Facts | Going from Good to Great

In June 2004, Girl Scout leadership enlisted the services of Willie Pietersen, a professor of the Practice of Management at Columbia Business School, to help Girl Scouts develop a strategy to ensure our future success and growth. After identifying Girls Scouts' strengths, challenges, and imperatives for success, we zeroed in on five strategic priorities that now represent our organization's focus:

1. Program Model and Pathways: Building the best-integrated personal leadership development model that defines activities and outcomes, differentiated by age-level, for girls 5-17, and offers flexible pathways for participation.
2. Volunteerism: Developing a nimble, state-of-the-art model of volunteerism that mobilizes a variety of volunteers committed to the Girl Scout Mission.
3. Brand: Transforming the Girl Scout image with a compelling, contemporary brand.
4. Funding: Substantially increasing contributed income to fund a vibrant Girl Scout organization.
5. Organizational Structure and Governance: Creating an efficient and effective organizational structure and democratic governance system.

IMPLEMENTATION: The Gap Teams
Six Gap Teams – comprised of a variety of Girl Scout members from all levels, functions, and geographic regions of the organization, and now totalling more than 60 people – are setting our transformation in motion. They are getting feedback from many of you and analyzing our work in order to identify any “gaps” between how we do things now and the ideal ways to accomplish our objectives now and in the future.

The Gap Teams are charged with identifying the transformations needed to move Girl Scouts from the organization it is now to the organization it will be. Five of the teams are each focusing on one of the strategic priorities identified above. The sixth team is focused on ways to improve our organization's culture, making it a key component of the broader transformation of Girl Scouts.

PROGRESS: Moving Forward
The Gap Teams began meeting in January 2005 and have made great progress. They've been conducting research, exploring options and models, working with an external content expert, initiating early actions, and formulating a plan for the future.

The six teams came together on July 6-7, 2005, to share their work and brainstorm ways to coordinate their efforts. The group came to the collective realization that the work of each team greatly impacts, and supports, all the other team efforts.

Each team now has a timeline for carrying out the work it wants to accomplish. The six timelines extend through the end of 2008 and will be incorporated into a master project plan that will allow us to view the work as a whole. The goal of all teams is to bring their efforts together over the next six to 12 months, forming one large effort that can be incorporated into our ongoing business and, ultimately, set the strategy for the future of Girl Scouting.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Visit http://strategy.girlscouts.org regularly for the latest news and updates on the Core Business Strategy.