Sponsoring a troop in Girl Scouts is an *entirely* different thing than sponsoring a troop in Boy Scouts. For anyone who might be considering this, please do not base your decision on how Boy Scouts do sponsorship. It is night and day.
Girl Scout troops can have multiple sponsors, and sponsors basically give something to the troop (ideally, money!), and don't necessarily get much in return--a nice warm feeling inside, updates on how the troop is doing, maybe some public recognition, or maybe a service project. Girl Scout sponsorship is probably more similar to having a local soccer team sponsored by a local business--the business gives the team money to buy a banner or uniforms or equipment, and the business gets a plaque with a photo of the team on it to display in their business.
I would vote no on this. For several years our boy scout leader wanted us to "sponsor" them. He made it sound like all we had to do was open the school for their meetings and that was it.
After careful research I discovered that they were also needing to operate under our school's tax free id and that we would have to report their finances to the IRS. AND, we had no say in how they spent their money. Just was to large of a liability for us, being a small school. I also found out that I had to find a male PTO parent to be the scout leader for our school.
After talking to the guy from the scouts and politely telling him we were not interested, he further questioned why. At that point I told him what I found out and he then got really nasty and started in on me about our school not supporting the children of the community. I don't know what happened after that. After the third call from him I had a talk with the principal and she called him and told no and don't call again.
rn--there's a lot of good discussion on the boards from past folks involving the boys scouts if you'd like to do a search. Both sides represent their positions well. I guess it comes down to your groups philosophy in the end as far as how you handle it. Some folks were dead set against as it tied the group to another group over which they had no control. Others thought it was perfectly within their support of the children in their school. For me personally, I probably wouldn't look to support an outside organzation I have no voice in since I'm not a GS or BS parent.
I can't say that I've ever heard of a PTA sponsoring one. Generally, it's pretty rare for GS troops to even have a sponsor; it's allowed but not really encouraged. I can't say that I really see any benefit to the PTA to doing this, and I don't think it really fits in with the mission of the PTA.
And I'm a PTA President, Girl Scout Service Unit Manager, and Troop Leader for more than one troop.
