GSUSA Partners with Harvard on Governance
National Governance 5 Comments 
councils, governance, gsusa, national board, national council
A couple of people sent me this press release recently posted on the National Delegate website:
We are pleased to announce that the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Center for Public Leadership is partnering with GSUSA to conduct an assessment of GSUSA’s governance processes. The project will be led by Marshall Ganz, the Rita E. Hauser Senior Lecturer in Leadership, Organizing, and Civil Society, who brings decades of practice in teaching, researching, and writing on leadership. The Harvard team will partner with GSUSA staff and leadership to develop criteria for assessing the strengths of our Movement governance model, identify opportunities to learn from comparable organizations, and recommend improvements to Movement governance including ways of working and overall effectiveness. This external assessment is intended to complement the ongoing Movement governance assessment launched by the National Board in September 2023 and the work of the Movement Governance Advisory Team. The Harvard research team is eager to understand the experience and perspectives of National Council delegates. You may receive an email from senior researcher Alaina Segura [e-mail removed] inviting you to participate in surveys, focus groups, or interviews. Your participation is optional. The Harvard team will also meet with members of the National Board and the Movement Governance Advisory Team (MGAT) as part of its assessment. The Harvard team will share their insights with the National Board and MGAT in late fall 2025 so that MGAT can use the findings to inform their final report on Movement governance, to be delivered no later than the 58th National Council Session in July 2026. We look forward to collaborating with our National Council delegates on this important assessment of Movement Governance. Should you have any questions, please reach out to the Office of the National Board (boardoffice@girlscouts.org).
I’m going to take a brief break from my Registered Parliamentarian studies for some off the cuff comments:
1) This is great and all, but I still maintain that until someone does a study of local council governance practices (much like what was done in the 1990s), then what’s being done to shore up national governance will have a limited impact. Because if you can’t model good governance locally, then how can councils do the same thing on the national stage?
2) We have too many folks who don’t realize that a National Council Session is a business meeting, first and foremost. Some treat it as a Beta Club convention or a field trip and think it’s a place where girls can showcase themselves on a big stage. That’s not the purpose of a NCS. And that may be because some council annual meetings aren’t taken seriously by council leadership. See my previous comment.
3) A part of me feels that councils with self-perpetuating boards that receive very little input from the membership (meaning they have no delegate body) as their local governance model should forfeit their National Delegates. If they believe they can run their council with just a board, then they should have no problem letting the National Board do the same thing nationally. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
4) Education about governance to the membership in councils would go a long way to raise our game. Instead, we continue to hole everything off behind walls and by and large, wait to educate someone until they become a local delegate or a National Delegate. That’s too late. I’m not putting this off on GSUSA because it’s not their responsibility, but I do think they can do more to encourage councils to institute the decision-influencing process on the local council level where the average member can make more of an impact than they can on the national level.
5) How about developing some programming materials and a badge for older girls on governance and parliamentary procedure?
And now back to studying the eight principles of bylaws interpretation! My favorite!
I completely agree with proposals 3 and 5.
National Delegates represent whom? The membership, the administration, the governance or the operational? Our council has three national delegates. One is the exec director, one is the President of the board and one is a girl member.
How is the membership voice being heard? The membership voted at the 2024 annual meeting heal in March 2025?5’that any member of the council 14+ could vote at the annual meeting. If you want a voice in council direction you need to vote.
How is the voice of the membership of active and lifetime member Girl Scouts being heard?
I love point number 5, but also need to have access to someone to teach it. Politics is not my thing and I don’t feel equipped to teach our current government badges and this idea would be even more out of my league, but I feel both are important.
Agree with your comments!! By the way, what is this partnership costing?
I appreciate this post deeply—it captures the disconnect between the potential of the Girl Scout movement and the reality that so many of us are facing at the local level. The partnership with Harvard sounds impressive on paper, but let’s not pretend that good governance is being modeled or practiced consistently across the council landscape.
In my council, we are drowning in dysfunction. Volunteers are treated like liabilities rather than partners. Communication is inconsistent, dismissive, or nonexistent. There is no transparency, little accountability, and certainly no meaningful engagement with the people on the ground who are holding this movement together. Decisions are made in echo chambers, often without even a surface-level attempt at collaboration or inclusion.
#3 in your post is especially critical—true governance requires stakeholders to have access, training, and a real seat at the table. That is not happening in our council. Our board appears to be composed of friends of the CEO, and they make little to no effort to connect with the broader Girl Scout community. In fact, the CEO seems to actively gatekeep, keeping board members insulated and volunteers shut out. Girls and adults who step up as delegates should absolutely be required to undergo training in governance and parliamentary procedure—but that only works if the council supports, encourages, and educates them. Ours doesn’t. Most volunteers and even older girls have no idea that members age 14 and up can vote. And honestly, I believe that’s by design—ignorance makes it easier to manipulate outcomes.
GSUSA’s silence on this kind of dysfunction is unacceptable. They seem far more invested in fluff and image than in holding councils accountable or ensuring that the democratic process is alive and well. If GSUSA is going to be the national leadership body, they need to lead—not just with branding partnerships and aspirational language, but by setting and enforcing standards that protect the integrity of the movement and the voices of its members.
We need less PR and more courage. We need fewer ribbon-cuttings and more town halls. And we need it now—because we are losing troops, leaders, and girls due to a lack of governance, vision, and willpower at every level.