1915 Society Endowment Program

[Tron]

On 2/26/2026 at 5:15 PM, mrjohns2 said:

Your understanding is incorrect. 
 

They did not “vote to contribute”, the corporation told the court the OA and NESA endowments were protected. They they were not subject to the bankruptcy contributions to the trust. The other side said show us how you did proper record keeping for the funds inputs and outputs. They had no records and had just comingled the funds in the general funds. Thus, they were ordered to contribute the funds. Thus they need to “recapitalize”. 

Comingling is a huge problem at every level in scouting as I can tell. Comingling is what is going to get every scout account using unit in trouble eventually. 

3 hours ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Or all the above??

I think it's poor legal judgement. Personally I think the accountants and legal at national know we have an accounting problem at every level but there is not enough where-with-all in the national team to do something about it at this time. I am tepidly optimistic that once national retires all of the debt related to the settlement and restructuring that the national leadership will force the accounting and legal leadership to deal with the comingling issues at all levels in the organization to avoid any situations of the IRS crushing units or councils like a tin can. 

[BetterWithCheddar]

18 hours ago, fred8033 said:

Now reading the last comment makes me question BSA respect for those donating money.  If OA and NESA donations were solicited as endowments, BSA had a responsibility to the donor to respect the donation and handle the endowment properly.   What I'm reading instead is that OA / NESA endowment donations were really just another way to solicit general fund revenue.   It's either poor accounting, poor legal judgement or outright misrepresentation.

Yeah, this is really bad (if true). If you're going to solicit large donations for an endowment, there's a professional and moral obligation to ensure they're protected to the fullest extent. Beyond the endowments, there has probably been a working-class family in every council who gifted their own modest estate in order to have a new health lodge or shooting sports range built at their favorite camp. And now that camp is gone. I'm just glad they're no longer here to see their life's work squandered.

[SiouxRanger]

21 hours ago, fred8033 said:

Originally, my judgement was harsh on poor legal review. 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but lawyers work FOR their client, they are not the client. Lawyers give advice based on their evaluation of the law, and just about any other factor, legal or not, they believe relevant, limited only by their creativity and wisdom. (The "other factor" component of the lawyer's advice is immeasurably more complex than mere legal reasoning. The law part is easy.)

What a client actually does, that is, what we see them do, is not a reflection of the quality of the legal advice given. 

The client could have followed lousy legal advice, or rejected superb legal advice.

[Tron]

6 hours ago, SiouxRanger said:

Not to put too fine a point on it, but lawyers work FOR their client, they are not the client. Lawyers give advice based on their evaluation of the law, and just about any other factor, legal or not, they believe relevant, limited only by their creativity and wisdom. (The "other factor" component of the lawyer's advice is immeasurably more complex than mere legal reasoning. The law part is easy.)

What a client actually does, that is, what we see them do, is not a reflection of the quality of the legal advice given. 

The client could have followed lousy legal advice, or rejected superb legal advice.

Read this and see if you agree with your previous statement. 

https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2014/12/03/individual-scout-accounts/