Tips for Using the Data From the Good Turn for America Web Site

Have your units been entering their service project information into www.goodturnforamerica.org? If so, there is a great deal you can do with this information:

• Present a report to the mayor, a chartered organization, or your school board and superintendent detailing the amount of service Scouts provided the community during the year.
• Recognize units that have input their information and encourage others to input their data.
• Send a news release to community newspapers regarding the amount of service. You may even find a unit has adopted an area of the community and cleans it regularly.
• Seek out speaking opportunities to community and service organizations and share specific examples of the benefits of Scouting within your community.
• Recruit community leaders.
• Increase your community FOS drive.
• Develop Web site material focusing on how the Scouts are benefiting your community.
• Complete grant and United Way requests using the data.

Your council's Web administrator can run a report from ScoutNET detailing the service projects conducted within your district. You can even specify a time period.

Encourage Units to Report Service Projects

Recognize units that reported information via the Good Turn for America Web site at your district roundtable. This also enables you to stress the importance of entering service information. Explain how the information will be used to help tell the Scouting story and obtain positive publicity.

Remind units to report Eagle Scout service projects. As part of the Eagle application process, you may require the applicant to provide a copy of the certificate the unit received after inputting the information.

Enlarge the Tell Us About Your Service Project card, No. 02-746, and place it in your council office lobby. Include a sign announcing the number of service projects or hours completed, or highlighting a particular unit's project. Be sure to continually update this sign to demonstrate the importance of this data collection.

Your unit leaders want to help you collect service project information. You just need to let them know how to record the data and remind them often.

Remember to Recognize Good Turn for America Participants

The following ideas will help you express appreciation to the individuals, units, and organizations participating in Good Turn for America service projects.

• Unit Recognition. Provide Good Turn for America flagpole ribbons or certificates of appreciation. Your councils may establish specific criteria for the recognition.
• Scout/Scouter Recognition. Provide participating members with the Good Turn for America patch. This should follow the reporting of the project to the data collection site at www.goodturnforamerica.org.
• Nonmember Recognition. Give participating nonmembers a Good Turn for America coin, hat pin, or lapel pin.
• Recognition for Organizations. At a council event, recognize organizations that provide important financial or in-kind support to your projects. In your lobby, consider displaying a Good Turn for America wall plaque in the organization's honor.
• Council Award Criteria. Each region will recognize councils meeting five requirements.

The patches, pins, and other suggested recognition items are available at your local Scout shop or by calling the National Distribution Center at 800-323-0732.

The Merits of Marketing (marketing.scouting.org) is a resource for local councils, developed by the Marketing & Communications Division of the National Council, Boy Scouts of America.