Girl Scout cookies

A Girl Scout cookie is one of several varieties of cookie sold on neighborhood tours by Girl Scouts as a fundraiser for their organization.

Related Topics:
Cookie - Neighborhood - Girl Scouts - Fundraiser - Organization

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In 1922, the Girl Scout magazine The American Girl suggested cookie sales as a fundraiser and provided recipes. In the 1920s and 1930s the cookies were actually baked by Girl Scouts and their families; in 1936 the national organization began licensing commercial bakers to produce them.

Related Topics:
1922 - 1920s - 1930s - 1936

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Girl Scouts sell to their own relatives and friends. Traditionally, they then walk around the neighborhood and town to visit people's houses, taking orders for number of boxes of each cookie type (Thin Mints, Samoas, etc.) desired by each house and the amount the total order of each customer will cost on a paper chart. Parents also sell to co-workers in the workplace. (In recent years, due to safety concerns, the emphasis is shifting toward cookie booths, where girls make sales from tables in well-frequented public areas, under the supervision of adult troop leaders).

Related Topics:
Relative - Boxes - Customer - Adult

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As an incentive to sell, Scouts are offered prizes (stuffed animals, trinkets, coupons, credits toward Girl Scout camp, activities, or uniforms, etc.). These incentives vary from Girl Scout council to council, but girls generally earn incentives of successively higher value for the number of boxes they sell. The accumulation of prizes is usually cumulative, so that a girl who has won the prize for selling 100 boxes of cookies will still also get the 75-box prize, the 50-box prize, the 25-box prize, the 20-box prize, the 15-box prize and the 10-box prize. In some councils, girls may choose to earn more money for their troop instead of prizes, if they are working toward a troop goal such as a trip or other expensive activities.

Related Topics:
Prize - Stuffed animal - Trinket - Coupon

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Exact details vary from Girl Scout council to council, as each council negotiates with the baker and sets their own prices. The individual troop selling the cookies typically receives about $0.40 to $0.60 per box. After the cookies are paid for, the majority of the additional monies go to the Girl Scout Council, and are used to pay for events and activities for the girls, maintenance of the council's Girl Scout camps and other properties, cookie sale incentives, and Council administration costs. Each council can provide a breakdown showing how cookie money is used in that council (this information is usually printed on the back of the girl's Cookie Order Form).

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The typical package of Girl Scout cookies costs more and contains a smaller quantity of product than a seemingly comparable package of supermarket cookies. However, according to the Girl Scouts, the cookies are priced at fair market value; and therefore, a purchaser who "keeps the cookies" rather than "leaving them with the Girl Scouts" may not claim any portion of the cost as a charitable donation under U. S. tax laws.

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