Your thoughts on our strategy

This year we have been exploring how we'll update our strategy and be clearer about what we need to do to achieve our vision.

Girlguiding’s vision:

An equal world where all girls can make a positive difference, be happy, safe and fulfil their potential.

We asked you about what makes us unique as an organisation and what we should be doing to achieve our vision of an equal world.

We heard from nearly 1,000 members from across the UK. Here’s what you told us:

1. You feel that providing a girl-only space, giving girls confidence and helping girls learn new skills makes us most distinctive to girls and parents.
   
   As we try to improve our focus in the next few years it will be really important to highlight the elements which set us apart from other organisations.
2. 73% of you agreed we need to do more to be girl-led.
   
   Lots of you make this a part of your regular guiding. We can also see from our Impact and Experience survey that a quarter of girls in 2023 said they had been asked to organise or run activities.
3. To make Girlguiding more appealing to over 10s, you want the programme to be less like school and to see better promotion and publicity.
   
   At the moment only 25% of Brownies become Guides, and 10% of Guides become Rangers. Meanwhile, only 1% of the total girl population in the UK are Rangers, and three quarters of our young members are under the age of 11.
4. 67% of you agree we should collaborate with other organisations and communities.
   
   This was particularly true for environmental organisations, STEM-focussed organisations and mental health providers.
5. The most important areas of gender inequality you felt we should address were pressure on appearance and girls’ and young women’s physical and mental health.

What happens next?

We are working with the Thinking Group, which includes trustees, the chief guide team, a chief commissioner, members of Girlguiding’s council, and girls, to define our ambition for the next 5-10 years and your feedback is helping do this.

Lots of you said what you thought Girlguiding’s ambition for the future should be. For example, some told us how important it is to expand our membership or reach more girls, become more well known, and continue to offer opportunities and activities.

Many of you also highlighted the importance of listening to and valuing members, and ensuring that the paperwork and record keeping you do is as simple as possible.

All of these things are important. Spring 2025 will see us launch a new ambition and work together to plan how we achieve it, so that we can be here for all girls.

Look out for more information next year.