Global Impact

The last couple of Gold Award Proposals our committee has reviewed haven’t had a strong global impact and one of the Girl Scouts I am mentoring who is working on wrapping up her project has also struggled with global impact.

Global Impact can be interpreted in different ways.  In our council, we look to see how a Girl Scout has shared her project outside of her community.  Sometimes that means outside of her school or outside of her town. A post on Facebook, creation of a video shared on YouTube, or creation of a website doesn’t necessarily meet expectations for global impact.  These are all opportunities to have a resource that can be shared (and maybe part of sustainability), but just creating the resource without sharing doesn’t give the resource the opportunity to have a global impact.

For example, one of the young ladies I am working with has put a lot of time and effort into creating a document listing different educational apps as a tool for teachers and students to use to support the learning process.  She created a google doc for the information to be easily shared, but only a few teachers at her school are aware of the document. She is going to work with her teachers to get the resource shared with the state teacher association so that all teachers in the state have access.

It can be difficult to specifically identify global impact during the proposal writing.  Think about who your project advisor is and what resources they may have access to. Perhaps there are newsletters, listservs (electronic bulletin boards where people share ideas), or other communication opportunities to do a write up about your outcomes and share with others.  There could be a regional, state, or national meeting that would allow you to present or have a booth to share your ideas. Although booths often have a charge, if you work with the event organizers, they may be willing to waive those fees.

Don’t be afraid to think big!  We had a Girl Scout that had a STEM-related Gold Award with a piece that related to hot air ballooning.  She got a write up that was featured in a national ballooning magazine.  

Just like having a root cause to help center your project’s purpose, find the main takeaways from your project and think about where sharing information could happen.

The proposal is just that, an outline of your plan.  If you find you are not able to achieve what you have laid out in your proposal, come up with an alternative to meet the requirement for global impact.  Depending on your council, if the change is significant enough you may want to check in to make sure the change will still be acceptable. You wouldn’t want to make a major change and put a lot of effort into it to find out it doesn’t meet the goals that are laid out.