The Patriots' Trail Council, in Boston, has revolutionized its cookie sale by adopting QuickBase for Corporate Workgroups, an online database program. "QuickBase allows us to look at our data on a daily or weekly basis and make decisions that impact the sale as it is going on," says Barbara Fortier, COO of the Patriots' Trail Council.

For example, after analyzing individual Girl Scout sales records, the council added additional sales incentives at 25 and 50 boxes in order to encourage Scouts to raise their sales goals. It worked: The average sales level has risen from the mid-60s to 72 per girl over the past five years, and between 2005 and 2006, the number of girls reaching the 500 Club (as in boxes sold) rose 70 percent, to 57.

Still other councils have found sales success with creative partnerships. In Oakland, California, the Scouts teamed up with the California Milk Processor Board on a "Got Milk?" billboard featuring Girl Scout cookies. In Hawaii, the state's Macadamia Nut Association partnered with the Girl Scouts to launch a new cookie, Aloha Chips, in conjunction with the grower organization's own public-awareness push.

Without a doubt, the most successful recent partnership has been Operation Thin Mint. Over the past six years, the Girl Scouts San Diego-Imperial Council has teamed with APL shipping company and naval logisticians in the U.S. Pacific Fleet to send more than a million donated boxes of Girl Scout cookies to servicemen and servicewomen overseas. Dozens of councils nationwide have since copied the program successfully, but it was in San Diego that the concept for "a taste of home and a note to show we care" started and blossomed.

"Everyone in San Diego has either a family member or a neighbor who serves in the military," says Jo Dee Jacob, CEO of Girl Scouts San Diego-Imperial Council. "Everyone is touched by what is happening overseas. That is why Operation Thin Mint is uniquely successful."