How to choose an issue

How to Choose an Issue

How will you TAKE ACTION ?
**Use your values and skills to identify a community issue you care about.

The key to a successful Gold Award is to start with an issue that you care about.
Resist the urge to "shop" for a project.**

We do recognize that if you are just getting started it is helpful to see what a good Gold Award Take Action Project looks like. With that in mind, we have carefully chosen examples tackling a wide range of issues that illustrate a variety of approaches to Taking Action at the Gold Award level.

Ask yourself the following questions, then see how other girls took action.

If you had 100 volunteers, where would you send them?
Sharleen's issue: decline in STEM as kids age

What makes you indignant or outraged and you want to see it changed ?
Isabella's issue: Missing & murdered Indigenous Women
Mikayla's issue: Environmental Pollution
Cassie's issue: Child marriage laws

Where is your heart?
Lauren's issue: Gap between special needs kids and the rest of the students

Who do you want to help?
Who do you know?
What are your resources?
Kaitlyn's issue: Sensory overload for students with autism
Jordan's issue: job seeking skills for adults with autism

What has happened to you that changed your life and you would like to pass it on?
Fiona's issue: dating violence
Sabrina's issue: disease

What would you tell your younger self?
Kayla's issue: injuries at band camp

Thy's issue: eating disorder awareness

What makes you cry or feel choked up when you hear about it?
Liza's issue: lack of access to school for kids in the Philippines

What do you see in your community that you wish someone would fix?
Colette's issue: college binge drinking

What is the thing you value most? Evelyn's issue: cultural identity

What are your strengths?
How could they be used to make the world a better place?
Aleece's issue: lack of historical tours in Spanish

What are your talents?
Malia's issue: lack of awareness of school dance program

Is there something you have more knowledge or experience with than most people?
How could you expand on that to educate people & advocate for change?
Madeline's issue: lack of exposure to careers for low income youth

Alexandra 's issue: lack of understanding of foster care experience

Still Stuck?

Volunteer in your community or for an agency that supports something you care about. Start to observe ongoing issues that need to be resolved.
A good way to start is to ask what kind of things they need more people power to solve - not supplies they need, funds, things they need replaced, built, or refurbished. They may need these things, but those would fall under the category of community service projects, short term solutions.