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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowAfter years of declining membership and institutional turmoil, Crossroads of America Council, Scouting America has a new leader who says the organization still offers a compelling model for young people to improve themselves and serve others.
Scouting is “an outdoor classroom experience that’s teaching character development, leadership, servant leadership, a commitment back to community,” said John Cary, a 53-year-old Louisville native who last month became the organization’s scouting executive and CEO.
Crossroads of America Council is looking to carry that message to a diverse array of potential Scouts and volunteers, including a push into the Hispanic and Burmese communities. The message offers access to adventure, leadership skills, character development and a respite from a modern world dominated by smartphones and social media.
The Indianapolis-based Crossroads of America Council—formerly known as the Boy Scouts—oversees most of central Indiana’s youth Scouting America programs.
Cary, a veteran Scouting America leader who last served in South Bend, replaces interim CEO Ryan Kitchell in heading up an organization that oversees seven scouting districts from 26 central Indiana counties, from Sullivan County on the south end to Randolph County to the north, comprising about 15,120 youth and 4,100 volunteers.
Cary has led scouting councils in Kentucky, Maine, Maryland and Indiana over 24 years but did not participate in Boy Scouts growing up.
“I always joke that the only two knots I can tell you is that one and this one,” said Cary, pointing to his shoelaces and tie. But he said he was raised to love fishing, hunting and the outdoors and has seen how scouting benefits his daughter.
Cary’s arrival at Crossroads of America Council comes as scouting organizations across the nation seek to stabilize and rebuild after years of decline and controversy.
Call it institutional orienteering.
And for Crossroads of America Council, learning how to navigate the modern cultural landscape like an Eagle Scout with a compass and map is no simple task.
Scouting America has lost money and members amid structural changes in Scouts nationally, the Boy Scouts of America’s high-profile sexual abuse cases, the pandemic and other factors.
Fewer Eagle Scouts
Crossroads of America Council’s drop in participation and staffing is dramatic. In 2023, 197 Scouts earned the level of Eagle Scout, the highest rank in Scouting America, a drop of 52% from the 410 earning an Eagle Scout rank in 2017, according to Crossroads of America Council data. Merit badges by Scouts earned fell to 10,955 from 15,097 over that same time, a 27% decline.
Today, Crossroads of America Council has a staff of about 33, down from a high of about 55.
And the organization is paring down its properties. Crossroads of America Council is selling off multiple camps and properties to consolidate to three primary locations—Camp Kikthawenund, near Frankton in Madison County; Ransburg Scout Reservation, on Lake Monroe near Bloomington; and Camp Belzer, which includes the Skip + Alex Lange Innovation Center, on the far-east side of Indianapolis.
Scouting organizations across the country suffered amid a Boy Scouts of America sexual abuse scandal that came to light in the 1990s and gained notoriety through the 2010s, as well as the national organization’s 2020 bankruptcy filing and declines in participation during pandemic lockdowns. The former Boy Scouts of America’s 2022 $2.46 billion settlement of decades of sex abuse cases included a payment of $4.3 million from Crossroads of America Council.
“We were facing two very weighty challenges for the organization, and it wasn’t just our council. It was councils across the country,” said Chuck Fippen, Crossroads of America Council commissioner. “So we emerged from that a smaller organization. We emerged from that weaker on the balance sheet.”
Even at the most fundamental levels, including its name and gender makeup, the organization is different than in generations past.
In a move announced in 2024 and made official Feb. 8, the organization’s 115th anniversary, the national Boy Scouts of America rebranded to Scouting America.
The name change came on the fifth anniversary of the organization’s welcoming of girls into its programs. Girls now make up nearly 30% of Scouts in Crossroads of America Council.
Bill Stanczykiewicz, senior assistant dean at Indiana University Indianapolis’ Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, said century-old nonprofits need to be able to transform and adapt to changing culture, demographics and preferences in how people spend their time.
And just like legacy Blue Chip companies being replaced by upstarts, large nonprofits can gradually lose their way by not refocusing their services when needed.
Stanczykiewicz said scandals, such as the one at Boy Scouts of America, are hard to overcome. “The amount of work it takes to recover is extraordinary,” he said.
Valuing time outside
Crossroads of America Council board Chair Deana Haworth said Cary was selected from more than 100 applicants because of his commitment to scouting’s mission but also his willingness to adopt new approaches to keep scouting relevant to today’s youth.
“We all believe that scouting is more important now than ever,” she said, “and a lot of the challenges that our kids face can be helped, or at least mitigated, by time outside, time with others.”
In hiring Cary, the selections committee pointed to Cary’s ability to build strong relationships with community partners in South Bend—relationships that helped increase the number of youth participating in Scouting through schools, churches, and civic groups.
Haworth said, “His track record of growing engagement and support, combined with a solid background in development, positions him well to strengthen community ties and expand the impact of Scouting across our council.”
Crossroads of America Council facilities such as Camp Belzer, bordering Fort Harrison State Park, offer an idyllic setting for youth to explore nature, with wooded hills and trails, canoeing, bunkhouses, swimming pools, and program shelters.
Built at Camp Belzer, the Skip + Alex Lange Innovation Center offers facilities that include rock climbing and bouldering walls, an indoor archery range, and space for robotics and technology learning.
“The most fun I’ve had is going to summer camp,” said Daniel Cartee, who is nearing his Eagle Scout rank. “I’m friends with a lot of people out of my troop, and summer camp is a place to reconnect.”
Daniel credited scouting with helping him grow as a leader and develop his character. He estimated that his Eagle Scout project—a bridge at a school over a drainage ditch that is meant to increase access for students with mobility challenges—has taken about 240 hours of building time so far.
Haworth said Scouts help to model for parents how to engage with their kids, whether it’s learning to tie knots, the Pinewood Derby model car racing or “sparking a flame at a campfire together.”
She added, “We’re showing parents and adult family members this path forward that has sometimes been lost over time.”
Yet changes in scouting have turned away many long-loyal supporters and volunteers.
In 2018, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) announced it was cutting ties with Boy Scouts of America after the decision to admit girls and drop the word “boy” from the organization’s name.
Others, such as those with traditional Christian beliefs in areas such as sexuality, also have left the Scouts.
Lawrence Smiley of Indianapolis volunteered for about 28 years, starting and leading Troop 191 and helping 32 boys to become Eagle Scouts under Crossroads of America Council.
Smiley, an Eagle Scout himself, said he left Scouts in about 2017 over moral and cultural concerns. Smiley said Scouts is not a Christian organization but has lost its allegiance to “duty to God” as stated in its oath.
“They kept backpedaling, changing the rules, changing the very core of the hundred-year-old organization until they are now, in my opinion, a shadow of their former selves,” he said.
Smiley also said Scouts offered a male cultural space ideal for fathers and sons to better understand each other.
“As you go out and adventure and do hard things like mountain climb and carry a canoe in the boundary waters, it bonds you because it’s not easy,” he said. “When your dad and you are doing it together, it forms a huge bond.”
But Crossroads of America Council leaders say today’s Scouts still have same-gender troops, with some co-ed activities and pilots under way for co-ed troops.
“I don’t think that part has gone away,” Cary said. “The vast majority of the Scout troops are still doing their own program in the basement of a church or a civic organization.”•
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Don’t forget, the organization formerly known as the Boy Scouts also went all-in on DEI, among other things requiring a DEI badge to make Eagle Scout.
In a world where kids have so many things to do that don’t involve getting dirty and being outside, you think that DEI has caused the decline in scouting? I earned my Eagle Scout badge in 1980, and had never considered that creating opportunities for kids outside the traditional demographic would be a bad thing.
If DEI means “A Scout is Friendly. He is a friend to all:, or “A Scout is Kind, he treats others the way he wants to be treated”; then yes, Scouts have always been all in on DEI.
With more than 50 years with the scouts and involved in a local Troop, I don’t think this article stressed how badly the pandemic hurt scouting. You think we have left a whole cohort behind in education, try doing scout meetings via Zoom!
Parent of two Eagle Scouts here. Individual troop dynamics/leaders are important too. If a troop is so hard core that it does not provide flexibility for the scouts who also are involved with sports, the sports will win out. This requires thinking outside the box (for instance, troop meetings right after school at the school rather than mandatory evening meetings, etc.). It also took the village of the parent volunteers. Not all troops and scouts have these resources. We are so grateful for our scout leader who worked with all the families to ensure our scouts could and did do both.
The Boy Scouts were leaders in racial integration, starting in 1924, and the officially integrated in the early 1970s. I guess that’s the DEI Aaron R is worried about. All my scouting life, I was taught we treated everyone with respect and courtesy, be they racially different, or girls, mentally or physically impaired, from another country. We were all God’s and Lord Baden Powell’s children. Why, my Detroit area pack and troop even allowed SOUTHERNERS and non Catholics to join us (and yes, we even had a person of Hispanic heritage). Talk about integrated in the 1960s….
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