Volume 1 · Issue 04 The Compass Field Notes Modern Software for Volunteer Units Independent · Not affiliated with BSA

Your troop's
website shouldn't
look like 2008.

SECURITY-FIRST · BUILT FOR MINORS' DATA

Troops who communicate well, succeed. Compass is the modern, security-first communication platform for volunteer units — group chat with YPT two-deep enforcement, the Sunday-evening newsletter your families actually open, and email + SMS broadcasts in one tap from the roster. Scoutbook handles ranks. We handle everything else.

Start free trial → See the security model
AES-256
encryption at rest
SSO
SAML · OIDC · WebAuthn
Two-deep
YPT-aligned messaging audit
$99
flat per unit, per year · 60 days free
§ What we don't do

Scoutbook handles ranks. Compass handles everything else.

Scouting America already has Scoutbook for ranks, merit badges, partials, and awards. Compass doesn't try to compete — we deep-link from every Scout profile so leaders aren't entering the same data twice.

What we focus on is what Scoutbook doesn't cover: the parent group-chat, the Sunday-evening newsletter, the campout RSVP, the potluck sign-up, the 7am cancellation. The communication + organization layer that turns a unit from one-person-rumored into many-volunteers-run. Troops who communicate well, succeed.

§ The Product

Three pillars: communication, organization, and security.

Communication is what your families touch every day. Organization is how Tuesday's meeting and next month's campout actually happen. Security is why their kids' data is on our platform at all.

01
Pillar 01 · Communication

Troops who communicate well, succeed.

Group chat, the Sunday newsletter, and one-tap email + SMS broadcasts — one roster, one identity, one audit log. The things every unit does over GroupMe, MailChimp, Evite, and five-year-old phpBB forums — reunited under one volunteer-friendly product.

CHAT

Group chat with YPT two-deep baked in.

Patrol threads, parent channels, event coordination — with hard-coded two-deep enforcement. Drop below two YPT-current adults and the channel auto-suspends. No GroupMe screenshots after an incident.

NEWSLETTER

The Sunday newsletter families actually open.

Compose a weekly newsletter from the events, photos, and announcements already in your unit. One Markdown box. Mobile-first template. 60% open rates, not the 9% MailChimp gave you.

EMAIL · SMS

Email & SMS in one tap from the roster.

Pick an audience — whole unit, just the patrol, just the drivers — and send. SMS for 7am cancellations. Email for everything else. Bounces and unsubscribes tracked automatically.

02
Pillar 02 · Organization

The schedule, the RSVPs, the sign-up sheet.

Tuesday's meeting and next month's campout don't happen by accident. Compass is the calendar, the RSVP list, and the sign-up sheet rolled together — so one volunteer can publish an event and the rest of the unit can self-organize around it. Drivers, potluck dishes, gear-check slots, permission slips: all on one page.

And the structure that holds it together is your unit's own. Cub Scout Packs get Lion / Tiger / Wolf / Bear / Webelos / Arrow of Light dens. Scouts BSA Troops get free-form patrols. Sea Scout Ships get watches. Girl Scout Troops get Daisy / Brownie / Junior / Cadette / Senior / Ambassador levels. Each role — Cubmaster, Scoutmaster, Skipper, Crew Advisor, Troop Leader, Committee Chair, Treasurer, Cookie Manager, Den Leader, Senior Patrol Leader — shows up where it belongs. So the senior patrol leader can post to the patrol without the Scoutmaster's password, the Cookie Manager can record cookie sales without asking the Troop Leader.

CALENDAR

A calendar that collects RSVPs and money, not just dates.

Publish a campout, attach the permission slip, push it to every family's phone calendar over an iCal subscribe link. RSVPs land in a leader-readable list automatically.

SIGN-UPS

Sign-up sheets for drivers, potlucks, and gear.

Per-event slot sheets with capacity, deadlines, and one-tap claim from the family's phone. Drivers, who's bringing the cobbler, who's hauling the trailer — the things that used to be a Sunday-night group text are now a list everyone can see.

TRIP PLAN

A trip plan + meal plan + shopping list per outing.

Generate the menu, derive the shopping list, track permission slips, confirm two-deep coverage. Hand it off to a parent volunteer. Print it for the duty roster. The "who's doing what this weekend" question, answered.

03
Pillar 03 · Security

Built for minors' data, not a fitness app's.

Every architectural choice we make starts with the question “is this safe for a 12-year-old's data?” Two-deep YPT enforcement isn't a checkbox — it's wired into the schema. We treat youth-protection failures the same way payments companies treat compliance failures: they cannot happen.

See the full security model →
TWO-DEEP

YPT two-deep, enforced in the schema.

The channel-membership table refuses to add a youth-containing channel without two YPT-current adults from different households. A leader's training lapsing auto-suspends every channel they were the second adult on.

PLATFORM

Per-org isolation, encryption, and an audit log on every action.

AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.3 in transit, per-org Postgres scoping, signed unsubscribe and RSVP tokens, rotating PATs for the mobile app, append-only audit log. The boring foundations that make the chat-safety story possible.

§ Migration

Bring your 18 years of troop history with you.

We import from TroopWebHost, ScoutLander, TroopTrack, and a folder of CSVs you found on the old committee chair's laptop. White-glove migration is included on every plan — book a 30-minute call and we'll have you running by Sunday.

  • TroopWebHost
  • ScoutLander
  • TroopTrack
  • Wix / Squarespace
  • Google Sites
  • CSV / Excel
  • Scoutbook export
  • Internet Advancement
  • A shared Drive folder
§ Pricing

One price per unit — pack, troop, crew, ship, or post. No per-scout fees, ever.

MOST TROOPS
Unit
$99
/ year · 60 days free, no card required

One pack, troop, crew, ship, or post. No per-scout fees, no per-leader fees, no setup fees.

  • Public website + custom subdomain
  • Calendar with RSVPs and permission slips
  • SMS for urgent alerts · email for everything else
  • Photo library (50 GB) with per-scout privacy controls
  • Carpool & ride coordination
  • Two-deep messaging audit (YPT-aligned)
  • Scoutbook one-way sync
  • White-glove migration from your old site
Start free trial →
District
Talk to us
Multi-unit · custom

For districts, councils, and large charter orgs running several units centrally.

  • Everything in Unit, for every unit you run
  • Centralized billing & multi-unit dashboard
  • SAML SSO + SCIM provisioning
  • Custom domain per unit
  • Audit-log export
  • Dedicated migration engineer
Book a call →

501(c)(3)? You get 20% off, automatically. No per-scout fees, no setup fees, no surprise add-ons.

§ The status quo

The site your families see is your front door.

Recruiting families compare your unit to the soccer club, the Y, the music school. If your homepage looks like a 2008 phpBB install, you're losing scouts before the first parent night.

Today · Old hosting platform

Broken on phones. No HTTPS-only enforcement. No SSO. No two-deep audit. Tables for layout. Member roster behind a single shared password.

Compass · next Tuesday

Mobile-first. HTTPS-only. SAML / OIDC SSO. Two-deep messaging audit. Per-scout photo privacy. Migrates from your old hosting in an afternoon.

Free for 30 days

Set up your troop's home base before next week's meeting.

Start free trial → Talk to a person
No credit card · cancel anytime · we'll migrate your old site for free