“Our financial information is more accurate than ever without my having to manage it on a daily basis.”

                                         -- Marcia Barber, Chief Executive Officer                                            Girl Scouts, Trillium Council

For 91 years, the Girl Scout mission has been to “help girls grow strong.”  Through outsourcing, Marcia Barber, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Girl Scouts Trillium Council, has helped the organization grow stronger by streamlining its’ general and financial management activities.

“I’m always trying to make our $4 million annual budget go further for our 23,000 girls, 6,000 adult volunteers and 5 camps,” says Barber, who oversees 60 employees.  “We’ve outsourced payroll for a long time, so outsourcing accounting and bookkeeping made sense, and enabled us to eliminate the position Chief Financial Officer (CFO).”

In doing so, Barber was able to free up budget dollars to hire a Chief Operating Officer (COO) responsible for internal program management activities.  This person now supervises the work of director-level staff members who used to report to Barber, while Barber concentrates on fundraising, outreach and other activities that are essential to the Girl Scouts success.

“By replacing a CFO with a COO, I am getting better value for my payroll dollars,” says Barber.  “At the same time, our financial information is more accurate than ever without my having to manage it on a daily basis.”

“The transition was smooth because the outgoing CFO worked with the outsourcing firm prior to his departure.”  In conjunction with this change, the organization streamlined its chart of accounts, clarified its budgeting process and improved the staff’s ability to manage expenses.

The Girl Scouts also leveraged the experience of their outsourcer to implement new technologies and methods.  They could have accomplished these changes internally, but with outside expertise they were able to reduce risk and attain benefits quickly and efficiently.

One of the opportunities identified during the changeover was the potential use of a bank “lock box” for incoming funds.  Since the Girl Scouts annually receive thousands of payments for membership, program registration and merchandise, a significant amount of effort was dedicated to the preparation of the daily bank deposit.  More burdensome was the organization’s fiscal responsibility for oversight of this process.   Now, the Girl Scouts can rely on its bank and accounting service to provide an integrated and secure solution for the processing of deposits.

Although outsourcing has worked for Barber, she plans to keep mission-critical activities, such as membership recruitment, in-house.  “It’s important that individuals working in certain areas be knowledgeable and passionate about the organization.”

Besides being a sound strategic decision, outsourcing has produced an annual savings of $10,000.  “I didn’t choose to outsource for economic reasons,” says Barber, “but overhead reduction has been a residual benefit.

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