Goodman is best remembered today for having created the Order of the Arrow (OA), a popular and highly successful program of the BSA that continues to honor Scouts for their cheerful service.

Since its founding in 1915, the Order of the Arrow has grown to become a nationwide program having thousands of members, which recognizes those Scouts who best exemplify the virtues of cheerful service, camping, and leadership by membership in BSA's honor society.

[1] He enjoyed writing and began keeping a detailed journal of daily activities during his senior year of high school, expressing his aspirations for the future along with occasional doubts.

"[1] Just barely out of his teens, Goodman became a popular and highly respected Sunday school teacher and led the Philadelphia chapter of a young men's group called the Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip.

[3] On June 18, 1920, Goodman married Louise Wynkoop Waygood, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and a 1918 honors graduate of Swarthmore College.

He cited Scouting's service in the war effort and extolled the movement as "absolutely nonpartisan, nonsectarian, and democratic", bringing together "diverse elements".

[1] On April 1, 1931, Goodman was promoted by Chief Scout Executive James E. West to become national program director of the BSA, as part of an organizational restructuring.

In addition to overseeing the innovative event itself, Goodman's public relations service did yeoman work to ensure extensive news media coverage.

[1] When the venerable youth leader and longtime National Scout Commissioner Daniel Carter Beard died shortly before his 91st birthday in June 1941, Goodman was selected to be in charge of the beloved pioneer's funeral in Suffern, New York.

An estimated 2,000 people lined the funeral route to the cemetery in Monsey, New York, where 127 Boy Scouts formed an honor guard and assisted with traffic control.

[12] As war clouds cast an ominous shadow over Europe in the late 1930s amidst the rise of fascism, West, Goodman, and other BSA leaders considered how Scouting might better train youth in democratic principles of government.

Referring to the Nazi Kristallnacht rampage against Jews in 1938, Goodman wrote shortly afterwards: "...the program of persecution has stirred up our hearts and minds as nothing else that has happened before has done.

[13][14] On September 16, 1951, Goodman retired as national program director, ending a professional Scouting career spanning 36 years.

He also whimsically dubbed the camp's rowboats and canoes the Treasure Island "Navy", with a Council executive sailing the "flagship" down the Delaware River.

Reflecting Goodman's ongoing interest in music, he composed the words to the Order of the Arrow's song, "Firm Bound in Brotherhood", set to the stirring melody of a hymn found in the Presbyterian hymnal of the 1920s, "God the Omnipotent" in 11.10.11.9 meter, which was adapted from the Russian national anthem, "God Save the Tsar!

By September 1922, opposition to the Order of the Arrow was such that a formal resolution opposing "camp fraternities" was proposed at a national meeting of Scout executives.

The citation said, in part, "As the founder of the Order of the Arrow, through his ability, wisdom, and foresight, his vision of service to others was transformed into a national honor brotherhood which has been a positive influence in the lives of thousands of boys...".

[21][22] Kenneth Davis, in his book The Brotherhood of Cheerful Service: A History of the Order of the Arrow, concludes that the National Council's approval in 1948 "...was due largely to his [Goodman's] personal efforts and recommendation...".

[3] Over the decades since the Order of the Arrow's founding, more than one million Scouts and Scouters have worn the OA sash on their uniforms, denoting membership in the Brotherhood of Cheerful Service.

By the end of 1952, United Church Men departments were formed in more than 24 states, providing financial support to NCC-affiliated colleges and missionary work.

[26] In 1965, Goodman wrote The Building of a Life, a collection of reminiscences recounting some of his Scouting experiences and giving advice to young men.

Summing up his years in Scouting and church work, he wrote, "In the last analysis, it is the things of the spirit rather than material possessions that count.

Acclaimed as an eloquent orator, his keynote addresses at the OA's biennial National Order of the Arrow Conferences reportedly made an unforgettable impression upon his youthful audiences.

[27] Nelson Block writes in A Thing of the Spirit, that even in the 1970s the octogenarian founder "crisscrossed the country to attend lodge and section events... surrounded by young Arrowmen...witty and charming, keeping everyone enthralled with his stories.

"[1] Displaying his self-deprecating humor, Goodman himself was more prosaic about all of the adulation he received at OA gatherings, writing that, "to many of the young men I was a museum piece.

[8]He continued speaking with OA members until shortly before his death at age 88, when he succumbed to pneumonia on March 13, 1980, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

Up until 2004, the BSA administered the E. Urner Goodman Scholarship Fund program, providing financial grants towards the college education of Arrowmen aspiring to professional Scouting careers.