Resources for Families

• You must bring your own cookies to all booths. Booths are not pre-stocked.  

• While Girl Scouts should practice calculating totals and counting back change for customers, be sure to have an adult always watching the money. Never leave money unattended.  

• Participants and adults are highly encouraged to wear uniforms, clothing, or pins that identify them as Girl Scouts --- and be sure to dress for the weather!  

• Be respectful to the location’s customers. Always say “Thank you,” whether that person purchases cookies or not.  

• Be careful not to leave the booth unattended.  

• Stay within the area designated for your booth. Don’t wander around the store/host location.  

• Girl Scouts leave areas cleaner than they found them. Clean up any garbage before leaving at the end of the day.  

• After the booth, adults should count the money and inventory. Any remaining cookies should be returned to the troop inventory at a booth with two or more Girl Scouts, and money should be deposited into the troop bank account as soon as possible. Don’t forget to include donations in your total! Every $6 donation adds up to one package for Cookie Share, which can be added to your total sold and credited to participating Girl Scouts.  

• After receiving cash and making change, Girl Scouts should hand the money to a volunteer for safekeeping, and deposit it into the cash box as soon as possible.  

• Keep the cash box in a safe place or behind a barrier of cookie packages.  

• Don’t walk around with large amounts of money.  

• Bank cookie money often and do not keep money at home or at school. Always keep money in a safe and secure location until you can get it to the bank.  

• Reduce cash transactions by offering credit card payment options whenever possible. 

• Some sisters want to work together for a larger prize. This means all orders are managed under one Girl Scout, (one troop), but the sisters may work together to sell door-to-door, at booths and lemonade stands, etc. 

• Some families work hard to make sure all sisters participating end up with an equal number of cookies sold. If you’re working with multiple troops and Troop Product Managers (TPMs), they may end up needing to transfer cookies between troops to keep things even. 

• Some families have a combo approach! For example, two sisters sell 1280 packages together. One sister is allocated 280 packages (and earns the rewards and patches up to that level) and the other is allocated 1000 packages and chooses opt-out of rewards to earn the iPad. In this instance, the Girl Scouts would both earn separate rewards based on the number of cookies they sold under their account. They could choose to each get a 2025 Sister Patch. 

Choose the approach that works best with your family and be in close communication with your TPM to make sure you are submitting orders correctly and that transfers are correct. 

Rewards will be ordered and sent based on the number of packages sold and rewards selected, so families must make sure that Digital Cookie represents this information accurately by the end of program. TPMs enter this information for each Girl Scout, so please make sure your TPM understands how your family is participating in this program, and the choices they need to enter accordingly. 

All sisters selling together can receive a custom 2025 Sister Patch! These special patches are designed to recognize Girl Scouts in the same family unit who are selling together. The 2025 Sister Patch is available for TPMs to request in Smart Cookies under the ‘Extras’ tab of the Recognition Order. Even if a Girl Scout has sold zero packages, (because all cookies sold are under their sister), TPMs must request a patch for each Girl Scout in the family as part of their Recognition Order. 

The Instant Rewards sent to troops to distribute throughout the program are also available for sisters to earn, even if they are working together toward a higher-level reward. Girl Scouts should sell enough for each of them to earn an item. For example, if three sisters are selling together, they must each individually sell 36 packages to earn the Pickleball Jumbo Charm Instant Reward for each girl. The same family would need to sell 825+ packages for all three sisters to earn all Instant Rewards. Parents/guardians can work with their TPM(s) to make sure all sisters receive the rewards earned and if the troop needs additional Instant Rewards they can reach out to Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa (GSGI) at info@gsiowa.org. 

TPMs can request additional free patches, (Lemonade Stand, Cookie Booth Patch, My First Cookie Sale), in Smart Cookies. Girl Scouts will automatically receive rewards and patches based on cookies transferred to them. For sisters who sell together and put all transactions under one Girl Scout, only one set of rewards will be earned. 

Even if a Girl Scout has sold zero packages (because all cookies sold are under their sister), TPMs must request a patch for each Girl Scout in the family as part of their Recognition Order. 

Troops and Juliettes can earn some special experiences based on their PGA (per-girl-average). For more details, check out the back of the Reward Panel! PGA is calculated by taking the total number of packages sold by a troop, and dividing it by the number of troop members who sold during the program. If a troop member does not participate in the program, they are not calculated in the troop’s PGA. 

Troops and Juliettes can earn one or both special experiences: Gimme S’more Mud Run (235+ PGA); Trampoline, Water Park or Escape Room Board Game (385+ PGA); or  Night at the Movies (500+ PGA). Check the back of the Reward Panel for all the details! If your Troop or Juliette earns these rewards, you’ll receive an email on how to redeem them in April. 

If sisters are participating under one Digital Cookie profile, they will earn one PGA award listed above with the troop the profile is with. Additional tickets to the Mud Run, Trampoline or Waterpark party, or Troop Night at the Movies will need to be purchased. Cookie Dough and Troop Proceeds may be used to purchase additional tickets. 

Sisters who sell together and consolidate their sales under one Girl Scout will receive the same reward as Girl Scouts who met that reward on their own. Sisters who sell together (under one profile) and reach the 700 Club will receive 2 total admission tickets to Adventureland or the Iowa State Fair, just like any other Girl Scout that reached that level. These tickets are typically allocated to the Girl Scout who earned it and their chaperone, but families can determine what is best for them. Cookie Dough can be used to purchase additional discounted tickets for other family members and chaperones. Additional 700 Club rewards including the certificate, star, and patch will be awarded to the profile the sales are recorded under. Duplicate certificates, stars, and patches are not available. 

This is up to the discretion of the Girl Scouts and parents/guardians. If multiple sisters are selling under one profile, you would use that profile’s online link and QR code. If your Girl Scouts are selling independently, we encourage parents to post both links on their socials and emails with details about each link helping a specific Girl Scout earn their specific goal. When parents do this, customers tend to try to keep sales between sisters even to support each Girl Scout’s goal! Online sales are tied to the link clicked by the customer, so the sales will automatically appear under the account tied to that particular link. Digital financial transactions are not able to be moved in Digital Cookie from one Girl Scout to another. 

TPMs will order rewards and patches through each Girl Scout. If sisters are selling under one account, their TPM will place your full recognition order under that Girl Scout. The TPM will then enter in additional patch orders under each additional sister’s name in Smart Cookies. Parents/guardians and TPMs no longer need to fill out additional forms. 

Sisters selling together provides a way for family members to combine their selling power to achieve their selling goals. GSGI must then make sure that we are maintaining an equal playing field for all Girl Scouts in our council. If two sisters together sell 1500 packages, it would not be fair for them to earn two Apple Watches when another Girl Scout reached that award on their own and earned one. Our cookie entrepreneurs work incredibly hard to reach their goals and our goal is to make sure that hard work is recognized in a fair and equitable way. We strive to provide multiple options so that each Girl Scout can customize their reward lineup based on what they have earned. 

Nope! Troop members who have zero packages transferred to them have no impact on the troop’s PGA, regardless of requests made in the troop recognition order. 

First, only complete the Digital Cookie registration under one sister. Work with one TPM to get cookies, so then you’re giving your cookie money to one person. The second sister’s TPM would then only need to order their extra patches on the recognition order. 

The easiest thing is to run all of your orders through one sister (online orders, cookie pickups, and money handling). At the end of the season, ask your TPM to transfer half of the cookies (and give the corresponding money) to the second sister’s troop for payment of those cookies. The most important tip here is for parents/guardians to loop in both TPMs at the beginning of the season so everyone is aware of how your daughters are participating in the cookie program this year. 

Girl Scouts can earn a Cookie Crossover patch featuring their custom avatar with their participation in both the Fall Product Program and Girl Scout Cookie Program. To earn this patch, they’ll need to participate in both the 2024 Fall Product Program and the 2025 Girl Scout Cookie Program individually and meet the following criteria: 

• Create their avatar in the M2 system. 

• Send 18+ emails during the Fall Product Program. 

• Use the “Share My Site” function in the M2 system. 

• Sell 325+ packages of cookies during the 2025 Girl Scout Cookie Program. 

This patch is rewarded by automatic system calculations in both the online M2 System and Smart Cookies. Therefore, each girl must have at least 325 packages of cookies transferred to her in Smart Cookies and meet all of the other criteria for the Fall Product Program to earn the patch. If fall product or cookies are managed under one Girl Scout account, then that account will be the one that receives the Cookie Crossover patch reward.