What your annual subscription pays for
How the membership fee you pay supports our work with girls and young women
Every year we ask every member, both volunteers and girls, to pay a subscription – our name for our membership fee.
Without subscriptions, we couldn’t support our incredible volunteers to inspire girls to be their best. So, thank you for continuing to support and believe in our work.
The final amount you pay for subs goes towards running costs at every level of guiding. This means that the Girlguiding HQ amount of the subscription is only one part. The rest goes to your district, division, county or country and region.
Talk to your commissioner for information about how subs help local guiding in your area.
How much is the Girlguiding HQ subscription in 2024?
In 2024 the Girlguiding HQ subscription is £31.00. Girlguiding HQ regularly review our running costs to keep them as low as possible. But at the same time, we’re dealing with the impacts of high inflation, increasing needs for risk management assurance and a need to invest more to improve our digital tools for volunteers, like GO. So, £31 was the minimum that trustees felt would be needed to keep Girlguiding HQ sustainable in 2024.
What support is there to help members with the cost of subscriptions?
We know that Girlguiding members are also feeling the impact of inflation and cost of living increases. So, we’re also investing in extending the reach of grants to help cover the costs of subscriptions for members in financial need. We’re working with country and region teams to make the money available in time for subscriptions 2024, and more information for volunteers will be coming soon.
How will the Girlguiding HQ subscription be used in 2024?
The pie chart below gives a breakdown of how your subscriptions will be used in 2024. Over half of the money you pay goes direct to supporting volunteers and girls, keeping them safe and speaking up for girls in society.
The remaining funds are used to promote Girlguiding and encourage more girls and volunteers to join us. Subscriptions also fund the infrastructure we need to operate effectively as a charity – from teams dealing with governance, risk, finance, HR and other functions that every charity has to have, to improving the technologies, tools and processes that volunteers and staff use to deliver our offer for girls.
Of course, subscriptions are only part of the story. Each year we work hard to generate more income from other sources so we can continue to provide great experiences for girls while keeping subs as affordable as possible. In recent years, external funding has enabled us to deliver big projects such as the new learning platform, our equity, diversity and inclusion strategy and the brand refresh.
The Girlguiding HQ £31 will go towards:
Girlguiding support for girls and volunteers
- Keeping our core programme fun, fresh and easy to use – responding to feedback from girls and volunteers.
- Creating more opportunities for girls to have local adventures and international experiences, and supporting volunteers to make it happen.
- Continuing to improve the young leader programme, building on the improvements we’ve made to support young leaders in 2023.
- Working with our Amplify steering group of young people to make sure girls’ voices are heard in decision-making across Girlguiding.
- Supporting volunteers to use our digital tools and systems, including GO.
- Responding to enquiries from volunteers, girls and parents and the wider public.
- Providing more learning and development such as e-learnings and new content on the online learning platform to support our amazing volunteers.
- Helping everyone in Girlguiding feel connected and informed through association-wide communications and events.
Keeping girls and volunteers safe
- Improving and updating a safe space and other core trainings to make it easier for volunteers to complete.
- Keeping policies and procedures up to date so everyone knows how to stay safe and within the law.
- Providing support and advice for volunteers on keeping girls and adults safe and making or dealing with complaints.
- Providing insurance for regular Girlguiding activities, and support with making claims if things go wrong
- Managing disclosure check services for all Girlguiding volunteers, with tens of thousands of checks processed every year
- Providing support for members to comply with data protection and managing any issues or concerns
Giving girls a voice
- Keeping up to date with the lives of girls and sharing our insight and expertise.
- Supporting our amazing advocate panel to speak up for girls.
- Championing the voices of girls and women in the media.
Charity infrastructure and promoting Girlguiding
- Shouting out about Girlguiding and our impact so we can reach as many girls, and adults, as possible.
- Managing our finances to make sure we make best use of resources.
- Keeping up to date with the world around us, and supporting all parts of Girlguiding to stay relevant and sustainable.
- Running and improving the charity – supporting our board of trustees to make sure Girlguiding is as efficient, effective and sustainable as possible.
- Improving our digital tools and systems so that volunteers, girls and parents, staff and other stakeholders have a better experience, and Girlguiding runs more efficiently.
Investing in our future
- Generating more income from a wider range of sources so we can do even more for our members – and look to keep subs as affordable as we can.
