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  • 2016-01-21 (xsd:date)
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  • Do Girl Scout Cookie Proceeds Fund Planned Parenthood? (en)
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  • For several years, social media users have shared tweets and memes claiming that funds from the sale of Girl Scout Cookies are distributed to Planned Parenthood, often posting such items with hashtags such as #cookiecott to promote the rumor: An opinion piece dated March 22, 2018 on LifeNews.com encouraged readers to say no to Girl Scout cookies over ties to Planned Parenthood (although it did not repeat the claim that proceeds of cookie sales go to fund that organization). The claim that Girl Scout Cookie sales fund Planned Parenthood became popular in mid-2015 and early 2016, likely due in part to a series of questionable viral videos targeting the latter organization circulated in the summer of 2015. However, the rumor had previously spread widely in 2012, after Fox News reprinted a (since-deleted) opinion piece from LifeSiteNews that stated (in part): In fact, what then-Girl Scout CEO Kathy Cloninger said on NBC's Today show back in 2012 was that Planned Parenthood was one of several organizations (including church communities and YMCAs) that the Girl Scouts worked with to bring information-based sex education programs to girls. Cloninger did not state (or imply) that any financial support relationship existed between the two organizations. We contacted the Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) to determine whether any portion of the rumor was true. They responded to say that no proceeds have ever been donated from the sale of Girl Scout Cookies to Planned Parenthood. The Girl Scout Cookies section of the Girl Scouts website's FAQ declares that all revenue raised from cookie sales goes to the local Girl Scout councils and troops, not outside organizations: The Social Issues portion of the FAQ also states that GSUSA does not have a relationship or partnership with Planned Parenthood: A 12 March 2015 New York Times compendium piece addressed the rumor and found it lacking: As Girl Scouts of the United States of America is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, their financial statements are by law made freely available to the public, along with their annual report. (en)
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