Thoughts on the MGAT Report

For the 2023 National Council Session (NCS), a number of councils submitted governance related proposals including one written by yours truly. Inspired by similar action taken by the National Board in 1993, my proposal aimed to create a national task group to study governance on both the council and national level. These specific proposals didn’t make the 2023 NCS agenda, but the National Board took action of its own anyway and appointed a task group called the Movement Governance Advisory Team (MGAT). The MGAT launched in November of 2023 and began work on several charges from the National Board centering around national governance. You can review the entirety of the original charge in the GSUSA press release on GSG.

The MGAT recently released its report. If you’ve followed my blog through the years, you’ll know that I’ve been an enthusiastic advocate for the democratic process in Girl Scouting for quite some time, so I’ve been highly anticipating this. In addition to publishing the report, the National Board Office (NBO) also hosted a webinar for National Delegates in April to review the MGAT’s findings and recommendations. The webinar and report are found on the GSUSA National Delegate website which is only open to current National Delegates and related staff. However, I received a copy of the report due to authoring a related 2023 NCS proposal, and I waited to share my thoughts until enough time had passed for National Delegates to read the report, view the webinar, and share the results with their local memberships. Continue reading