In 1917, a national tax-exempt organization – the Girl Scouts of the USA – began an operation designed to raise money so that it could continue to serve its members, local councils and communities. From those humble beginnings, in which girls and their mothers baked the cookies themselves, the Girl Scouts have today established a vast and ever-growing market for their cookies.

In 2002, the Girl Scouts sold approximately 200 million boxes of their beloved cookies. In fact, according to one industry source, the Girl Scouts’ Thin Mints is the third most popular cookie sold in America, ranking only behind Nabisco’s Oreos and Chips Ahoy.

Girl Scout cookies obviously occupy a very prominent and well-deserved  place in the baking industry. The Girl Scouts offer a product the public desires, and the proceeds are used in the communities where they are sold to advance the organization’s principles and goals.

It is estimated that local Girl Scout troops made about $300 million collectively through cookie sales in 2002. That number, though impressive, pales in comparison to sales figures from giants like Nabisco and Keebler. Even so, the Girl Scouts are selling enough cookies to present some significant competition to for-profit cookie companies.

On a much smaller scale, the rise in popularity of not-for-profit credit unions is similar to that of Girl Scout cookies. Credit unions, as locally owned cooperatives, today offer financial services that 850,000 Iowans desire while keeping ownership and control in the local community. In addition to being the financial institutions of choice for one in three Iowans, credit unions are an important part of the state’s economic culture and cooperative spirit. They also provide a necessary check-and-balance to the for-profit financial industry.

Even though the combined assets of all Iowa credit unions are small in comparison with national banking behemoths like Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp., credit unions continue to be the target of tax law changes proposed by banking associations, which claim that current law gives credit unions an unfair competitive advantage. Bankers have gone so far as to state they will oppose any legislation that would permit credit unions to better serve their members.

By doing so, banking associations have transitioned their public policy agenda from arguing the merits of financial legislation to simply becoming obstructionists.

Funny, you don’t see Keebler or Nabisco running negative ad campaigns that call for taxation of the Girl Scouts or try to obstruct their operations. You don’t hear the cookie industry saying that the Girl Scouts have an unfair advantage because of their not-for-profit status. In fact, the opposite is true. A subsidiary of Keebler actually partners with the Girl Scouts as one of its three national bakers.

What a concept! Competing organizations working together for the collective good of consumers.

One wonders why banking associations can’t look to the cookie industry for guidance in this area. Statistics show that Girl Scout cookies present more serious competition to for-profit cookie companies than credit unions do to banks. Though Thin Mints are number three in national cookie sales, no Iowa credit union comes close when compared with national banking conglomerates.

Credit unions, like the Girl Scouts, are taxed differently than their for-profit counterparts. Also like the Girl Scouts, credit unions exist solely to serve their members and communities. Credit unions are structured differently and have a different mission from banks, which allows for lower-cost financial services that benefit all Iowans.  Furthermore, Iowa is already one of the six highest-taxing states for credit unions in the nation.

Just something for bankers to chew on when buying their next box of Thin Mints.

Patrick S. Jury is vice president of the Iowa Credit Union League