Create Your Plan
It's time to build your plan!
Work out your timeline, budget, measurable and sustainable impact, and national and/or global link. Learn more in the Your Guide to Going Gold.
Create Your Plan
Support Files
Your council may require additional files. If the button is yellow, your council has provided additional files, so please download them now, then complete and submit them in Step 5. If the button is gray, there are not additional files and you can proceed to the next page.
Create Your Plan
Proposal Description
Share your Gold Award’s title and estimated timeline.
Create Your Plan
Proposal Description
Identify up to five themes that your Gold Award will address:
Create Your Plan
Proposal Description
Clearly describe your issue and share your reasons you selected your project.
Create Your Plan
Root Cause
<h3>What’s a root cause?</h3>
<p>The Collins English Dictionary defines "root cause" as the fundamental reason for the occurrence of a problem. In short: Root causes are an issue’s activator—they identify why an issue is happening.</p>
<p>Often you’ll have to look for the why in a lot of places in order to get to the root causes.</p>
<p><b>Example – Rachel's Gold Award</b>: <i>Rachel is passionate about ocean conservation. She asks <b>why</b> ocean pollution happens and lists several causes, including acid rain, soil runoff, and oil spills. She remembers witnessing the harmful impact of a major oil spill in her local ecosystem and decides to learn more about why oil spills happen. Rachel reaches out to experts and, after additional research, learns that a lack of safety protocols for oil storage is one of the root causes. She chooses to create a project that addresses how oil storage can be made safer to prevent spills.</i></p>
<p>Learn more in the <a href="https://www.girlscouts.org/content/dam/girlscouts-gsusa/forms-and-documents/our-program/Gold%20Award/GSUSA_Your-Guide-to-Going-Gold_2021.pdf">Your Guide to Going Gold. </a></p>
In Step 2, you identified your issue’s root cause. Share it here
along with how you plan to address it.
Create Your Plan
Target Audience
<p>
<b>Example Target Audiences <br /> </b>Your target audience may
include one or more of the following groups:</p>
<ul> <li>Adults</li> <li>Educators</li> <li>Elected officials</li>
<li>Business owners</li> <li>Infants and toddlers</li> <li>Children
of preschool age</li> <li>Children of elementary school age</li>
<li>Children of middle school age</li> <li>Retired adults</li>
<li>People with physical disabilities</li> <li>People with mental
illness</li> </ul>
<p>Make sure to be specific. For instance, you might be reaching
elementary school children in science classes, high school students in
band, or parents of kids with mental illness.<br /> </p>
<p>
<b>Stuck? Consider these possibilities, or identify your own!</b></p>
<p>Your target audience might…</p>
<ul> <li>Demonstrate a deeper understanding of the skill or issue</li>
<li>Demonstrate a change in a choice, behavior, or habit</li>
<li>Become an advocate for the issue/tell others about it</li>
<li>Become a volunteer/get involved in an actionable way</li>
<li>Teach others a new skill</li> <li>Earn a grade (in school
settings only)</li> <li>Other</li> </ul>
<p>Remember: be specific! Will your audience complete a survey or pass
a test to demonstrate a deeper understanding of a skill or issue? How
are they telling others about the issue?</p>
<p>
<b>Before you dive in, learn how your target audience likes to be addressed.</b></p>
<p>This is especially important if you’ll be working with or on behalf
of people who are marginalized by society. 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…</p>
<ul> <li>person who is deaf / deaf person (<a
href="https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.autistichoya.com%2F2011%2F08%2Fsignificance-of-semantics-person-first.html&data=02%7C01%7CNVPatel%40girlscouts.org%7Ca6c6339baf4e42f9c40308d7469451d3%7Cd1c1cd27efe24fe8a12914d0a91c2139%7C0%7C0%7C637055475151993297&sdata=Qj78t2lapF4bU4APVIPZKqhyqNa4gwJwu5%2FXctXYhjI%3D&reserved=0">read
more</a>)</li> <li>Native American / American Indian / Native person /
Indigenous person</li> <li>mixed race / biracial / multiracial</li>
<li>genderqueer / nonbinary / gender fluid</li> <li>senior citizen /
senior / older person / elder</li> </ul>
<p>Find out how the people you’re representing prefer to be
written/talked about (ideally by asking them directly), and
accommodate their preferences to the best of your ability through
every stage of your project. </p>
Detail the impact your Gold Award will have and on what target
audiences.
Create Your Plan
Defining National and/or Global link
Identifying a national and/or global link doesn’t mean you need to travel or expand your project across the globe. It’s likely that the issue you’ve been working towards addressing is relevant worldwide—it can be found in your own local, regional, or national community and across the globe, whether it’s poverty, hunger, illiteracy, homelessness, or pollution.
Create Your Plan
How to Identify your National and/or Global link
Research how other areas, communities, or countries address your issue. Seeing how other people and places implement solutions might inspire your actions and will absolutely show you a national or global connection. Consider reaching out, explaining your ideas, and asking for their advice, ideas, and even collaboration. You can use what you learn to inform your project. Plus, these kinds of partnerships can be excellent ways to ensure your project’s sustainability.
Example—Alyssa’s Gold Award:
After meeting with her local district attorney during a school field trip and learning about human trafficking, Alyssa decided to explore and address this global issue through her Gold Award. She identified that this issue is not well known enough to be correctly identified, so she produced a documentary on domestic human sex trafficking that the FBI now uses for training purposes across the nation. Alyssa worked with the FBI and local law enforcement to identify their needs for training, as well as victim advocates from around the world to discover and share best practices. Once the documentary was completed, she traveled throughout her region to build awareness of human sex trafficking.
Learn more in the Your Guide to Going Gold.
Create Your Plan
Now it’s your turn!
Create Your Plan
Define Your Measurable Goals
Your impact is measurable when you collect information or data throughout your project and use it to show that your actions have had a positive effect on the community and/or contributed to addressing your issue. So, think about what you can count in your project. How much? How many?
Create Your Plan
How to Set Measurable Goals:
Think about what you can count in order to measure the effectiveness of your project. This means that you will need to set a goal or two! That way, when you measure your results, you’ll know how effective your project was overall. Goals can feel intimidating, but remember, you’re setting them for yourself—and they are adaptable.
Example—Alyssa’s Gold Award:
Create Your Plan
Now, it’s your turn!
Measuring My Gold Award Project's Success
Determine how you’ll measure your project’s success by identifying what your target audience(s) will learn/gain, and then how and when you’ll measure that impact. Click the (+) button to get started.
| What my audience will learn/gain | How I Will Measure Impact | |||
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You need to add some measurable goal plans here
Please add at least one GoalCreate Your Plan
Defining Sustainability
Sustainability means that your project, as well as the work towards addressing your issue, carries on or continues even after you’ve done your part and earned the Gold Award. In a nutshell: you’ll put a plan in place that ensures your Gold Award creates lasting change.
Create Your Plan
How to Ensure Your Gold Award Is Sustainable:
Sustainability is not one-size-fits-all. Here are three different
ways you can ensure your project is sustainable:
- Create a permanent solution ... and ensure it’s used.
- Educate others by inspiring them to change their attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors … and prove the changes by using a measurement tool and either 1) putting a plan in place to continue the education beyond your involvement or 2) enacting a call to action
- Advocate to change a rule, regulation, or law … and engage others in your advocacy.
Example- Alyssa’s Gold Award:
Alyssa chose option 2: She educated others through showing her
documentary and facilitating presentations, measuring her audience’s
increase in awareness through a survey. Then, she ensured the
education would continue beyond her involvement when the FBI agreed to
use the documentary for ongoing training purposes.
Learn more in the Your Guide to Going Gold.
Note: Sustainability is not you continuing your project or hoping someone else will. It’s also not a collection drive or make/donate project, a fundraiser, or a standalone structure (ie. bench, mural, sign or garden).
Create Your Plan
Now, it’s your turn!
Create Your Plan
Your Project Plan
Briefly outline the steps involved in putting your plan into action, including the activity, your team’s role, resources you’ll need, and how long you expect it to take. Pro-tip: Log activities in five-hour increments or less and remember that there is a minimum of 80 hours suggested to complete a Gold Award. You’ve got this!
Note: Dates will display as the first day of the month on your proposal
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Create Your Plan
Estimated Expenses
Estimate your project expenses and how you plan to meet these costs.
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Create Your Plan
Strengths and Talents
The strengths, talents, and skills I currently have and will put into action are:
Create Your Plan
Strengths and Talents
Create Your Plan
Tell the World
I will let others know about my Gold Award (the impact of my project, what the Gold Award is and what I learned by earning it) by promoting via:
Note: This is NOT about your Gold Award’s sustainability.