International Business Machines Corp. (IBM): The Shocking Bill Your Daughter’s Girl-Scout Cookie Money Is Paying

The main problem that employers throughout the nation are facing is that promises they made to their employees were more expensive than they initially planned for, and many of them were ill-equipped to handle the responsibility of funding their obligations in uncertain market environments. In the long run, the solution will require rethinking about long-term promises made to workers in their employee benefits, with particular attention to the worst-case scenarios that can create unexpected financial burdens.

For the Girl Scouts, the pension controversy comes at a time in which the entire organization has gone through major changes in an effort to reinvent and modernize itself in order to reverse falling numbers of participants. For many parents, there’s less incentive to work hard on fundraising efforts when they know that an alarmingly large portion of the proceeds from their labors will go not toward current programs for girls but rather toward getting a distant national organization out of its financial bind. To avoid the challenges the GSUSA now faces, other popular nonprofit organizations need to look closely at their employee benefits to keep would-be donors from balking at the prospect of funding pensions rather than supporting the current programs that do so much good.

The article The Shocking Bill Your Daughter’s Girl-Scout Cookie Money Is Paying originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Dan Caplinger.

Fool contributor Dan Caplinger has no position in any stocks mentioned. You can follow him on Twitter @DanCaplinger. The Motley Fool recommends General Motors Company (NYSE:GM). The Motley Fool owns shares of International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM).

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