
We can’t “forgive and forget”. We can’t work within a system designed to protect failure. Either is simply enabling national’s malfeasance.
The current national organization must improve. If it’s willing to, great, we can keep it around. If not, we need to replace it.
Hopefully the national organization will be open about its deficiencies and create a plan to correct them. As long as its executing on this plan, we can work with it. Until then, it’s crucial to hold the national organization publicly accountable for its cultural rot.
Appendix: A note about those who didn’t read “overnight” onerously
As mentioned earlier, BSA has a cultural problem with obsessions over rules. This devalues important rules, makes navigating gray areas onerous, and encourages us to grab complexity from the jaws of simplicity. This makes BSA less safe, and it distracts us from program excellence.
It is healthy to prefer simplicity! That is a longstanding truism:
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” -Leonardo da Vinci
“So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” -Dr. Seuss
“Less is more.” -Mies van der Rohe
“Brevity is the soul of wit.” -Shakespeare
This doesn’t mean the simplest answer is always right. But seeking simplicity remains wise and rational.
Part of seeking simplicity is reducing the number of rules we face. This is rational: The more you are regulated, the more of your time is diverted from productive activity. Volunteers want to deliver great programs. Less energy diverted to compliance is more energy to do what we’re here for.
When we navigated the bare word “overnight” in a way that didn’t limit to a one-night event, we eliminated a rule while upholding contextually valid definitions of “overnight”. No pretzeled logic involved! One less rule, more flexibility to deliver great adventures. Win/win!
While I’ve waxed philosophically, this has some precedent in contract law.
Every adult leader is contractually obligated to follow the Guide to Safe Scouting; it’s part of what an adult leader agrees to when signing an adult leader application.
Under the doctrine of contra proferentem, ambiguity in contracts are resolved against the interests of the party who drafted the language. BSA’s use of “overnight” was ambiguous. Through its actions, the national organization demonstrated it believed its interest is aligned with “overnight” conveying a one-night limit. Had this issue been litigated, the contra proferentem doctrine may have harmed BSA’s case.
BSA’s national office just restructured. The changes were described as “strategic reassignments” to address “immediate and long-term needs”.
These changes send two messages:
BSA is betting the farm on raw revenue production and raw asset protection.
The least important concerns are now the unit program–the very thing that makes BSA distinct–and getting new members. I’ll explain more later, but throwing marketing to the bottom is why I wrote “raw revenue production”. This reveals that the revenue-production focus is on measures other than membership growth.
By betting the farm on bureaucrats and casting to the bottom what makes us distinct, BSA signals that its national office may be in a death spiral.
⬇️⬇️Program (Cub Scouting, Scouts BSA, Exploring, program management)
⬇️⬇️Marketing and Communications
⬇️Development (fundraising, alumni, foundation)
⬇️Administration (HR, Scouting U, travel/meeting management, IT, NSC facilities, marcom)
⬇️Youth Development (high adventure, outdoor program)
⬇️Operations (council support, territories)
Winners and losers in the national office’s reorganization. Number of down arrows indicates degree of demotion.
BSA’s old and new models
In the prior organizational model, all the positions on rung 2 were equal, all reporting to the CEO:
BSA org chart before May 2023
Some clarification: CDO is Chief Development Officer. That person leads fundraising. NST is National Service Territory. The two NST VPs nominally divided up duties of BSA’s 16 territories, and they had some other duties:
NST 9-16’s VP also had unit-level program–Cub Scouts, Scouts BSA, Exploring–and Program Management.
NST 1-8’s VP also had Council Services.
The new model, where most areas were demoted one or two rungs:
BSA org chart as of late May 2023. Salaries from 2021 Form 990 provided when available.
In the new model, you have an Office of the CEO, which includes the CEO and two direct reports. Everyone else on the old org chart got knocked down to third and fourth rungs. Per BSA’s internal announcement, the third rung reports not to an individual but to this new Office of the CEO.
NOTE: From here on, I use “program” to refer to unit-level program. It is in a group named “Program”. While there are other programs run out of national, like high adventure and camping, they roll up into differently named groups.
Winners list
First, let’s review the winners.
Legal/Risk Management and Finance won: they stayed on their same rungs while all their peers dropped to lower rungs. These areas each get half the CEO’s attention, far improved from an eighth. Also, a humiliating message was sent to five of their former peers: you now report to us two.
BSA is now defined by two bureaucratic functions. Not program. Not growth. But bureaucracy. Now, everything about the national office is filtered through bureaucratic lenses of income and risk.
Does it cause more Scout Shop sales? Does it make insurance more expensive? Does it make current members pay more? Would someone sue us? Does it scrape money together for its money-losing, Scouting-themed amusement park’s The Summit’s enormous debt? The new model invites questions like these to lead every last action of the national office.
Youth Protection also “won” but only through a title change. It used to be led an “officer” reporting to the Executive VP (EVP) over legal and risk. Now reporting to the Office of the CEO (more on that in the next section), it’s a Senior VP. It’s still on rung 3, and my guess is the legal/risk EVP will be assigned to supervise this function. This small change is part of how BSA is honoring a provision of the bankruptcy settlement.
Losers list
All other concerns are losers. Instead of reporting to the CEO, four concerns were demoted to the third rung, now reporting to the Office of the CEO along with the Youth Protection SVP.
Yes, that is correct, they report to an office, not to a person! But let’s be real: The point of this change is to keep these five out of the CEO’s hair. All but the Youth Protection SVP are now reporting to a former peer, to the CFO or to the EVP over legal/risk. (Since the YP SVP will certainly report to the legal/risk EVP, that’s no change in reporting for that role.)
While these five areas are losers in the reorganization, their executive leads got a minor win. A person reporting to a committee gains less accountability and more power over a kingdom. Given the national office’s rotted culture, I have fox/henhouse concerns.
Two concerns were double-demoted, from rung two to rung four:
Marketing and Communications
Program
Additionally, marcom’s lead is now reduced to a VP instead of an EVP. This is not a problem with the person. The former EVP over this concern retired, and a director was promoted to a VP. It remains that both a huge demotion and a title reduction happened to the role of marcom’s lead.
I am surprised program and marcom were deemed that unimportant. Isn’t our program what distinguishes us from other organizations? Isn’t marketing crucial to growing our program?
Strangely, despite being double-demoted, the lead of program got a title increase. This is vague messaging. The title was formerly VP. It’s now Senior VP.
Now here’s a detail that muddies things. The fourth-rung people also have a dotted-line report to the Office of the CEO. I don’t show that on the chart because all it likely means is the program and marcom leads will occasionally prepare reports for the CEO, EVP legal/risk, and CFO, and they will occasionally get to ask questions. It doesn’t change the unambiguous language in BSA’s internal announcement: these two still directly report to third-rung people. Program and marcom used to nominally get 1/8 of the CEO’s focus. Now they get scraps.
Let me pull together some things above to reemphasize a key point. We have two groups that own concerns that define BSA and most directly cause us to grow. Those groups suffered severe, collective blows:
Dropped two rungs.
Title reduction for the marcom lead role.
Report into areas that now have less accountability.
Report into areas that now have less CEO attention.
Altogether, this is a devastating slap to unit-program and marcom.
To make the effect of the double demotions clear, here’s some other national-office roles on the same rung as the VPs of marcom and program:
Director of Council Services
Senior Document Control Specialist
Director of Tax Accounting
Do you think any of these are as crucial to BSA as program and growth?
Opportunities to correct cultural rot
I want to go into more detail on a few areas: Program, legal/risk management, and development. These areas are responsible for a great deal of the misperformance that, until now, I have characterized as general problems with the national office.
Areas with significant and publicly visible cultural rot are red.
That said, I stand by my general characterization of the national office. It is no better than its premier products. Its premier products are the program itself and the ways it equips volunteer leaders. The development office also has a highly visible function. All these have deep rot.
Program’s rot
First, remember that the old model had two VP roles that split National Service Territories. These roles now have more distinct functions.
One of these VPs got demoted only one rung but got a title boost to Executive VP. I expect that person took on the six territory directors from the other NST VP. The person losing the territory directors got demoted two rungs, is now focused on program, and got a weaker title improvement, from VP to Senior VP.
Now we have a SVP who can focus more on program. This could be a good thing but only if that SVP is willing to expect better from his staff and volunteers.
Here’s the deal: the program SVP owns a national-office function that is overrun with anti-intellectualism and throwback-reactionary culture. That VP’s staff and volunteer committees are behind the epic blunder of the specious coed ban. The Order of the Arrow (OA), which has endemic brownface cosplay, reports into that VP. (To be charitable, I am aware of other dark forces, outside of the SVP Program’s area, that are also preventing OA from improving.)
Also, the SVP Program’s area sat on their hands while Legal/Risk Management eviscerated Cub Scout camping. I can understand wanting to avoid airing dirty laundry, but this staff has been ineffective, for months ignoring legions of bewildered unit leaders who were slammed by the change.
Legal/risk’s rot
And that leads me to Legal/Risk Management. That staff is also associated with cultural rot.
It has a track record of arbitrary and capricious decision-making. By declining to share rationales for the rules it creates, it shows arrogance and declines to equip volunteers for gray areas.
As an example, its recent, ham-fisted evisceration of Cub Scout camping was done in secret. This area has yet to provide a rational justification for this change. This is just par for the course. Transparency and public accountability are crucial concerns of effective groups, and these are clearly not priorities for legal/risk.
This area also delivers poor documentation. It is a large contributor to the national office’s bloated corpus of confusing and contradictory volunteer-facing documents. Their documents are so bad, they cause endless, repetitive questions and confusion across the volunteer landscape.
Development’s rot
Finally, we have Development, with its National Eagle Scout Association, a moribund, do-nothing, bloated clown show. In addition to doing next to nothing, NESA will soon celebrate its eleventh year of hustling families over an expensive who’s who-style yearbook, damaging the brand for little revenue.
Will this help clear the rot?
Legal/Risk’s org-chart promotion conveys how important the CEO believes its function is. I hope that leader uses this as justification to improve performance in its public-facing functions.
The Program’s leader’s title promotion and double-demotion sends mixed messages. I hope this area sees this as an opportunity to double down on improvements and make the case to rise back up.
Other than being demoted with three peers, Development’s standing did not change. No title or role changes were apparent. Development can reclaim the high ground by canceling NESA and folding its brand into an affinity group within BSA Alumni.
Summary
BSA’s dramatic organizational changes invite questions about the national office’s viability.
National would be wise to ditch its history of arrogance and instead be transparent: tell us what motivated this. Why did you anoint selected bureaucratic functions over everything else? Why did you cast to the basement matters related to our core distinction and our growth? What challenge does all this speak to?
Disclaimer, due to national’s extreme secrecy
Part of national’s cultural rot is arrogance: When you wear the gold epaulets, of course your wisdom is so supreme, you have no need to explain yourself to peasants. Hence, transparency must be avoided. (To be clear, many of our national volunteers are great and do not have this ethos. But a bad apple spoils the bunch, and national has way too many rotted apples.)
Among national’s most guarded secrets are the composition and function of its volunteer committees. For example, search Google for “National Cub Scouting Committee”. You’ll get little. All you can do is piece together a loose narrative from information fragments.
It is possible that an interpretation of BSA’s organizational changes could shift if expectations of national’s secret committees recently changed. National is invited to be transparent about its secret committees!
All this notwithstanding, my insider contacts convey that national is mainly staff driven. Most committees are toothless or passive. Not strongly factoring in committees may be the right interpretation.
BSA’s career-advancement system is a “good old boy” system. Rather than rewarding excellence or leadership, BSA strongly favors fealty to a culturally-rotted, moribund bureaucracy.
A consistent story I get from professionals across the organization: You pay your dues with tenure in this weird system, and the overriding career goal is a cushy, make-work job where, until your career dies, you waste everyone’s time with pilot programs or other silliness. Not all reach this terminal level. Some stay in useful positions and keep adding value.
BSA’s “good old boy” system encourages councils to select new CEOs from a curated pool of careerist, caretaker bureaucrats. Because of how the “good old boy” system works, far too many in this pool have already hit their Peter-principle competence limits. That starves the pool of leadership talent.
Thankfully, councils are beginning to bypass BSA’s defective system:
Now here’s the weird thing: BSA’s rules and regulations attempt to force use of its own defective career system, although it gives an opt-out clause:
A local council shall employ a commissioned professional certified to serve as local council Scout executive and/or its chief executive officer having general direction of its administration and supervision over Scouting activities within its jurisdiction. A local council may, if due to exceptional circumstances it is authorized in advance by the Chief Executive Officer and pursuant to guidelines approved by the National Executive Committee, hire a candidate who would not otherwise be eligible for the position. A council Scout executive or chief executive officer shall serve at the pleasure of the local council’s executive board subject to the policies, procedures and guidelines of the National Council.
If you’re in BSA’s career-advancement system, you are stuck in a clown show. Clown shows aren’t good for your career. I support you in wanting improvement, but you must make noise!
(UPDATE: This article was written before Roger Krone was appointed CEO. As BSA’s first CEO with leadership chops since 1979, Roger broke the mold. That happened because we finally bucked BSA’s defective commissioned-professional system by expanding the CEO candidate pool beyond former District Executives.)
Thanks to a defective career-advancement system and a promote-from-within culture, BSA’s CEO role is a reward for over-promoted, career-lifer, caretaker-style middle-managers.
This starves BSA of leadership talent where it is most needed. Causing a leadership vacuum, the system enables BSA’s rudder to be controlled by the hand of inertia and the hand of throw-back reactionaries.
Important notes: First, this commentary is not about Roger Mosby, the current CEO. He was brought in as a specialist to help BSA navigate its bankruptcy. While his appointment departs from past practices, it was for an unusual circumstance. Without correction, the organization will resume rewarding long-tenured bureaucrats with the CEO title.
Second, the National Executive Board has a role in this. It is the corporate board of directors that sets the top-level direction and appoints the CEO. Even respecting the NEB’s role, the CEO remains hugely influential.
BSA’s defective career-advancement system
BSA’s career-advancement system is an enemy to leaders.
Informed by employees at many levels and by a few decades of personal experiences, BSA’s career-advancement system excessively values loyalty, compliance, and fealty to its bureaucracy. In other words, caretaker-style, middle-manager bureaucrats.
Hate change? Want a stable place for your career to die? Just want to avoid tipping apple carts? Then you’re who BSA’s career system is optimized for.
If you have different aptitudes and have made a career in BSA, my hat goes off to you! I know you’re out there, and I want you to succeed. But far too many of your colleagues have made a career by perfecting resistance to change. That is unacceptable, and they stymie your ability to help BSA succeed at its mission.
CEO is a reward to careerist caretakers
By under-valuing aptitudes aligned with leadership, BSA’s career-advancement system drives away leaders before they can rise to the top. Combined with a nearly ironclad promote-from-within culture, the CEO role is a mere reward to long-tenured bureaucrats who lack vision, who fear change, and who are not leaders.
This creates a leadership vacuum at the top. Cultural rot accumulates unchecked, leading to the current crisis: Our national office’s culture is so badly rotted, the national office itself is Scouting’s main existential threat.
How to fix
To excise rot, we need change. A crucial change: BSA’s next CEO must have demonstrated leadership aptitudes and a record of success at corporate cultural change. It is unlikely to find the right person from within.
This is especially important now. Reeling from historic membership and financial losses and facing a possible second bankruptcy, BSA is at its most fragile point ever. On top of this, throwback reactionaries have for decades used BSA as a pawn in their culture wars, causing immense reputational damage by forcing ridiculous membership controversies. As long as we keep allowing leadership vacuums with ineffective CEOs, throwback reactionaries will continue damaging the BSA to score their culture-war points.
The next CEO will have unprecedented influence on BSA’s next decades. Not only must this person navigate the organization out of its current crisis, the CEO will set the culture through how the national office is re-staffed. This role is so crucial, installing yet another over-promoted, careerist-bureaucrat middle manager into the CEO role may be tantamount to canceling the BSA.
Decades of bumbling CEOs
A halo product defines the maximum competence of a system:
A Tex Mex restaurant is no better than its cheese enchiladas.
General Motors’s Chevrolet division is no better than its Corvette.
A high school’s academics are no better than its valedictorian.
Smart institutions showcase their best with their halo products.
A corporation’s career-advancement system is no better than what it surfaces to its top role. BSA’s history of bumbling CEOs reveal a crap career-advancement system.
To repeat: The current CEO is not a subject of this commentary. He was brought in from the outside as a specialist to navigate the bankruptcy. But every other CEO except the first two–every CEO between 1948 and 2019–was surfaced internally. They are generally visionless, career-lifer bureaucrats who accomplished little.
0
number of BSA-surfaced CEOs who presided over membership growth in the past several decades
Below are a few decades’ worth of BSA CEOs. Thanks to their absent leadership, beneficial accomplishments were coincidental or impinged by tragic errors:
Michael Surbaugh (2015-2019, 10% membership decline, $1,118,903 salary): A career lifer, whose CEO position came after 32 years in other BSA roles. Kicking off with a namby-pamby vision, Michael presided over an invitation for girls in all programs. This could have been a clean achievement, but he screwed it up: He secretly handed the reins to throwback reactionaries, who slapped girls and families with a specious, sexist, racist, and toxic coed ban. Given that Michael gave a platform to misogyny, none of this should be surprising.
Wayne Brock (2012-2015, 16% membership decline, $1,061,595salary): Another career lifer, whose CEO position came after 40 years in other BSA roles. In his mealy-mouthed kickoff interview, Wayne praised his predecessor’s folly (The Summit; more later), chose to recognize his predecessor’s “managerial courage” instead of leadership, and elevated a naïve and boneheaded theory of a national volunteer leader. His main achievement is riding saddle during record-setting membership declines. BSA’s announcement of his retirement says that nothing notable happened in his term. And that’s a lie: the end of the bigoted homosexual ban happened under his tenure. But that wasn’t because of Wayne’s leadership. He was merely the suit when this was forced on him by national volunteer leadership. Even then, BSA still managed to bungle it under Wayne’s leadership management with an incomplete repeal that allowed vestiges of bigotry to persist two more years.
Robert Mazzuca (2007-2012, 7% membership decline, $1,211,572 salary): Another career lifer, whose CEO position came after 28 years in other BSA roles. In an interview when he started as CEO, Robert shared no compelling vision other than a meaningless ambition to “drive to understand that world to the point where we could actually participate in the dialogue that happens [in the digital world]”. Huh? His farewell letter suggests little significant happened in his tenure other than The Summit Bechtel Reserve, a $439,000,000 camp that is far too expensive and that is in an area that does not have natural outdoor attractions worthy of its remoteness. The Summit saddled BSA with $275,000,000 of debt, of which $185,799,375 was still owed at the end of 2021. This camp’s colossal obligations may be a major factor in a possible second bankruptcy. Oh, also STEM Scouts. A silly distraction that BSA was never equipped to make work and is rumored to soon kill, STEM Scouts served no apparent purpose except to inflate membership numbers.
Roy Williams (2000-2007, 15% membership decline, $1,600,000 salary): Another career lifer, whose CEO position came after 28 years in other BSA roles. In an interview when he started as CEO, Roy Williams made clear he lacks ambition, having a vision undistinguished from caretaker who smiles and waves during severe membership declines. The most notable thing during his career may have been exorbitant compensation.
Ben Love (1985-1993, 9% membership decline): Another career lifer, whose CEO position came after 30 years in other BSA roles. His most notable accomplishment was being an un-Love-ing asshole: “A homosexual is not the role model I would want as the leader of my son’s troop – and neither is an atheist.”
James Tarr (1979-1984): Another career lifer, whose CEO position came after 38 years in other BSA roles. The most notable accomplishment during his tenure is the author of this website joined Cub Scouts. (In other words, nothing notable happened.) I take that back. BSA’s headquarters moved from New Jersey to Irving, Texas under James’s tenure. A contractor who helped deeply during this move, providing valuable expertise over concerns that touched all parts of the national office, expressed shock at how BSA is so incompetently managed. In a response to a Texas Monthly reporter about challenges facing the organization, like his successors, James shared no coherent vision.
Curiously, the two CEOs before James may have demonstrated leadership:
Alden Barber (1967-1976): “Young men are interested in young women.” While he put that inelegantly, Alden spearheaded inclusion of girls by pulling them in Explorers in 1968. This was a part of a “Boypower 76” plan that was otherwise beset with crucial errors, including a shift away from outdoors. Facing consequences of these errors, Alden did the right thing: He resigned at 57.
Harvey L. Price (1976-1979): Harvey restored the outdoor focus of the Scouting program, some of which was lost under “Boypower 76”. He pulled William Harcourt out of retirement to rewrite the Boy Scout Handbook, restoring its focus on the outdoors.
No recent CEO was effective in his role. None showed a vision. None demonstrated leadership. None can claim credit for good changes. None presided over growth.
BSA’s career-advancement system has failed us for decades. All it surfaces are administrators who just smile and wave while riding saddle. Insanity is expecting a different result this time. Until the national office’s culture is fixed and BSA’s switches to a useful career-advancement system, it is crucial to go outside of BSA for our CEOs.
A note of grace
These CEOs were probably decent human beings. I have received firsthand reports of delightful relationships with some of them.
These CEOs had personal strengths. The problems is none of them brought a package of strengths aligned with leadership. While they all bear personal responsibility for accepting an executive role they were unsuited for, I’m willing to give them a scoop of grace: They spent their entire careers in a defective system that devalues leadership skills.
BSA’s career-advancement system needs to be blown up and reinvented. We need a new system, something that can do more than surface caretaker bureaucrats.
Commissioning in BSA is a secular equivalent of the ordination of ministers in churches. On one hand, it assures essential competence and commitment. On the other hand, it encourages aptitudes misaligned with leadership.
Coming from outside, the current CEO Roger Mosby started with only the CEO title. BSA’s National Executive Board, its national board of directors, declared Roger commissioned in 2021, enabling him to also also gain the CSE title.
BSA has endemic brownface cosplay. It’s most prominent in Order of the Arrow (OA), an honor society for Scouts.
This practice is unacceptable and invites questions on BSA’s commitment to good character. It needs to end quickly.
Any path forward for OA that includes Native American-themed activities, performances, or art must meet strict criteria to assure appropriateness. It must avoid even the appearance of cultural appropriation.
Background
OA generally includes qualifying Scouts aged 12-20. It has a great purpose, and it might increase engagement in Scouting.
OA has a dark side. A good deal of its Native American-themed programming is brownface cosplay.
Cosplay is costumed role-playing (more info). OA’s cosplay is brownface because it is a stereotype of Native American cultures.
Where it happens
When I was a youth, OA’s core ceremonies were phony riffs on Native American culture. They employ the noble savage stereotype while appropriating indigenous language and themes, especially of the Lenape people.
Even much of Native American dance events and competitions were clownish, white-boy amalgams of Native American-ish ideas and stereotypes with only a thin veneer of legitimacy.
Even back then, prominent voices were asking why BSA allowed OA to do this. I don’t recall “cultural appropriation” being used, but the concern was similar.
BSA’s bumbling national office has a leadership vacuum. It’s filled by throwback reactionaries who “white”-wash cultural appropriation concerns, allowing the brownface-cosplay problem to persist.
Here’s a 2021 example:
Brownface cosplay in an Order of the Arrow call out.
War bonnet used in OA call out ceremony in April 2023.
Why the cosplay is bad
Society has taken an unambiguous stance opposing cultural appropriation of oppressed minorities. That is, regrettably, the entirety of OA’s core ceremonies.
If BSA is to be taken seriously as an exemplar of character, it needs to exceed societal standards. At a minimum, BSA must not permit any brownface cosplay.
Today’s youth are increasingly uncomfortable with this practice. Just in my own troop, multiple youth have shared discomfort with OA’s brownface cosplay.
Much more is needed. OA must assure that every last Native American-themed activity or component is in the context of a respectful collaboration: Native American-themed performance art must only be authorized when it complies with an agreement that is a product of an active, local relationship with a tribe. Allowed performances may only reflect that tribe’s traditions. Native American-themed static works are only authorized when they are accurate historical representations of tribes or their practices and backed by rigorous evidence. Static works are limited to personal use or exhibits. They may not be used for any other purpose, including but not limited to symbols used by the OA or any lodge or chapter, without explicit authorization from every tribe the work represents.
That a performance-art agreement is time-limited and within the context of an “active relationship” with a tribe are crucial. One-and-done agreements discourage relationship. They also risk generational disagreements should later tribal leaders bring new viewpoints. Therefore, any agreement must have an expiration, and I recommend it be no more than three years.
The stipulation to have an agreement with a tribe avoids the “I know a Native American and he said it’s OK” dilemma. This lacks validity because no single person can speak for a tribe. (Whether a member of a tribe performs according to that tribe’s practices is an internal matter for that tribe.)
Also, use of Native American-themed proper nouns need review. This largely includes lodge and chapter names. Generally, they, too, should be subject to an agreement with a tribe. This is a difficult matter, so I recommend the policy be prospective with a two-year grace period. This means all new names may have no resemblance to any indigenous-related concept except outside of an agreement struck with a tribe, and that current outside-of-an-agreement indigenous-like names would need to be corrected within a two-year period.
Because names are more durable, longer agreements relating to names may be OK. Also, national-scope agreements might be acceptable, unlike performance-art agreements, which must strictly be local.
This may change OA
Here’s where we need to be prepared: We hope this will produce beneficial relationships with tribes. However, tribes might be generally be uninterested in these agreements. If so, Native American-themed activities could become rare enough that the OA would need to drop its emphasis on indigenous-themed activities.
While this may be difficult for some, this is an acceptable potential outcome. Tribes own their own culture and traditions. It is their prerogative whether others may employ the culture and tradition.
In the end, Native American theming is unnecessary for OA to thrive as an honor society for Scouts.
Closing thought
Let’s end with a closing thought: If the Order of the Arrow’s main thematics were an appropriation of Christian communion services, would society tolerate that? Of course not. The same honor must apply to the traditions of Native Americans.
Archery started 60,000 or more years ago in Africa and is not exclusive to any one society. It is generally not appropriation to use bows, arrows, or arrowheads in our words, themes, or activities. This provides a path for the Order of the Arrow to continue the use of arrows, arrowheads, and similar themes.
The National Eagle Scout Association (NESA) is for those who earned the most recognized marker of resilient leaders and good character. NESA should model the best of BSA’s best.
Instead, NESA is a moribund clown show. It hustles Eagle recipients with scam-adjacent tactics. Despite raising a ton of money, it does little.
Creating an appearance of impropriety, NESA’s practices are offensive to the reputation and viability of BSA.
It’s time to hit the reset button and clean-slate the NESA. It must stop all scam-adjacent behaviors. It should be folded into the BSA Alumni Association, its brand attached to a “birds of a feather” special-interest group.
Income
Per BSA’s 2021 IRS Form 990, NESA had $2,111,350 of income: $2,092,716 of program-service revenue and $18,634 of miscellaneous revenue.
NESA’s news page is where you should find a record of what it’s doing. It reveals that NESA is moribund.
About half its news is regurgitation of materials previously published by BSA’s marketing arm (example). Much of the rest is promotional or generic, lacking much distinct value for Eagle Scouts.
One article is notable: 2022 NESA Highlights reveals that NESA used its generous income to:
Stop publishing a print magazine.
Set up a new website that uses free software.
Send an email newsletter that regurgitates what’s already on its news page–the same stuff that affirms NESA is moribund.
Hold on, NESA might do a little more than nothing. It may fund part of a national-office employee to assist its 33 volunteer leaders and to administer scholarships (mail checks, record applications, etc.). Being generous, that’s probably half of a $100K employee, or $50K.
An additional $200K to $400K might be put into functions that are more generically related to BSA Alumni.
The remaining $1.6 million to $1.8 million appears to be dumped into the national office’s annual revenue stream.
This isn’t bad per se. A point of alumni associations is fundraising. Therefore, funding other BSA activities is nominally appropriate.
NESA needs to be transparent about what it funds. That is only vaguely suggested by glurge-ey text on NESA’s home page: “further the mission, values, and time-honored traditions of Scouting”. Um, OK?
Wait, what about the roughly half-million dollars of scholarships? Sorry, doesn’t count: that is funded separately, by endowments (more below).
Scammy who’s who book
This is where NESA smells terrible. NESA engages in scam-adjacent behavior, sullying its reputation and tarnishing the Eagle Scout rank. This invites questions on whether the national organization even cares about BSA’s mission.
If you’re a recent Eagle Scout, NESA uses a contractor to trick you into buying an expensive “who’s who”-style, pay-to-play book. This book is falsely marketed as a yearbook. This hustle is run under a pretense of updating Eagle alumni’s information. (2024-04-04 update: NESA may have shifted terminology to “Eagle Scout Directory”. That addresses approximately zero of the problems. 🤡)
NESA’s contractor aggressively sells this book. The image at the top of this article shows some (not all!) of the postcards a recent Eagle recipient got. Just like garden-variety scams, they all start with lies about urgency.
In Facebook volunteer groups, parents share that if one is to communicate with this company, you’ll get aggressive pitches and have a hard time getting off their spam list. You know, just like garden-variety scams.
These yearbooks are notable for what they aren’t:
They aren’t yearbooks. NESA’s book is just a list of Eagle Scout-rank recipients that happens to be year-filtered and prettied up. That is different than a yearbook, which is is “a school publication that is compiled usually by a graduating class and that serves as a record of the year’s activities” (source). Importantly, a yearbook describes a shared experience, which contrasts with NESA’s “yearbook”: Take any two Eagles from the “yearbook”, and it’s almost certain they will never have heard of each other. Like garden-variety scams, NESA sells this book under false pretenses.
They aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. They are vanity publishing. As a who’s who-style pay-to-play product, it’s a pricey way to get your name in a book. You know, like a garden-variety scam.
They aren’t well received. Social-media discussions of the NESA book are overwhelmingly negative. You know what else people have negative opinions of? Garden-variety scams.
NESA knows the book is regarded poorly. Instead of doing the right thing and stopping it, NESA makes a half-hearted attempt to whitewash it: In NESA’s FAQ, the first question in the yearbook section is on whether the yearbook is a scam!
Even worse, the answer to “is it a scam” sidesteps the truth. It makes a laughable claim that it helps NESA improve information on alumni. If alumni were successfully contacted to sell a book, doesn’t that mean NESA already had the person’s correct information? Even if I am missing something, there is nothing about outsourced data-collection that could justify scam-adjacent behavior.
This behavior isn’t new. An older version of the NESA site suggests NESA started this with 2012 class of Eagle recipients.
An obsolete, 20th century artifact, yearbooks are in a death spiral. It’s unlikely many youth want this book. This smells like a cynical hustle of parents and grandparents, who hail from generations that used to value yearbooks. BSA capitalizes on hard-earned trust to dupe families into buying who’s who-style, pay-to-play garbage.
But hey, maybe NESA is making a lot of money from this? You know, like garden-variety scams?
Nope. All this scam-like behavior, yet we miss the whole point of a scam. It brings in little!
BSA’s net proceeds from the who’s who book is likely the $18,634 figure in its 2021 IRS Form 990. It’s hard to see any other line of business for NESA that would generate this “other” revenue. (While the author is open to correction, it is unlikely that an updated figure will change the big picture.)
All this reputational damage, tarnishing the Eagle Scout rank, hustling families, creating an appearance of impropriety, just to boost the national organization’s income by 0.007%? This is yet another example of the national organization’s pervasive cultural rot.
Why lead in with “scam-adjacent”? Suppose we indicated NESA’s behavior on a gauge. At a minimum, the needle is resting shamefully close to “scam”. “Scam-adjacent” is positioning the needle charitably to accommodate diverse opinions, not to certify that NESA’s behavior is scam-free.
Aaron on Scouting‘s July 22, 2022 article, NESA bestows more than $500K in scholarships to Eagle Scouts, spills the beans: NESA’s scholarships are “funded by multiple endowments”. If NESA and its revenue disappeared, the scholarships would still be funded.
The scholarship endowments are revealed in the 2022 Treasurer’s Report, page 29. They add up to at least $14,086,000. A safe, 4% annual withdrawal is $563,000. These dollar amounts could easily be higher; the treasurer’s report only provides transparency for 74% of restricted-asset dollars, so it’s unclear what $55,787,000 of restricted funds are dedicated to.
While BSA’s story on the amount of NESA scholarships is inconsistent, they are still a good thing.
Here’s the inconsistency: Aaron on Scouting says NESA hands out “more than $500K” in scholarships to Eagle Scouts. However, Aaron on Scouting refers to a solicitation website that claims $700,000 of scholarships. BSA’s Form 990s tell a third story:
Whether the scholarship amount is $700,000 or just under $300,000 or somewhere in between, it make a difference for Eagle Scouts. The scholarships are a good thing, but they are not a NESA thing.
NESA’s future
What should NESA’s next steps be?
The yearbook must stop. Now. This is an unacceptable practice. It reflects piss-poor judgment, and NESA knows it. NESA must direct its contracted agency to stop hustling Eagle alumni and end all sales. It must fulfil or refund all pending purchases. NESA must commit to never again engaging in scam-adjacent activities.
NESA’s independence must end. Sometimes we need to hit the red button to assure an organization’s relevant future. NESA is an example. NESA appears to have only one worthwhile, current activity: Acting as a birds-of-a-feather group within BSA Alumni. Beyond that, it does nothing that justifies 34 leaders or its current degree of independence. With a new vision, new leadership, a new name (it cannot include “association” or synonyms), and a mandate to openly act under BSA Alumni, a reimagined NESA might become relevant.
Realign NESA’s current leaders. I appreciate the willingness of NESA’s leaders to serve. Where we need to go with NESA needs minimal NESA-specific leadership. I want you to find a new way to continue service to BSA, especially if you’re prepared to help excise the national office’s cultural rot.
Be transparent. It’s great for us to encourage Eagles to give financial gifts back to Scouting. It is crucial, however, to be transparent as to what Eagles are funding. Use clear, direct language. Stop the doublespeak and glurge. And if you can adopt specific funds, do it!
Editorial
NESA’s current state is an important lesson-learned on the national organization’s pervasive cultural rot. Fueling inertia, the rot perpetuates shameful practices.
This colors my main take on NESA: As an Eagle Scout, I value all BSA alumni, Eagle or not!
My own path to Eagle was a series of meaningful experiences leading to a valuable distinction. I do not wish to diminish the award. But I desire no alumni-affiliation level gated by something I did as as kid. While I know several Eagle adults who serve nobly, I know far more non-Eagle alumni who are also great people.
I do not seek separation:
I wish to network with all BSA alumni or volunteers, not just Eagles.
All can provide aid to youth on the path to Eagle, not just Eagles.
All can assure Scouting for the next decades, not just Eagles.
All can continue to give back to communities through service, not just Eagles.
Therefore, I am uninterested in continuing NESA’s pseudo-independence.
If at a BSA alumni event there was a brief sub-gathering of Eagles, that’s fine. I’ll drop in. I have zero desire for anything more. I did not earn Eagle to separate myself from others.
We need to accept that a rebooted NESA will be different. A birds-of-a-feather group for Eagles under BSA Alumni, combined with reasonable revenue building, would be a great turnaround, a healthy outcome.
Below is my letter to BSA’s CEO search committee. I am sharing it publicly due to the national office’s hatred of feedback (part of the cultural rot I mention in the letter).
The CEO selection committee has a historic and unusually important duty. BSA’s next CEO will have a role unlike any before.
The next CEO must clear the national office of cultural rot and set the strategy for BSA’s next few decades. The new CEO will determine whether BSA is viable for the 21st century.
It is crucial to pick someone who has succeeded at large-organization culture change. To do this, the selection committee must depart from the BSA custom of the CEO being a reward for career loyalists. The selection committee’s candidate pool must include a robust selection of outsiders.
Details
BSA’s next leader must be a dynamic change agent with a track record of success.
First, this person must be charged with fixing deep cultural problems at the national office. A moribund, bureaucratic, bloated national office has persisted for decades. We have many years of evidence of alarming harms the national office has done to Scouts and volunteers. Below my signature are selected examples. (These challenges generally predate the bankruptcy, so they are not attributable to recent events.) National’s culture is so rotted, the national office is Scouting’s main existential threat.
Second, the next CEO will rebuild the organization from historic membership, financial, and employee losses due to the pandemic and bankruptcy. The next CEO will define the BSA’s next several decades: setting financial strategy, starting a plan to resolve immense debt, creating a healthy culture, restaffing, navigating the demise of the chartered-organization model, improving council performance, and a lot more. These are profound responsibilities.
Here’s the hard part: It is crucial for the committee to go beyond BSA’s tradition of using the CEO position as a reward for career loyalists. My next few paragraphs will be difficult, but there’s just no good way to put this.
I grew up as a preacher’s kid in the United Methodist Church and remain a member. Through this experience, I have a lot of exposure to an employment system that is remarkably similar to BSA’s commissioned-employee system.
I have many friends in BSA’s professional staff, most of whom are commissioned. I value their service immensely. But I am distressed at how, like the United Methodist Church, BSA’s employment system over-values loyalty and obedience to the bureaucracy, undermining employees with valuable talent.
Now don’t get me wrong. Loyalty and obedience have value. No coherent corporation consists of a bunch of cowboys. And for many roles, these are invaluable attributes.
We need to be honest about the limitations of BSA’s employee-advancement system. By over-valuing loyalty and obedience, BSA’s career-advancement system prefers people with strengths different than those needed for a CEO who leads culture change, who has the bravery to trim rot, and who must guide a large organization towards a new, multi-decadal strategy.
It is crucial to diversify and broaden the pool extensively. While a few reasonable candidates may be national or council employees, it is crucial that you also go outside the organization. All candidates with extensive, relevant leadership experience should be on the table.
Rogery Mosby’s appointment is an example of going outside the organization. He had valuable, prior experience navigating a bankruptcy, a set of aptitudes other than what BSA’s advancement system can surface. The same goes for our next CEO, whose required aptitudes are once again different than what BSA’s advancement system surfaces.
I warn of nasty politics. I am sure many career lifers still view BSA’s CEO role as their reward. Going against that for a second time in a row will tip apple carts. That will be resisted.
You must be brave and boldly tip apple carts! Yes, you’ll get blowback. Yes, part of your job will be resisting influence. You’ll experience unsavory behaviors–brown-nosing, hard-nosed politics, and many things in between. I am sorry for this, but this is part of what we need from you to assure a viable future for the BSA.
A final thought: Defenders of the CEO-is-a-reward-to-loyalists system may insist that one must have careerist-level familiarity with BSA to succeed as a national-scope leader. That is false. Former CDO Elizabeth Ramirez-Washka proved that wrong. Despite lacking a Scouting background, she excelled and left as a well-regarded leader (more info).
Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have questions.
Thank you,
Aren Cambre
Selected examples of outcomes associated with the national office’s cultural rot
Decades-delayed, bungled elimination of homosexual ban
Decades-delayed inclusion of girls
Active disinterest in facts and truth, evidenced by continued defense of a tragic, harmful, sweeping ban on coed troops and dens that is exclusively fueled by misinformation and sexist, racist, toxic folklore (more info)
Brownface cosplay is endemic in the Order of the Arrow despite decades of concern (more info)
While promoting the coed ban, national representatives crack sexist jokes, lie, or gaslight parents and volunteers (more info)
Secret, hamfisted Guide to Safe Scouting change that decimated the vibrant camping programs of 75% of Cub Scout packs (more info)
Extraordinary secrecy combined with attitude of “we’re right because we wear gold loops” that negates transparency and accountability
Overreliance on traditional hierarchy, creating inefficiencies and obstructing information flows between the national office and the customer base (parents and unit-level volunteers)
Routinely undermining feedback, open hostility to feedback-givers (more info)
Permissive attitude towards rudderless programs that are no longer useful and engage in aggressive scams, like NESA and its “who’s who” yearbook
Sapping energy from the movement by fomenting never-ending arguments and misunderstandings among the grassroots due to a gross, bloated corpus of volunteer-facing documentation that is difficult to use, difficult to understand, and rife with vagueness and duplication
Perpetual laggard on technology, examples including 1. under-resourcing of investments in customer-facing IT systems, 2. electronic documents hugely over-rely on print-format-centric documents, and 3. full merit-badge books are still only available in print or an electronic form that is obsolete, poor quality, and not free
How BSA’s national office handles feedback demonstrates cultural rot and absent leadership. Below is the experience of those who are outside the national office.
Deny
BSA national’s feedback process has two steps:
Deny the feedback, mainly through a prerogative that feedback is worthless.
Undermine feedback-givers.
Undermine
I am aware of four undermining techniques.
Retaliate
A volunteer recently sent a friendly email to BSA national, sharing how a minor document issue foments a widespread misunderstanding.
After denying the feedback, a BSA national bureaucrat retaliated, sic-ing the feedback-provider’s Scout Executive on the volunteer. (The Scout Executive was bewildered by why he had to call the volunteer.)
Feedback is a gift. How does BSA national express thanks for the gift? By creating hardship for volunteers.
Intimidate
A firestorm recently erupted over a vague policy. For over a decade, the vast majority of Scout units understood it differently than how some national bureaucrats intended.
After denying a large volume of feedback, a BSA national bureaucrat intimidated, saying that the feedback was the same as a willful violation of the Scouter Code of Conduct. When a bureaucrat mentions this, the bureaucrat is squelching feedback with a threat of membership cancellation.
Feedback is a gift. How does BSA national express thanks for the gift? By intimidating volunteers.
Dismiss
There is considerable public angst on BSA’s specious coed ban. It is impossible for BSA national to be unaware of this.
This angst is valuable feedback. BSA’s consistent strategy is to deny and then dismiss the feedback: be unresponsive to it, then keep acting as if the feedback never happened.
As an example, the last third of a recent webinar promoting the specious coed ban was a Q&A session. Nearly every last question was contrary to the specious ban. That is valuable feedback, and it made the presenters exasperated. Their consistent response: dismiss the feedback, then mindlessly parrot the specious ban and its phony premises.
Feedback is a gift. How does BSA national express thanks for the gift? By ignoring their feedback.
Lie
The first point of the Scout law is Trustworthy. It’s the first point because of its importance.
The recent webinar promoting the specious coed ban was a gaslighting session. After ham-fistedly denying overwhelmingly negative feedback, national representatives revealed that all along, the plan was to maximize gendered segregation. This is gaslighting, trying to trick us into believing that national’s original messaging on inclusion, equity, and serving the whole family were actually pro-segregation messages.
Feedback is a gift. How does BSA national express thanks for the gift? By lying to feedback givers.
Slander
The national office once attacked the camping activities of its largest program. It received intense, hostile feedback.
Responding to that feedback, a national-organization bureaucrat, who has shared accountability for this screwup, slandered the class of volunteers who provide feedback as “trolls … [who] are looking to cause controversy”.
Feedback is a gift. How does BSA national express thanks for the gift? By slandering feedback-givers.
Cultural rot
BSA national’s feedback pattern is among several indicators of cultural rot at the national office. Other indicators include bureaucratic inertia, basing sweeping policies on folklore and misinformation, poor transparency, shadowy forces that cause BSA to lag far behind society, bloated bureaucracy, clinging to an 1800s-style hierarchy, and more.
I know great current and former employees at BSA national. They are mission-oriented. They are driven to do the right thing. They are not part of the problem. But the cultural rot impedes these good folks. That makes me sad.
How do we excise the rot at BSA’s national office? How do we uplift those who are doing the right thing? How do we reinvent BSA’s national office to be a relevant, transparent, responsive organization that values inclusion, adventure, leadership, and the mission of Scouting?
