Did you know that Girl Scouts of Tropical Florida (GSTF) serves more than 3,000 girls and engages 2,000 adult volunteers in Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties each year?

As the preeminent local organization dedicated solely to girls, the council develops leaders via “The Girl Scout Leadership Experience”, a collection of activities including earning badges, taking trips, selling cookies, exploring science, getting outdoors, and doing community service projects. The goal of this experience is to assist girls in acquiring skills in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM); the outdoors; life management; and entrepreneurship. To bring the Girl Scout Leadership Experience to life, activities are led by girls themselves, facilitated by adult volunteers, and feature cooperative learning and highlight learning by doing.

We learned more about the impact of Girl Scouts in Miami after our friend, Sarah Artecona, recommended that we assist the GSTF team with a strategic planning effort. The goal: create a strategic plan to establish staff and board leadership priorities over the three years leading up to the organization’s 100th anniversary.

Our team conducted executive interviews with GSTF staff and board leadership; facilitated sessions with the entire board of directors and with five cross functional teams assigned to their strategic imperatives; and developed a traditional SWOT analysis. Given COVID19 restrictions, all of our activities were conducted virtually. Zoom calls replaced the large facilitated sessions and the smaller strategic imperative team meetings that would have traditionally been conducted in person, and shared online documents replaced flip charts and the other usual tools of a strategic planning process.

In spite of the challenge, the teams delivered brilliantly.

After our entire planning team developed the five strategic imperatives, the subcommittee chairs, each GSTF staff leaders, took ownership and led their teams in the development of measurable goals and action plans. Board members participated with enthusiasm and staff leaders sharpened skills within their functional area and beyond. At the outset, we agreed that we would relentlessly edit our work for clarity and brevity, limiting our strategic imperatives and goals to a single page.

Chelsea Wilkerson, CEO, Girl Scouts of Tropical Florida, shared, “Carla guided Girl Scouts of Tropical Florida’s board and staff through a strategic plan – in the middle of a global pandemic and at a time of extreme social change. Our board and staff brought great energy and enthusiasm to the process; Carla did a phenomenal job of channeling it all, synthesizing, and bringing us to a common vision and understanding of our near future goals. Feedback from board members has been positive, and we already launched our implementation phase. The ease of moving into implementation speaks to the strength of the plan Carla facilitated.”

As a women owned business, dedicated to elevating women, we loved assisting Girl Scouts of Tropical Florida to engage volunteers and employees, design strategy and lead change. 

Does your organization or favorite nonprofit need help engaging their board and employees or charting their strategic direction for 2021 and beyond? We can help.

Let’s talk and hatch a plan together. 

#community, #girlsrule, #teamhatched, #girlscouts, #STEM, #cookies, #strategy