Churchill Project Actions Moving Forward

As we recently shared in Scoutingwire and during the All-Staff Conference, several Churchill recommendations will continue to be considered, based on extensive input from the field and our subject matter experts.

The evaluation process also included the following filters:

• Does the action help the national organization emerge from bankruptcy?
• Does the action aid in gaining more membership or revenue for the Scouting Movement?
• Is the action already in progress, partially completed, or easy to facilitate/complete with little resources of time/funding?

Based on these filters, the following Churchill recommendations will continue to be evaluated and possibly implemented if it is in the best interest of the BSA:

Keeping Youth Safety at the Forefront

• Reinvigorate the onboarding program for new Scout families, members, and volunteers with a key focus on “Safe Scouting” and “Keeping Young People Safe”
• Streamline all Safe Scouting resources and consolidate them in one location
• Instill a culture of timely reporting, sharing, enforcement, and transparency of safety incidents

Engaging and Empowering Volunteers

• Establish a volunteer corps for young adults ages 18-35
• Greater reliance on volunteers to offset National staff reductions while rotating national-level volunteers back to local councils, areas, and regions

Streamlining to Enable Council Success

• Streamline the unit rechartering process
• Replace Areas and Regions with one streamlined organization support structure that is focused on council sustainability and effectiveness
• Consider a fee-based structure for councils in place of BSA National collecting membership fees within a greatly reduced overall BSA budget
• Focus National BSA efforts on providing councils with support pertaining to areas that are best scalable or not efficiently done on a local level, such as, but not inclusively: program standards, legal, insurance, IT, brand/PR management, HR, and asset management
• Establish minimum standards to be considered a council
• Create a Membership Executive position within councils that is focused on growth and paid on performance, for those councils that desire it
• Update and enforce BSA’s national brand standards
• Combine the National Annual Business and the Annual Top Hands meetings
• Leverage High Adventure Bases in our overall marketing communications strategy & to also increase attendance at the bases
• Transition to digital merit badge resources

Importantly, although we are not currently moving forward on the following recommendations, they will be considered in the future, most likely after the national organization emerges from bankruptcy:

• Provide tools and resources for councils to deliver Safety Seminars with a Youth Protection Safety focus
• Hire a youth adolescence expert on the national level to guide program development
• Evaluate program methods and age parameters to provide an engaging option that enables youth members to transition to adult leadership roles and remain active in Scouting with an ongoing commitment to safety
• Establish a national Chief Communications & Marketing Officer and prioritize National BSA strategic communications and marketing and make additional investments in related efforts
• Create a membership category that is more family-centric with no advancement programs

It should be noted that all Churchill-prompted actions moving forward are subject to change, pause, or termination if such action is necessary due to bankruptcy demands.