Category: when BSA screws up

Summary

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:

1. BSA is betting the farm on raw revenue production and raw asset protection.
2. 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.

About as bad: The national office has deep cultural rot thanks to factors like an obsolete career system, pervasive throwback-reactionary culture, a mindset of bureaucratic bloat, and immense debt obligations. Instead of excising the rot, the new model reinforces it, even uplifting a prolific source of rot.

This is a defensive, circle-the-wagons move. It is not a bold vision of a viable BSA. Is it time to replace the national office and start over?

Winners and losers

In terms of CEO attention, we have winners and losers:

Winners (more CEO attention)	Losers (less CEO attention)
Legal and Risk Management (legal, contracts, environmental health and safety, membership standards) Finance (Supply Division/Scout Shop, accounting, treasury, investments) Youth Protection	⬇️⬇️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)

BSA’s old and new models

In the prior organizational model, all the positions on rung 2 were equal, all reporting to the CEO:

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:

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.

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.

Summary

(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.

This is why we have a specious, toxic, racist, and sexist coed ban, endemic brownface cosplay in the Order of the Arrow, careerist bureaucrats openly hostile to feedback, a bloated and contradictory corpus of public-facing documents, and several other forms of cultural rot.

Leadership is about positive change. For BSA to thrive in the next century, our next CEO must be a demonstrated leader who can guide this change. We needs someone with aptitudes that BSA’s career system does not value.

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.

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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, $1,061,595 salary): 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.
• Jere Ratcliffe (1993-2000, 2% membership decline): Another career lifer, whose CEO position came after 34 years in other BSA roles. His most notable accomplishment was being arrested for attempting to bring a loaded handgun on to a plane.
• 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.

Next steps

BSA does not need yet another career lifer at the helm. Again, that would be tantamount to canceling the BSA. It is crucial for BSA to find its next CEO from the outside.

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.

Terminology note

BSA uses Chief Scout Executive (CSE) for its CEO position. CSE is reserved for “commissioned” staff.

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.

Summary

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:

An April 2023 OA call-out ceremony featured a war bonnet, possibly the most prominent symbol of cultural appropriation:

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.

Next steps

OA has made a little progress. For example, it banned brownface cosplay at Arrow of Light ceremonies in 2018.

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.

If you have any doubt on my brownface cosplay allegation, please read Indian Country Today‘s Boy Scouts ‘have been one of the worst culprits’ of cultural appropriation by Vincent Schilling.

A note on arrows

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.

Summary

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.

The income appears to be from:

• pricey memberships, ranging from $100 to $500
• a scammy yearbook that appears to be sold in packages ranging from $120 to several hundreds of dollars

Does NESA do any good?

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.

Some articles describe where NESA sent a representative to a national-scope event. For example, in 2022, NESA ran a booth at NOAC where you could win a patch or take a photo. Shocking accomplishment.

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.

But the scholarships

Well, NESA hands out scholarships. That means it does good, right?

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:

Scholarship	2019 grants	2020 grants	2021 grants
National Eagle Scout Association scholarships	$174,500	$21,524	$133,850
Cooke Eagle scholarships	$264,857	$246,946	$324,734
NESA STEM scholarships	$31,250	$25,000	none
Palmer scholarship	none	$2,500	$9,375
McElwain Eagle scholarship	$30,000	none	$12,500
TOTAL	$500,607	$295,970	$480,459

Fact checks are invited:

• BSA 2019 Form 990 (start at page 95)
• BSA 2020 Form 990 (see page 50)
• BSA 2021 Form 990 (see page 46)

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.

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:

1. Deny the feedback, mainly through a prerogative that feedback is worthless.
2. 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?

(Image credit: Source, by Paul, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.)

In today’s episode of “what the hell is going on”, we have the Crossroads of America Council. Starting April 1, 2023, its new bureaucracy-preservation fees inflate annual membership costs to $340, 304% of the prior year’s cost. That’s right, just to be a Scout in this council, you will have to pay $340 a year. ($75 of this is the annual national fee, so $265 is COAC’s bureaucracy-preservation fee.) Dues for your unit and activity expenses are on top of this.

Doesn’t BSA cap fees? Halfheartedly. Page 14 of BSA’s Rules and Regulations of the Boy Scouts of America, Sept. 2020 edition lets councils charge an “annual registration or program fee … not to exceed the amount of the applicable individual registration fee”, which is currently $75.

How does COAC get away with $340? Likely because of a word in BSA’s policy: “annual”. COAC flouts national with a monthly bureaucracy-preservation fee!

BSA national appears to be winking at high bureaucracy-preservation fees: A cursory search shows that 2021 documents mention the council-fee cap, but 2022 documents omit it.

BSA could easily fix this: Control all council-imposed fees required just to be a member, regardless of how they are applied. They must not exceed $75 over any 365-day period.

BSA should go further. It should go back to how things used to be–no council fees–within three years: Limit to 50% of the membership fee for year one, 25% for year two, then 0% afterwards.

This will cause failed councils to collapse, but that is part of the point: Youth in failed councils are better served by rebooted operations or a successful council taking over. Failed councils that wish to turn around will engage in healthy changes, relationship development, and new thinking. Either way, failure is forced out of Scouting.

This brazen, exorbitant bureaucracy-preservation fee made it past several volunteer and professional checks and balances. That is evidence of a failed council.

How do you deal with a failed council? First, blunders of this magnitude fall on the Scout Executive. That person must be held accountable.

Second, turning around failure of this magnitude may require a reboot or dissolution. A reboot is only meaningful under remarkably different professional and volunteer leadership. If that is not feasible, it should seek a managed dissolution, where a different, successful council takes over its territory.

The Crossroads of America Council is at a crossroads! Will its members choose revitalization, or will they continue to tolerate a clown show? I sure hope revitalization. The youth of Indianapolis are worth it!

UPDATE (2023-02-10): It is a contagion. Nearby Northeast Illinois Council has done about the same.

UPDATE (2023-02-12): Per the petition organizer (see photo credit below), Crossroads of America Council has pulled back on its bureaucracy-preservation fee.

This council’s next steps will determine if it is a failed council.

No matter what its new funding proposal is, an egregious blunder made it past the entire council volunteer and paid leadership. That is an unacceptable leadership failure. Accountability should be a nonnegotiable part of healing from this.

(Photo credit: https://www.change.org/p/prevent-the-decimation-of-membership-of-local-bsa-unit-in-crossroads-of-america)

UPDATE (2024-10-14): The Scout Executive behind this scheme was dismissed by his council, allegedly in a “resign or you’ll be fired” ultimatum by the council’s board of directors. Financial shenanigans, poor revenue, and a poorly conceived airshow caused this council to bear $1.44 million of losses in 2023 and $1.24 million of losses in 2024: