To summarize:

Out of a $3.50 box of cookies,

$0.85 goes to the baker
$0.57 goes to the Girl Scout troop, including prizes to the individual girl
$2.07 goes to the local council

GSUSA doesn't get a cut of the sales price directly, rather gets a royalty fee from the two baking companies.

In other words, Girl Scout troops keep about half as much of sales as Boy Scouts do from popcorn.

My daughter's Troop only gets 50 a box. :-/

Yep...GSUSA units get a MUCH smaller percentage than BSA units do.

This past year, my son's pack sold $20k of popcorn and kept 37% (plus the prizes).

My daughter's troop is selling cookies for $4 a box and keeps $0.60 per box plus prizes. If each girl sells on average 200+ boxes, it goes up to $0.63, for around a 16% commission.

as a SUM I want to know what councils do give the .01/box to units... our council doesn't. would be really nice to have a little extra money for the unit to use for funding events or supporting the girls that need it.

I also find it interesting that they really stress the girls using the money for their service projects - most troops I know do do a lot of service projects, but usually ones that are more labor than money... and then use the money for trips/camping/parties.

I'm curious, what if a troop doesn't want to sell cookies, or doesn't want to sell a lot of them? Can they have another fundraiser where the money does stay in the troop? Are there quotas or requirements about how many cookies a troop has to sell? And if that percentage is going to the council what does the council do with it? Are camps free or deeply discounted?

Selling cookies is a totally optional thing for GS Troops. In fact, the GSUSA website list other options and ideas for fundraising at http://www.girlscouts.org/program/gs_central/money_earning/

The money going to the GS Council is pretty typically spent in the same way as for BSA Councils. Property maintenance and upkeep, staff salaries, publications, computer/back-office stuff, insurance, etc... I don't know the income mix for a typical GSUSA council vs. a BSA one, but I would imaging that it's very possible that cookie sales are a higher percentage of revenue for GSUSA than popcorn is for BSA. For example, FOS is a much bigger source of income for BSA than the equivalent donation drive for GSUSA, since it's way more formal and "pushed" by the BSA all the way down to the unit level.

While cookie sales are one of the main ways GSUSA councils (and GS Troops) make their yearly budget, GSUSA considers them to be PROGRAM for the girls, and has a lot of connected programing materials that go with it.

The Cookie Program is optional. However, in many councils, in order to be approved to do any other money-earning activities, a Troop is required to participate in all council sponsored money-earning programs. Many councils also restrict the number of extra money-earning activities they will allow a Troop to do.

Typically, the council programs are the Cookie Program, and the Fall Product (candy/magazines/calendars) Program. There is no minimum amount that is needed to be sold however. When my Troop needed to raise funds for their Silver & Gold projects, we would usually sell just a few things at the Fall Product, do our main push for Troop funds with cookies, and then do any extra money-earning activities needed.

T2Eagle,

council my daughter is in requires participation in either cookie or fall product (candy/nuts) for the younger troops (Brownie & Juniors) to do a troop fundraiser and for older troops (Cadette, Senior, Ambassador's) to have another fundraiser they need to participate in both.

BUT, participation is not defined. which means if just 1 girl from the troop sells 1 item for sale(s) they have participated and can do another fundraiser.

Cookies is the biggest fundraiser for the troops in our area. Last year my daughter's troop did 1 additional fundraiser for our SD trip, but it was more of a contest that ended up making me wear a dress... I HATE dresses!!! So I knew more money would end up in my jar and I supported it. Most fun was watching the girls add money to their jars to make people put even more into mine LOL