Core Strategy

As Girl Scouts works to develop a nimble, single-entry volunteer system that will make it easier to recruit and retain quality volunteers, councils around the nation are testing three volunteer support models that offer new ways to structure and organize volunteers.

Long the lifeblood of Girl Scouting, volunteers serve as leaders as well as trainers and coordinators. The organization now relies on the services of nearly a million volunteers, many of them “administrative volunteers” who provide support to Girl Scout leaders.

Girl Scout volunteers are now structured into Service Units, an organizational model created 50 years ago that relied heavily on women who did not work outside the home, explains Karen White, GSUSA’s manager of volunteer systems. As women joined the workforce in growing numbers, especially in urban and rural areas, Service Units started to fall apart. “And they didn’t just fall apart recently," White says. "They’ve been falling apart for years.”

Girl Scouts is now aiming for alternative ways to structure volunteers that will increase its overall ability to motivate and retain them. As White says, “The organization wants volunteers to have a good experience and to hopefully stay for a while.”

When the pilot programs were announced in February 2005, 54 councils asked to take part. Fifteen were chosen based on their health and stability – in short, their ability to pilot test the models. “We were looking for councils that were strong and already looking at their volunteer structures,” White said. One council has since opted out of the pilot.

Grants of $25,000 per council were available to fund 11 participating councils. Those grants have been used to create Web sites, post documents online where volunteers can easily reach them, host adult recruitment events and hire part-time workers. Three additional councils are also taking part in the pilot, but without grant funding.

Getting the Community Involved
One of the new volunteer structures being tested is the Community Support Model, which divides a broad network of volunteer support among three key teams:

Each team is connected to, and includes a member of, a central Support Services Team made up of a communication specialist, financial consultants and product sales specialist and a staff person who serves as liaison between the Support Services Team and the council.

The Community Advisory Team, comprised of key community members, also shares information with council staff and about what is needed for girls in their community. The community members, in turn, "get to see more of what Girl Scouting is about," White says. "They go back to their constituency and say, “Girl Scouting is great, let’s get involved.”

Integrated Team: Partnering Staff, Volunteers
The second pilot model, the Integrated Team Model, partners volunteers and staff in their areas of expertise. In this way, volunteer and staff roles mirror each other in the areas of membership, program, and volunteer development in order to deliver quality program to girls and adults in a specified geographic area. Each geographic area has both an Integrated Staff Team and an Integrated Volunteer Team representing three main functions:

• Membership (recruitment of girls and adults)
• Program (quality GS activities for girls), and
• Volunteer development (learning opportunities for adults)
  

Each team also includes a coordinator to facilitate information and coordinate services.

LAVA Model
A third pilot program, the Latino Adult Volunteer Advancement, or LAVA, model restructures the way Latino volunteers are introduced to and participate in Girl Scouting by bringing Latino volunteers in at the trainer/mentor level. As trainers/mentors, the volunteers:

• Help facilitate communication between the council and the community
• Recruit, support, train, and mentor Latino volunteers, new leaders, parents, and girls, and
• Provide community cultivation and bilingual training

Volunteers at the trainer/mentor level are coached and supported by a LAVA staff coordinator.

The LAVA model, which is being tested by Northwest Georgia and Connecticut Trails councils, follows a three-phase approach:

• Phase 1: Setting the Stage includes appointing the LAVA Project Coordinator, conducting cultural competency training for staff and trainers, and identifying new resources that might be needed.
• Phase 2: Making the connection involves cultivating the community, building relationships within it, identifying potential trainers/mentors, and recruiting volunteers.
• Phase 3: Implementing the Plan involves conducting ‘train the trainer’ courses in Spanish for new LAVA volunteers with sections on recruiting and mentoring, the recruitment of direct service volunteers, and assigning LAVA volunteers as mentors to new leaders.

Key accomplishments
Councils are already seeing success with the pilot programs. Key accomplishments to date include:

• Michigan Waterways has consolidated seven service units into one new Girl Scout Network and given its Community Support Model the new name of Girl Scout Network: Community Support for Girls (GSN).
• Citrus has invited five community partners on board -- the local Boys & Girls Club, Osceola Department of Parks & Recreation, representative from the County Commissioner’s Office, Police Department and Disney University Community Service Department. The council was also invited to sit on the Osceola Youth Action Committee.
• Northwest Georgia has recruited five bilingual volunteers to serve as trainers and has teamed up with the Dalton Soccer League, the majority of whose members are Hispanic, so that Girl Scout activities now take place directly after soccer games.

Co-leads for the pilot councils and a few additional councils that have been reworking their volunteer structures will meet August 14-17 to discuss their accomplishments and plan next steps.