Keys to creating a great Silver Award 

Are you ready to start your Silver Award and change the world? 
Let's begin.
Two important things to know before you start

1.  Make sure that you understand the difference between Community Service and Take Action Projects
​​

Community Service VS
​ Take ACTION ​

Think you understand ?

2.  Learn how to use smart planning (click for resources)

Silver Award Success Tips, building on the basic Silver Award steps

1   Identify issues you care about.
2   Build your Girl Scout Silver Award team or decide to go solo.
3   Explore your community.
4    Pick your Silver Award project. 
5    Develop your project.
6   Make a plan and put it into motion.
7   Reflect, share your story, and celebrate.

Step 1  Identify issues you care about

Start with an issue, not with a project.

​A Silver Award Project solves an issue in the community.  This is why the first step in the Silver Award process is "What is your issue?" not "What is your project?"  The project development isn't until step 4, after your research and building your team. Be able to answer what your issue is in a sentence without mentioning what you are doing.
2   Build your Girl Scout Silver Award team or decide to go solo.

Involve others

It is a leadership project. Don't do all the work yourself! Delegate! Engage others in the community to help you.  Consider involving adults who care about your issue, other scouts or maybe even peers beyond your troop.
3. Explore your community.

​Do your research 
Spend some time volunteering for agencies relate to what you care about.
Interview adult experts on your topic.  Learn everything you can about your issue. 
While interviewing agencies for project ideas don't ask what they need. They will probably say money or supplies.
Ask agencies questions like this:
  • If you had 20 more volunteers how would you use them?
  • What issues are ongoing that you don't have time to solve?
  • What do you wish more people know about your issue or about the work you do?
4  Pick your Silver Award project. 
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Identify a root cause that you can have a measurable effect on.  

Can you halt deforestation? Probably not, but could you hold a booth at an Earth Day event and teach 100 people how to reduce their use of paper
5.    Develop your project.

Go Beyond Community Service

Collections are a onetime fix  (no matter how many times done and considered community service. A collection can be part of your Silver, but not the whole award.
Fix /Build /Beautify It projects
A Silver Award should educate & inspire.  Just fixing things up or planting a  garden is community service.  Nice, but not addressing an issue. Building a garden & using it as a tool to be used as part of a program to train about planting drought resistant gardens or creating butterfly or bee habitats would give it Silver potential. 


​Think big

Consider sustainable elements 

Avoid Fundraising
A Silver Award is required to
​ take 50 hours.  That's a big time investment.  Make it worth your time. Try to make your Silver Award impact a large number of people in your community.
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A  Silver Award doesn't require that you train someone to continue your project. (That is a Gold Award requirement).
Sustainability at the Silver level can be achieved by addressing the root cause of your issue through educating people or adding a "pay it forward element" where you ask others to join you in spreading your message or helping by working alongside you. 
Girl Scouts, whether girls or adults, are not allowed to raise money for  other organizations. ​​
6   Make a plan and put it into motion.

Use SMART planning to create a project with results you can measure

​Measurable goals have tangible results. How much, how many, how often – use numbers !
Our Silver Award Team will educate 100 people at a farmer's market about the danger of leaving dogs in parked cars.
Our Silver Award Team  will conduct a city wide campaign for one month to increase driving safety by educating about distracted driving. 
Our team plans to hold a booth at 2 Earth Day events to educate attendees about light pollution. 
7   Reflect, share your story, and celebrate.
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Reflect

Reflect - Learn from you successes and mistakes and .  What would you change if you did it started over? What was your favorite part?

Share your story

Practice telling people about your project. What was your issue? Why did you you choose it, what did you accomplish?
Share your story with other scouts, kids at your school, people in your city or state! Get a write up in the newspaper like these scouts did.
Pollinator Garden

Looking for the Silver Award requirements? 
​Click here

​Need inspiration ?  
Click here for ​Great Silver Award Ideas