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.
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: it’s the reason your issue exists—it’s your issue’s trigger. </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
Your project has a national and/or global link when you can explain how it connects to an issue that is relevant worldwide. Remember: local to global to local. Global issues don’t just happen “somewhere else.” You can address a global issue that is evident in your local and/or national community, like poverty, hunger, illiteracy, homelessness, or climate injustice.
Create Your Plan
How to Identify your National and/or Global link
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.
Create Your Plan
Now it’s your turn!
Create Your Plan
Define Your Measurable Goals
Your project is measurable when you collect information, or data, throughout your project and use it to show that your actions have had an impact on the community issue you’ve chosen. So, think about what you can count in your project. How much? How many?
Create Your Plan
How to Set Measurable Goals:
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
Your project is sustainable when it carries on or continues to have impact, even after you’ve done your part. In a nutshell, you create lasting change.
Create Your Plan
How to Ensure Your Gold Award Is Sustainable:
Sustainability is having a plan
- A school or organization agreeing to continue your Gold Award
- Creating materials (ie: a binder, pamphlet, video,
website, or social media campaign) to be used as a resource and/or
to continue to engage others with your issue
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
- A standalone structure (ie: bench, mural, sign or garden)
Example—Alyssa’s Gold Award :
- Documentary that the FBI agreed to use for ongoing training purposes
- The awareness and tools her audiences gained by her presentations.
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!
| Date | Activity | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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{{ item.resources }}
{{ item.hoursOfWork }} hour(s)
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Create Your Plan
Estimated Expenses
Estimate your project expenses and how you plan to meet these costs.
| Item | Estimated Amount in $ (numbers only) | ||
|---|---|---|---|
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{{ item.source }}
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$ {{ item.amount }} |
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.