Family Giving Campaign
What is Family Giving?
The goal of Girl Scouts is to help girls grow into confident women and leaders. This takes money. The Family Giving Campaign is an opportunity for parents and other family members to support the Girl Scouts at Columbia River Council. Their financial gifts, however large or small, help make Girl Scout activities and programs available for their own Girl Scout and for other girls and young women in our communities. Their gifts also create ownership in Girl Scouting, and help them develop greater pride in the success of Girl Scouts. 100% of the money raised by the Family Giving Campaign stays in our council to help our girls have the best scouting experience available.
What does the money pay for?
Family Giving money helps underwrite the cost of programs in the G.R.E.A.T. Guide. Program frees are kept low so that all girls can participate. The money provides Safety-Wise free to each troop. This money also goes into the Opportunity Fund so no girl who wants to be a Girl Scout will be turned away due to financial need. Funds are also used to keep our properties well maintained, secure and comfortable so that girls can enjoy them. Our facilities at Mountaindale, Homestead Lodges, Camp Arrowhead, the Dalles and Seaside have nature trails and other outdoor activities and are fully equipped with kitchen appliances, dishes, pots and pans, as well as clean, sturdy mattresses so troop leaders do not have to bring a lot of supplies with them.
What is your role as a Girl Scout leader?
The Council asks that leaders offer parents and family members the opportunity to lend their support to Girl Scouts with a gift. Please give each family the campaign materials, and then let them decide for themselves whether or not they want to participate in Family Giving. Also, let them know that no gift is too small.
You have the most direct contact with parents. They look up to you and the example you set. Your enthusiasm for supporting the council will spread to them.
How to present Family Giving to the parents of your girls.
As leaders, you need to talk with each of your parents about this opportunity to help all the girls in the Columbia River Council. Our neighborhood is offering an incentive to encourage families to give.
- Give an envelope and brochure to each parent.
- Hold a parent meeting to discuss Family Giving, tell each parent individually or include a short letter to the parents with some suggestions for how to raise the money for the fund.
- Understand that there will be some resistance, and that is natural. We understand that some people are able to give in the "hundreds," and others in the "singles." Every gift is important and every gift helps make Girl Scouts successful.
- Remind parents that donations are tax-deductible.
- Allow only one or two weeks for the campaign so that there isn't enough time to forget to give or misplace the materials.
- Have extra envelopes to give to parents who forget theirs at home on the collection day.
Giving ideas for parents.
- Encourage parents to call the HR department of their company to ask if their employer matches charitable donations (Intel and Nike does). If the employer does, write the company name on the envelope. The council will then collect the matching amount from the company. This is a simple way to double your donation.
- Suggest the parent skip a latte or lunch one day and donate that money to the Family Giving Campaign.
- Have each girl make a giving jar in a meeting to take home. The family can put all their change in the jar at the end of each day. At the end of a week, bring in that money for their donation.
- If your troop pays the girls' $10 registration fees (all of which goes to Girl Scouts of the USA) with cookie money, suggest the parents give $10 to the Family Giving campaign.
- Encourage the families to collect pop cans and bottles to return. Give that money to the Family Giving campaign.
- The name of each person who gives is printed on the Annual Report. Suggest the girls or their siblings give so they can see their own names on the Report.
