46 CLASSNOTES
CLASSNOTES | Profile
’95 Stewart Goodbody
Digital
C OKIES
Stewart Goodbody ’95 didn’t grow up a Girl Scout, but she wears the badge proudly now. “I’m an adult member,” she says, laughing. Stewart joined the Girl Scouts of the USA in December 2013 as their Director of Communications. The time-honored institution is one of the most visible non-profits in the country; countless Americans have been impacted by the Girl Scouts. It’s Stewart’s job to build from that base and bring the public perception of the Scouts into the future. “We’re trying to tell a new story about what Girl Scouts is,” Stewart says. “Everyone looks at Girl Scouts and thinks: cookies, crafts, and camps, but we’re much more than that.” In December 2014, Stewart led the media launch for Digital Cookie, the first national online sales platform for the iconic program. Now, more than a 100 years after the first cookie was sold, you’re as likely to get a link from your local troop member as you are to get a visit to your front door. The push for change began with the girls themselves. “They were telling us, for a while, ‘We really want to go online,’” Stewart says. Listening to what the girls want is at the core of the organization’s identity: “We’re girl-led, we’re girl-driven. We’re basically working for them.” The transition to digital is about much more than convenience. Each Digital Cookie participant has her own personal site, where she can list her goals and share how she plans to spend her cookie earnings. “These are real, 21st century skills and they give our girls an advantage,” Stewart says. “They are basically learning how to run their own small online store.” Their success is in the numbers: Girl Scouts sell 800 million dollars worth of cookies a year, during a season that lasts only January through April. And Digital Cookie is only one of many new initiatives. “We need to move at the speed of girls and keep up with what they’re interested in,” Stewart says. “It’s all about giving them new opportunities and new experiences and our camps excel at that.” They offer far more than sleepovers and nature hikes: “We have robotics camp, we have camp CEO. There’s a camp where girls are trained by first responders.”
The work that Girl Scouts do is personal for Stewart, and begins with her experience with public service as a student. “The culture at Choate is so tied to community service and giving back,” she says. “As a student, that was really so exciting to me, and I took advantage of the opportunity to be involved. I’m not sure that I would have seen working at a non-profit as a path for me if I hadn’t gone to Choate.” Over her career at many of New York’s top public relations agencies she worked with many non-profit clients, including KitchenAid’s Cook for the Cure. Now, at Girl Scouts USA, she sees the impact volunteers have on girls daily. She hopes to attract a more diverse volunteer base. “We’re looking for more than moms. We’re looking for young professionals, college students, men,” Stewart says. Attracting new Girl Scouts and new volunteers begins, she says, with allowing the girls’ stories to be heard. “Every time I do a project with them, they impress me so much. People need to know what these girls are capable of.” It’s a mission of increased importance to Stewart as the mother of two girls, ages 2 and 4. She lives with her young family in Brooklyn Heights, just blocks away from where the campaign headquarters of the country’s most famous Girl Scout, presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, has established her presidential campaign headquarters. Says Stewart: “I definitely believe that the first female president will be a Girl Scout.”
by lindsay whalen ’01 Lindsay Whalen ’01 is a Truman Capote Fellow in the Brooklyn College MFA Program.