Scout Reach program accountability | Columnists | Summerville Journal Scene

Printer friendly version |

E-mail to a friend

Scout Reach program accountability

Published Thursday, August 12, 2010 5:11 PM

Summerville Journal Scene ®

As a Trident United Way Volunteer who chaired the 10 member volunteer committee that unanimously recommended withdrawing this year’s Trident United Way (TUW) support from the Boy Scouts, I offer your readers the following information.

TUW is an open and competitive grant maker that insists that programs it funds have the highest level of fiscal accountability and deliver measureable results. Volunteers like me take very seriously our responsibility to be stewards of the contributions people in our community make to TUW.

From 1998 to 2006 the Boy Scout received one of the highest percentage increases in funding from TUW. Since that time period, funding of the Scouts has been on a steep decline. The reason is simple: the inability of the Boy Scouts Scout Reach program to demonstrate strong fiscal accountability and to deliver data on measureable program results have eroded to the point where action had to be taken.

In July 2009, the TUW Board of Directors announced the 77 programs and services to receive funding for the next three years. However, 13 programs including the Boy Scouts, received a one year TUW grant based on the ability of the organization to resolve any contingencies and or program recommendations that they received.

In spring 2010, those 13 programs were asked to submit an application for renewal of their grant. We then invited volunteers and senior leaders of the Scouts to meet with us to review their submission.

You might imagine the grave concern we had when the Boy Scouts submitted a budget that included the wrong amount of funding that Trident United Way provided to them last year. When pressed about issues around actual cost to deliver the program and staff expenses we did not receive specific, quantifiable responses.

The Boy Scouts told TUW when they accepted a grant of over $81,000 in 2009 that their goal was to strive for 95 percent of the participants to be able to: repeat the Boy Scout motto and learn the Scout Laws, participate in earning and Arrows.Older participants would receive a higher rank or merit badges and they increase their academic performance. A year later The Boy Scout Organization could not produce any annual data around the outcomes that they, not TUW, set for themselves.

It should be noted that the Boy Scouts was the only program of the 13 reviewed that did not receive continued funding. Outstanding TUW funded youth leadership programs like Wings For Kids and Metanoia’s Young Leaders program have had no problem demonstrating that their participants improve on their stated outcomes.

If the Boys Scouts elect to meet the criteria of fiscal accountability and program effectiveness that every other funded partner is required to meet, of course they would be eligible to seek a Trident United Way investment at the start of our next funding cycle.

As a United Way donor and volunteer, I am proud that decisions on funding are not based on politics, name recognition or past laurels, but on accountability and results. When you contribute to Trident United Way, you can be sure that you are working to make a measurable impact in our community. I know this to be the case as I have had the pleasure of working with numerous wonderful volunteers from the Tri County area to review and evaluate many outstanding programs over the last 9 years as a part of this important process to make sure that the community investments of the Trident United Way are making a measurable difference in our community.

C. Wayne Weart, Pharm D

Chairman, Community Investment Review Team #3

Trident United Way

Professor of Clinical Pharmacy and Outcomes Sciences

South Carolina College of Pharmacy, MUSC Campus

Comments

Notice about comments:

Journalscene.com ® is pleased to offer readers the enhanced ability to comment on stories. We expect our readers to engage in lively, yet civil discourse. Journalscene.com ® does not edit user submitted statements and we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted in the comments area. Responsibility for the statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not Journalscene.com ®. If you find a comment that is objectionable, please click "report abuse" and we will review it for possible removal. Please be reminded, however, that in accordance with our Terms of Use and federal law, we are under no obligation to remove any third party comments posted on our website.

Users can now build user-to-user connections, follow friends' recent posts, add an avatar that fits their personality, and more. If you have posted here before you'll need to sign up again, or if you've never posted before, start now by reading our terms and conditions, and then signing up below!

Full terms and conditions can be read here.

Poll Question

For entertainment, I mainly go out in...

Most Viewed
Most Commented

104 East Doty Avenue | Summerville, SC 29483 | 843-873-9424 office | 843-873-9432 fax