
Highest Awards - FAQ
Find quick answers to your questions about Girl Scouting's Highest Awards : the Girl Scout Gold Award , Silver Award , and Bronze Award .
The time it takes to earn the awards depends on the nature of the project, size of the team, and degree of community support. The quality of projects should be emphasized over the number of hours spent on them. As a guide, the suggested minimum number of hours are:
Yes, Take Action projects for the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Awards may benefit the Girl Scout community. However, there is a specific award progression that should be honored: Take Action projects for the Bronze Award may focus on service in support of the Girl Scout Movement, while Take Action projects for the Silver and Gold Awards are expected to reach into the community to “make the world a better place.” At the Silver and Gold Award levels, a Girl Scout should first consider issues they’re passionate about in the community, school, and world. Then, they should investigate the issue to uncover its root cause, connect with the community to begin developing a solution, and enlist their team. As they develop a project plan, they will determine their target audience. It’s at this step that they might decide Girl Scouts is the best audience or beneficiary.
Overall, award progression offers younger Girl Scouts the opportunity to develop their planning and leadership skills within the comfort and familiarity of Girl Scouting or another local community. As they mature, Cadettes, Seniors, and Ambassadors are ready to move beyond the Girl Scout family to share their leadership skills—and impact—with the wider community. It is in fully exploring their communities that they exemplify the Girl Scout mission.
Any adult is welcome to use the adult guides, which were designed for volunteers working directly with Girl Scouts earning their awards. Note that there are guides specifically tailored to how parents/caretakers (PDF), project advisors (PDF), and troop/group leaders (PDF) can support Girl Scouts in pursuit of the Gold Award.
Registered Girl Scout Seniors or Ambassadors.
The best way to make sure Girl Scouts are working at the best of their abilities is to ensure that both they and their adult support system (parent/caregivers, troop/group volunteer, and/or project advisors) receive orientation about the award and understand the difference between community service and a Girl Scout Bronze, Silver, and Gold Award Take Action project. It’s the responsibility of the troop/group volunteer, council staff member, and/or Gold Award committee to work with Girl Scouts to ensure they meet the quality requirements of the award.
Note that Take Action and community service are different—and both are essential to Girl Scouting. When Girl Scouts perform community service, they respond to an immediate need in a one-off, “doing for” capacity; with Take Action, they explore the root causes of a community need and address one in a sustainable way.
Community service |
Take Action |
Addresses an immediate need |
Addresses a root cause of an issue |
One time; short term |
Sustainable/ongoing impact |
FOR the community (e.g., collecting blankets for a local animal shelter) |
WITH the community (e.g., partnering with the animal shelter to create a solution—raising awareness about the importance of spaying/neutering pets; hosting adoption events—to eliminate the need for short-term fixes altogether) |
“service project” |
“service learning” |
Cadette/Senior/Ambassador Community Service Bars |
Gold, Silver, and Bronze Awards |
A troop/group volunteer is an adult who works with Girl Scouts. Once a Girl Scout identifies an issue, the troop/group volunteer might help them identify a person in the community who could be a great project advisor.
A project advisor is an adult who chooses to be on a Girl Scout’s Gold Award team who has some level of expertise of the issue the Girl Scout’s project addresses. Parents, caregivers, or troop leaders of girls pursuing their Gold Award cannot be advisors. Adult siblings and family members like aunts and uncles can sometimes be advisors if they are experts on the issue the Girl Scout is exploring. However, we encourage Girl Scouts to reach outside their familiar circles and grow their networks when possible.
A project advisor offers a Girl Scout guidance and expertise as needed, during the planning and execution of their Gold Award project. Note that it’s important that the project and its core ideas be the Girl Scout’s own.
Girl Scouts are encouraged to connect with others in their communities in working toward the Gold Award. That means working with a project advisor who is not their parent/caregiver.
The project advisor should be identified in the planning phase before the Gold Award project proposal is turned in to the council. The project advisor expands the network of adults and provides expertise for a project. If a Girl Scout has a project idea before they start any work toward the Gold Award, they might want to identify a project advisor at the very beginning.
Sustainability means that the project, as well as the work put toward addressing the issue the Girl Scout has chosen, carries on or continues even after the Girl Scout has done their part and earned the Gold Award. In a nutshell: the Girl Scout will put a plan in place that ensures their Gold Award creates lasting change. Sustainability is not one-size-fits-all. Review three different ways Girl Scouts can ensure their projects are sustainable on pages 6–7 of the Your Guide to Going Gold (PDF).
A project is measurable when a Girl Scout collects information or data throughout their project and uses it to show that their actions have had a positive impact on the community and/or contributed to addressing their chosen issue. Learn more on page 7 of the Your Guide to Going Gold (PDF).
Identifying a national and/or global link doesn’t mean a Girl Scout needs to travel or expand their project across the globe. It’s likely that the issue the Girl Scout has been working toward addressing is relevant worldwide—it can be found in their own local, regional, or national community and across the globe, whether it’s poverty, hunger, illiteracy, homelessness, or pollution.
Girl Scouts should research how other areas, communities, or countries address their issues. Seeing how other people and places implement solutions might inspire their actions and will show them a national or global connection. Girl Scouts can consider reaching out, explain their ideas, and ask for advice, ideas, and even collaboration. Girl Scouts can use what they learn to inform their projects. Plus, these kinds of partnerships can be excellent ways to ensure their project’s sustainability. You can find an example on page 5 of the Your Guide to Going Gold (PDF).
Yes, they just need to be a registered Girl Scout Senior or Ambassador to begin working toward their Gold Award.
If, as part of their project, a Girl Scout will be working with or on behalf of people who are marginalized by society, they should be sure to seek out these peoples’ preferences (ideally by asking them directly) for how they like to be addressed. Different groups—and different people within a given group—have different preferences when it comes to how they like to be talked and written about. For example:
Once they have determined any such preferences, they should accommodate them to the best of their ability through every stage of the project.
A Gold Award candidate cannot be both a girl member of Girl Scouts and enrolled in college. A Girl Scout adult, according to Girl Scout guidelines, is either 18 years of age or a high school graduate. To that end, Girl Scouts have until they turn 18 or until the end of their last Girl Scout membership year (September 30 of the year they graduated high school) to complete their Gold Award project.
Note that a Girl Scout who is 19 or older and in 12th grade can continue to be a girl member and earn the Gold Award.
In this case they would have until September 30 of the year they graduated high school to complete their Gold Award project.