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this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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How is it child exploitation?
They are literally funding their own troop's activities.
Let's say children were sent to the factories to bake and package the cookies instead of going door to door selling them and they were given 22% of a regular workers salary. Would that be exploitation? I'm sure it would be ok if the other 54% were spent on a fun pizza party at the end of the day.
If I hold a bake sale to raise funds for GLAAD, are all the people who bake goods for it slaves? Seems like the same as your scenario.
I guess we should stop raising funds for anything because it's all slave labor.
I think it's possible to raise funds for something without exploiting children.
I see, so it's only exploitation if children raise money for a cause. If adults do it, it isn't exploitation.
Why?
Both can be exploitation, as an adult you shouldn't want your children exposed to that kind of exploitation. Just because others are exploited doesn't make it right for you to exploit others especially if they are children. Capitalism encourages you to sell your labor so others can profit from it, and I don't just me financially. They will try and skim from the labor of children to benefit the brand or the organization. A kid having a bake sale is a different story if done through their own labor and initiative. They can put up the investment and keep all the profits to do with as they choose instead of several organizations scraping 75% of the rewards.
The girls themselves 'profit' from it by funding activities. They aren't being forced to do it either. No one in my daughter's troop was forced to be there. No one was forced to sell cookies. No one was shamed if they didn't sell cookies. Selling cookies is never even suggested to be required in order to be a Girl Scout.
If you can show me evidence of a large number of Girl Scouts being forced to sell cookies against their will, go for it. But doing something of their own free will so that they can do things like take a trip to the zoo sure doesn't sound like exploitation to me.
Also... "several organizations" do not scrape 75% of the rewards. That is just false. 76% goes to the Girl Scouts of America and 24% goes to the cookie bakers. I assume you don't think the cookie bakers should bake cookies for free or that the Girl Scouts shouldn't be funding themselves, so who is scraping this 75%?
I guess we can agree to disagree here. I'm not going to keep arguing with someone who thinks child labor is fine and dandy.
Ah, got it, I'm fine with child labor.
At least you didn't call me an abusive parent like another person here I guess...
Your Samoa chart tells me that the cost to produce and drop ship these cookies is slightly less than a quarter of the sales price, yet the troop doing all of the work sees 22% revenue which is exploitation. A fundraiser should see all profits go to the troop that does all the work after expenses, not 22%.
Sorry, how much should the cookies cost to make and how do you plan to get the bakeries to do it for that cost?
Also, what do you think "all the work" is? They ask their relatives if they want cookies and stand by a table for a couple of hours on the weekend for a few weeks.
There seems to be some confusion here so perhaps I didn't make myself clear, everyone involved in getting the cookies into a box and ready to be sold by a troop are covered under what is known as the cost, we've already established the cost is 24%. What's left over is the profit which would be 76% of the revenue.
I'm asserting the troop should keep the 76% profit. Currently we are giving the troop 22% and a parent organization 54%, maybe it's used for good maybe it's used to keep the parent organization pockets full who knows because neither you or I can make any claim as to where the money goes with any real certainty.
You are diminishing the work of the troop here, these girls are volunteering not just their time but also the parents and other family members involved and they should be the ones to benefit. "Oh no it was an easy job and they just had to sell to their relatives and it was hardly any effort!", even from that perspective I still don't understand why you think it's acceptable to give away 54% of the revenue to someone who did nothing solely because it was minimal effort on their part.
Ignoring taxes and other fees for this example, if I wanted to do my own similar fundraiser and went to the grocery store and bought 100 boxes of cookies there for $1 a box and then the troop sold them for $4 a box $100 covers my losses leaving $300 for profit for the troop. Should I pay the grocery store an extra $216 because they facilitated my actions?
No, because the grocery store isn't making special branded cookies that you can't generally get elsewhere. That's the whole point of Girl Scout cookies. That they're an unusual kind of cookie, which makes people want them more.
Also, GSA is a non-profit organization. They are not allowed to make a profit. All revenues must be put back into the organization.
Also, what is the difference in terms of exploitation between your cookie sales idea and Girl Scout cookies?
Girl scout cookies are not some unique creation, they are specifically licensed and legally cannot be made by anyone else but they aren't exclusive to girl scouts and can be purchased under their normal brand name if you know it from the official source like these coconut dreams I've got in my pantry.
"They cannot make a profit", out of curisoity what would you call charging 54% on top of the 24% cost, non-profit profit?
The difference in my example scenarios were after costs were paid all remaining revenue goes to the troop to be used by the troop for the troop, that's how a fundraiser should work. In the current business model you seem keen to defend you are giving away more than half of the revenue to the organization which already makes it's money through dues.
I never said they were unique. I said they were unusual and that you generally can't get them elsewhere. That makes them desirable. I'm not sure why you think it doesn't.
Raising funds. That is something any nonprofit can do. How do you think nonprofits stay in operation?
Unusual is quite literally a synonym for unique. If you are saying something is unusual and difficult to acquire that makes it unique by the very definition of the word.
Raising funds is correct, non-profits do need to offset their cost to stay solvent which is why the services you received are paid for by dues which is how the GSA remains solvent. That includes access to their resources for selling cookies as a fundraiser, you have already paid for this so the company has no need to charge you. Yet you're paying them an additional 54% of your revenue even though you already prepaid for the cost of the fundraiser.
Here's a link to the GSA's 2023 earnings and you can see the money made from the fundraiser is pennies compared to their dues.
If you think the organization that is fairly funded through your dues to access the resources and services should be paid the majority of profit from your fundraiser instead of giving that money directly to the children it's meant to fundraiser then good for you, I personally don't think a fundraiser should be used to raise funds for an organization you've already fairly compensated.
We clearly have different opinions on the matter and that's cool, but I'm not going to spend the rest of my day debating. It's good to have met you Flying Squid and I wish you and your daughter the best.
Not seeing the word 'unique' here-
Because Merrian-Webster's website is designed to take the boiled-down definition and show the synonyms for that, so you are looking at the synonyms for "uncommon"; If you type in unique as the search term you'll see what I mean as it boils down the definitions into "personal, unusual, only, and uncommon" and shows the synonyms for those.
Are you really going to insist that when I said unusual I meant unique when I'm telling you I didn't?
Hi again Flying Squid, first I just wanted to apologize to you and admit I was wrong. I misread the 2023 earnings report where it stated fundraising was $4.4 million as revenue instead of an expense, so when you read it like I did originally it would mean they make 97% from dues and other means and 3% from fundraising (which is false). Which is why I tried to defend my position that there's no value in taking that from the children and it's just a cash grab. Second, no I was not trying to dictate what you meant, I was simply pointing out that the words can be used interchangeably after you cited my usage of the word unique when you said unusual.
Thank you, I appreciate it.