NEW YORK (AP) – For the second straight year, youth and adult membership in the Girl Scouts has dropped sharply, intensifying pressure on the 102-year-old youth organization to find ways of reversing the trend.
According to figures provided to The Associated Press, the total of youth members and adult volunteers dropped by 6 percent over the past year – from 2,994,844 to 2,813,997. Over two years, total membership is down 11.6 percent, and it has fallen 27 percent from a peak of more than 3.8 million in 2003.
While the Girl Scouts of the USA have had an array of recent internal difficulties – including rifts over programming and serious fiscal problems – CEO Anna Maria Chavez attributed the membership drop primarily to broader societal factors that have affected many youth-serving organizations.
“Parents and families are less financially stable, frequently working two jobs or more, leaving little time to volunteer or take their children to extracurricular activities,” she said.
In hopes of stemming the decline, the Girl Scouts are revamping their online platforms with new toolkits. One is aimed at streamlining the process of joining the Girl Scouts; another seeks to help volunteer troop leaders plan an entire year of meetings and activities with a single online visit.