Girl Scouts is such an iconic organization that it's easy to overlook how daring an idea it was for founder Juliette Gordon Low to gather those first 18 girls in that troop in Savannah, Georgia. It was 1912, after all, and women wouldn't earn the right to vote for another eight years.

Too often, nonprofits are viewed as rigid and bureaucratic - less nimble and capable of adapting in this fluid environment than our corporate counterparts. I don't agree.

At Girl Scouts, we are committed to raising awareness about the terrible effects of cyber bullying, and to teaching girls how to recognize the signs of bullying of any sort and extricate themselves or another from a bad situation before it spirals out of control and ends in tragedy.

Unless and until our society recognizes cyber bullying for what it is, the suffering of thousands of silent victims will continue.

What gets posted online is not short term, and is open for easy misinterpretation. Messages and pictures spread faster through the Internet than they ever could by word of mouth.

Sometimes when I speak to groups or I'm interviewed by a journalist, I ask them to imagine their communities without Girl Scouts - to imagine the thousands of food drives and clothing and toy collections that would never take place if not for Girl Scouts.

At Girl Scouts, we create leaders.