BIGGER AND BETTER THAN EVER!

Spring is in the air, and it’s that time again: time to look back at this past year in Campus Girl Scouting and see how much we’ve done.  Four years ago, some 33 Campus Girl Scout groups connected by the email group provided programming opportunities to over 8,400 girls. This year, thanks to some great outreach efforts by various other CGS groups, we have more groups connected than ever! 

Together, we really do make a difference.

What each group does alone may seem fairly insignificant, but each girl we touch with our programming efforts makes a difference.  Adding It Up is an effort to put all the little bits and pieces together to see how big an impact we really do make in the lives of Girl Scouts across the country.  What we ask is that each group total up how many girls it has served in the past year (the 2005-2006 school/membership year) and send that information to the Info Center.  Some general counting rules are available to help us all count in a consistent manner.  We also ask for some basic demographic information on your group to help build a better picture of what and who CGS is.

Why do we want this information? What do we do with it?  Well, the basic reason is that it’s a ‘hard statistic.’ That 8,400 is a rather impressive number—all the more so when you realize that it’s larger than the total membership of over a third of all Girl Scout councils.  ‘Number of girls served’ is a concept that councils— and GSUSA— understand well. It means something to them, and that something is what we can use to help push for more, and more effective, support of the Campus Girl Scout program. By gathering information about the overall state of CGS, we can make a better case for overall changes and support.  We can demonstrate our impact in terms that are consistent with the mission and function of Girl Scout councils.

This year, we’ve developed a standard form for data submission; we’ll start taking submissions now. You can copy the survey here. The results of the Adding it Up campaign (as collected through May 1st) will be announced here on our website. We'll keep a running total so that you can see the number add up!

Questions? Want to help? Email us!