Volunteer Essentials: Chapter 2

Girl Scouting 101

This chapter gives you a quick and easy introduction to Girl Scouting, including the following information:

  • Who can join Girl Scouts and how girls and volunteers can participate
  • What important dates are on the Girl Scout calendar
  • How Girl Scouts is organized

Who Can Join Girl Scouts–and How!

Any girl—from kindergarten through 12th grade—can join Girl Scouts. Girl Scouts is about sharing the fun, friendship, and power of girls and women together, whether that’s a girl in the United States or an American girl living overseas. Volunteers are also a diverse group, and may be a college volunteer working on a community action project, a parent volunteer ready for an outdoor adventure with her daughter’s group, or any responsible adult (female or male, who has passed the necessary application process) looking to make a difference in a girl’s life.

What all members share, whether girls or adults, are the Girl Scout Promise and Law. Each member also agrees to follow safety guidelines and pay the annual membership dues of $12 (or you can purchase a lifetime membership for $300).

After they join, girls team up in the following grade levels:

Across the country, the Girl Scout community is hard at work on a whole new approach to making sure that everyone can participate in Girl Scouting in the ways they want to. Both girls and adult volunteers can choose from several flexible ways to participate—called “pathways”—that offer the freedom to tailor your level of involvement to fit your schedule and lifestyle. (You can also volunteer behind-the-scenes, working in your council office, instead of volunteering directly with girls.)

Girls can choose any one, all, or some of these pathways (camp, events, series, troop, travel, and virtual)* within a single membership year, while you have the option of partnering with girls throughout a membership year or committing to an opportunity for only a few weeks or months. (*Note that the virtual pathway is still in development.)

Did You Know?

Girl Scouts has always been committed to ensuring that all girls who want to be a Girl Scout can be. We reach out in a variety of unique ways to make sure that happens. Learn about our council's outreach programs!

Here are a few examples of happenings around the country:

  • Challenge and Change: Funded in rural communities through a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this program uses the GSLE to emphasize social entrepreneurial opportunities.
  • Girl Scouts Beyond Bars: For more than fifteen years, Girl Scouts, in partnership with the National Institute of Justice, has provided girls with an opportunity to visit their incarcerated mothers and take part in troop meetings.
  • Girl Scouts in Detention Centers: This program brings the GSLE to girls in juvenile detention centers.

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Girl Scout Calendar

Girl Scouts celebrate three special birthdays each year, which you’re encouraged to include in your group planning.

  • February 22: World Thinking Day (the birthday of both Lord Baden-Powell and Lady Olave Baden-Powell, the originators of Boy Scouts and the Scouting Movement worldwide).
  • March 12: The birthday of Girl Scouting in the USA. The first troop meeting was held in Savannah, Georgia, on this date in 1912. Read more history.
  • April 22: Volunteer Leader Appreciation Day—this day is set aside especially for you!
  • October 31: Founder’s Day (Juliette Gordon Low’s birthday).

Note that Girl Scout Week begins the Sunday before March 12 (a day known as “Girl Scout Sunday”) and extends through the Saturday following March 12 (a day known as “Girl Scout Sabbath”).

World Thinking Day

World Thinking Day, first created in 1926, offers a special day for Girl Scouts and Girl Guides from around the world to “think” of each other and give thanks and appreciation to their sister Girl Scouts. February 22 is the mutual birthday of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement, and his wife, Olave, who served as World Chief Guide.

Today, girls show their appreciation and friendship on World Thinking Day not only by extending warm wishes but also by offering a voluntary contribution to the Juliette Low World Friendship Fund, which helps offer Girl Guiding/Girl Scouting to more girls and young women worldwide.

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Girl Scouts' Organizational Structure

Girl Scouts is the world’s largest organization of and for girls, and it currently encompasses 2.6 million girl members and nearly one million volunteers! Two core structures support all these members: local councils and the national headquarters.

Local Councils

Local Girl Scout councils are chartered by the national office to establish local responsibility for leadership, administration, and supervision of the program, and to develop, manage, and maintain Girl Scouting in a geographic area. As a volunteer, it is through your Girl Scout council (GSCTX) that you will have the most contact. See staff and program center contact information.

However, the national office also provides resources, especially those you can find online at www.girlscouts.org. In addition, councils are provided with program and other support resources by the national office to ensure that what is delivered through the councils is nationally consistent for all girls across the country.

Girl Scouts of Central Texas (GSCTX)

GSCTX serves more than 20,000 girls in 46 Central Texas counties: Austin, Bastrop, Bell, Blanco, Bosque, Brazos, Brown, Burleson, Burnet, Caldwell, Coke, Coleman, Colorado, Comanche, Concho, Coryell, Erath, Falls, Fayette, Gillespie, Grimes, Hamilton, Hays, Irion, Lampasas, Lee, Leon, Limestone, Llano, Madison, Mason, McCulloch, McLennan, Menard, Milam, Mills, Robertson, Runnels, San Saba, Schleicher, Sterling, Sutton, Tom Green, Travis, Washington and Williamson.

GSCTX was officially formed on October 1, 2007 in the realignment of four Central Texas councils. To best serve all its members, GSCTX provides many facilities available for Girl Scouts. Learn more about GSCTX's vision and the history of Girl Scouting in Central Texas.

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Key Messages & Service Mark Guidelines

Key Messages
Using consistent key messages in our communication materials will help ensure that we are all communicating with a strong and unified brand voice.

Girl Scout Mission: Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place.

GSCTX Vision: To provide the best outcomes-based leadership opportunities for girls.

GSCTX Brand Positioning Statement: Inspiring the leader in every girl.

GSCTX Four Focus Areas: 

  • Girls Go Green – Girl Scouts are community leaders dedicated to responsible citizenship with a special focus on environmental awareness and using resources wisely.
  • Girls Go Tech – All Girl Scouts are encouraged to take an interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) in preparation to lead a digital world.
  • Girls Go Creative – Girl Scouts explore the fine arts and learn how creativity is the key to self-discovery and innovation.
  • Girls Grow Strong – Girl Scouts develop the personal strength and self-confidence required to lead others in building a stronger community.

The Three Keys to Girl Scouting: Girl Scouts discover their own potential, connect with others locally and globally, and take action to make the world a better place.

Service Mark Guidelines
The preferred service mark is the "horizontal" service mark. However, the "stacked" version may also be used. The council name may never replace the Girl Scout logotype or be incorporated with the logotype. The Girl Scout service mark will have the greatest impact only when sufficient airspace is left around it. This draws attention to the service mark and provides an appropriate setting for it.

Preferred Horizontal Service Mark

Acceptable Stacked Service Mark

  • May never be redrawn, re-proportioned, or modified in any way. If a larger or smaller service mark is required, it must be reduced or enlarged in its entirety so that the proportions remain exactly as designed.
  • Must always use the correct symbol-to-logotype proportion. The symbol may never be pulled apart from the logotype and used as a separate design element.
  • Must not be shaded, screened or used as a watermark.
  • Must depict the registration mark on all reproductions of the service mark. (An exception to this rule is the elimination of the ® after Girl Scout when part of a council name.)
  • May never be reproduced from a scanned image or from an artist's rendering, including computer-generated images created by individual girl or adult Girl Scout members or anyone else.
  • May never be reproduced from individual interpretations of the Girl Scout service mark, including a girl's hand drawing or an artist's rendering.
  • Must not be used as part of another design or graphic device.
  • May not be used as a repetitive design, e.g. a background pattern on a computer screen or on wrapping paper.
  • May not be used in an animated format.

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