Gold Award Workshop - Girl Scouts€¦ · Gold Award Committee meeting to pitch ideas, see if the idea meets standards or if it needs to be adjusted Use an email address that you

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Earning the Gold Award

A brief overview

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Congratulations

on taking the first steps toward the Gold Award!

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• This brief overview includes

–The Gold Award process

–Frequently asked questions

–Tips and resources

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CourageConfidenceCharacter

Living the Girl Scout Promise

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Making the World A

Better Place

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Have You Completed?

The Silver Award and

One Senior/Ambassador Journey?

or

Two Senior/AmbassadorJourneys?

?

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Benefits of Earning the Girl Scout Gold Award

• Experience your passion making a difference

• Your contribution will be recognized by your

community (less than 6% of Girl Scouts Achieve

the Gold Award)

• College Scholarships

• Gold Girls can enter the armed forces one rank

higher than other recruits

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Benefits of Earning the Gold Award continued

• College applications and resumes

• Use hours to apply for President’s Volunteer

Service Award

• Apply for Congressional Award (before project is

started)

• Develop life skills

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Step 1Choose an Issue that INSPIRES

you!

Step 2

Connect with the community

Step 3

Recruit a team for your project

Gather partner letters

Step 4

Proposal – Timeline - Budget

Step 5

Submit proposal to Gold Award Committee (GAC)

Feedback > Updates > Resubmit

Step 6Lead your Gold Project!

Step 7Evaluations Feedback

Final Report

Celebrate!

Quick Overview of The Process

Have you

Received

Approval to

Start from

the GAC ??

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Step 1

• Choose something you’re passionate about, that you want to change; what changes would make it better?

• Think about what issue that you would be energized and enthusiastic to spend many hours working on.

• GSUSA - http://www.girlscouts.org/en/for-girls/girls-changing-the-world.html

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Step 1

• Identify the issue’s root cause; Things happen for a reason! What is the reason?

The water moved. Why did it move? What caused the ripple?

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Step 2• Make sure there is a community need for the project

• Connect with an adult subject matter expert (not a Girl Scout leader or parent) to be your Project Advisor to bounce around project ideas. Talk to community members. Remember this is much more than a community service project!

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Step 2 continued

• Research nationally and globally: How are others addressing this issue? Is it an issue for others? Is another organization already fulfilling this need? Investigate your local surroundings.

• Think how you will share your gold award project with the world.

Change

Starts

Here

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Gold Award Ideas**Review the Businesses & organizations that work with girls

pursuing the Gold Award document on our website for ideas➢ .

➢Helping animals /pet training

➢ Recreation opportunities for youth

➢ Improving the lives of the elderly

➢Diversity and Equality

➢ Environmental Go Green Projects

➢ STEM Opportunities

➢ Enhancing schools and community

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Before girls submit proposals – they are welcome to call into the Gold Award Committee meeting to pitch ideas, see if the idea meets standards or if it needs to be adjusted

Use an email address that you will check weekly to schedule a call in time.

Please email [email protected] to request a 10-minute time slot to present or discuss your project with the Gold Award Committee.

The deadline to submit your request is the Friday before the committee meeting.

Meetings are held on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month and are open to the gold girls from 6:30 pm–7:30 pm by APPOINTMENT ONLY.

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Reach the GACProposal and Final Report Submissions

And to make an appointment with the GAC

Email: [email protected]

Updated project questions or communicate with your assigned GAC member: Contact the Gold Award

Committee

Email: [email protected]

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Step 3

• Create your team! Recruit a team of volunteers friends/adults to help implement your project

• Reach out and talk to the people you want to help and those who can help you

• Get a letter of endorsement from all partner organizations

1. To grant approval for the project

2. To document the group or person sustaining your work

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Advice for Parents

• Help girls brainstorm ideas while keeping in mind this Gold Award Project is GIRL LED

• Foster networking, collaboration and communication with organization partners. Be the community advocate for your daughter, help make introductions if necessary

• Request and collect actual donations. Gold Girls create and prepare marketing and donation materials

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Advice for Parents

• Encourage her to communicate with the Gold Award Committee for questions and challenges

• Do not be their project advisor unless you are an expert on the topic

• Parents should NOT make phone calls or decisions for Gold Girls. They should not write the proposal or final

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Make sure your project is…

• Sustainable- Does it make a long term change? Does

your project or advocacy continue beyond your

involvement? Will others benefit for years and years?

• Focusing on a need beyond the Girl Scout

Community

• Inspiring others to take action

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Make sure your project is also

• Measurable- Can you measure how many people you

helped or involved, and the impact on a community?

• Global- 1. Link your issue to national and/or global

issues and 2. Share results beyond the local

community (using methods other than just YouTube,

Facebook and the Internet)

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Standard of Excellence

Your challenge is to develop yourself as a leader, achieve your Girl Scout leadership outcomes, and make a mark on your community that creates a lasting impact on the lives of others.

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Step 4 Key in Your Proposal

• Complete Timeline detailing how you will reach 80+ hours of effort on your project. Your plan.i.e. August 2019 > Plan to research community gardens worldwide that attract butterflies during migration > 3.25 hours

• Start Time Log – This is actual time spent i.e. August 2019 > Met with John Dromgoole at Natural Gardner to learn about plants butterflies are attracted to in Texas; Brought my dad to ask for donation > 1.75 hours

• Budget needs to match exactlyi.e. Income = $134.52 and Expenses = $134.52 (Refer to FAQ for detailed information)

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Step 4 continued

• Use the GSCTX Gold Award Proposal Form; you can find it by doing a quick search on the GSCTX website

• Proposal must be typed or keyed in

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Step 5 Submitting Your Proposal

• Make a strong first impression on the Gold Award committee (GAC) with a well-organized, formatted, thought out, neat and well-written proposal.

• Remember, you are writing to someone who doesn’t know anything about what you plan to do so the more detail the better. Have someone read it that knows nothing about it to assess if there are gaps and for comprehension of detail. If your service unit has a Gold Award Consultant, ask that person to review it with you.

• Match the budget income and expenses exactly.

• Complete the Money earning application ONLY if you are raising money.

• Include a scanned letter or email from your community partner/s in support of your project.

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Step 5 continues

• Submit by 5:00pm on the Friday before the scheduled meeting date to be reviewed at the Committee meeting.

The Gold Award Committee (GAC) meets between 6:30pm -7:30 pm each month on the 1st and 3rd

Wednesdays.

• Use an email address that you will check weekly. The GAC will primarily correspond with you via email.

• Proposal and Final Report Submissions Email: [email protected]

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Leadership The skills you learn will rock any role you take on

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Step 6

• Be prepared to go outside of your comfort zone

• Lead, educate, train, inspire, network, collaborate, have fun!

• Management of Time and Team is Essential; Make adjustments along the way. Maintain your Time Log

• 80 hours of girl led leadership; Team is to support you –track the team’s hours separately

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Step 6 continued

• Document your project; take photos & keep a blog, journal or notes

• Ask for evaluations from your team

• Measure your results along the way

• Share nationally/globally. Your efforts will continue and be sustained through others.

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The Snowball Effect

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Step 7Final Report!

• Complete the Final Report found on the GSCTX website. Use the MS Word format for easier development. Please no hard copies. GAC members are remote and need access to the report online.

• Submit Final Report by email by March 1 in order to attend the GSCTX ceremony (keep in mind other deadlines you may have including college and scholarship applications)

• Include: All supporting documentation used or gathered during project AND photos of events, workshops, and your project in action

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• Be a guest of honor at

council’s annual Gold Award ceremony

• Invite your family, friends and others who helped you earn your Gold Award

Celebrate!

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Quotes from Girl Scout Gold Award Recipients

• “Every student deserves a chance to learn and grow without worries for food, clothing and transportation. My goal was to provide at least some of these basic resources and to let those students know they are supported in their community. I also wanted to raise awareness of the problem so as to create a better understanding of real-life situations that many of our peers face every day. I am proud of the work being continued and expanded throughout the entire vertical team. It truly takes a village and that village is now better aware of the needs within it!” Solana O 2016

• “I learned a bit of patience dealing with other people and helping them along.” Lauren W 2015

• "Through Girl Scouts I have learned so much. It taught me communication skills, confidence in myself, and let me meet many new girls I would have never met and become lifelong friends with.” Julie M, 2016

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Gold Award Projects FAQ’s

The GSCTX Gold Award Committee has worked since 2012 to help keep projects on track and in line with the National Gold Award Project’s standards. With that in mind -

• We do not support group projects

• We do not support “just” building something (i.e., picnic tables, bat houses, trails). The project needs to entail more than a structure.

• A one time event by itself is NOT sustainable. Education and change might come in the form of a curriculum or handout that the gold girl creates for continued training. Your project must have an educational component.

• We do not support projects that benefit the Girl Scouting community.

• We want girls to research how the project connects locally, nationally and globally.

• A partner organization MUST sustain the project. – Either a benefiting agency or a club/group that will continue to “facilitate and educate”

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Where does the for the project come from?Projects are usually funded by the girl and often her family. We encourage the girls to use their own money to have a vested interest in the project. The money can be from jobs, troop funds if scouts vote on it, and mini-grants from service units if appropriate

If a girl wants to use an outside method to raise money she must have sold Cookies AND Fall Products; A Money Earning Application MUST be filled out. (This application is included in the proposal form)

GS Dough as a funding source for the Gold Award is NOT allowed. Since girls cannot privately benefit from participating in Product Sales, allowing a girl to use the GS Dough incentive to pay for her specific Gold Award project would be against IRS regulations.

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Where does the for the project come from? continued

• Family grants or individual girl scout’s personal funds from part-time job

• Donation from a partner organization- Contact GSCTX for grants

• Money raised as part of the troop (needs Troop approval) The Troop must have participated in both Fall Product sales and Cookie sales and the gold girl must have sold at least one Fall Product Unit and one box of Girl Scout cookies.

• Mini-grants or Youth Grants

• Facilitate a money earning project – after council product sales (both Cookie and Fall Product).

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Money Earning Application• You will find it in the gold award proposal /

application

• Please refer to the money earning and fundraising document

• When included with the Gold Award proposal, the GAC will review and approve the form. They will send the form to your Membership Development Executive and your Service Unit Director.

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Are you funding with a partner

organization? Remember . . .

• YOU can NOT raise money for them.

• You can help create the materials

• You can identify the “who” to market to

• You can NOT do the asking for $$ donations

• It is reported on your budget as money from the partner for the project.

• You can count the time you spend on this in your time log. Yeah!!!

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Tools and Resources

• Review the Gold Award guidelines, tips and tools on our website under the awards section.

• Gold Award Proposal FAQ’s

• http://www.gsctx.org/girls/awards under Resources

– Financial Guidelines

– Safety Activity Checkpoints:

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Reach the GAC

Questions: Contact the Gold Award Committee

Email: [email protected]

Proposal and Final Report Submissions

Email: [email protected]

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Thank youRemember to complete the online evaluation to receive credit as having completed the workshop.

Girl Scouts of Central Texas is proud that you have taken these first steps toward the Gold Award Project.

Thank you in advance for

demonstrating your leadership skills and making a difference in your community!

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More Quotes from Girl Scout Gold Award Recipients

“My club at the school will continue to engender school age girls to be active in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and expand their horizons. I created a sustainable and beneficial foundation of girls to be inspired and get involved in expanding female influences at school and around our community.

The club will be sustained at the high school level by new members taking over as seniors graduate, our teacher sponsor’s continued support, and the affiliation with the longstanding Inventor’s Club on campus. The community now has, and will continue to have, a larger amount of girls empowered to take action in math and the sciences.

Pick a topic that you feel passionate about, because you will devote a large majority of time and soul into this project. Never be afraid to ask for help from volunteers and troop members. Chances are if you are passionate about something, so is someone else who would love to get involved. This isn’t a project to get just for the prestige of saying you earned it, it is a chance to inspire change. When you face a great challenge, which you undoutbtably will, do not give up. Look for a different perspective, because from a different angle a mountain might seem like a molehill.