We’ve got you, Girl Scout volunteers!
When you volunteer with Girl Scouts, you’ll uncover new strengths and build on them. And we’re here to help you shine.
Check out these online resources and training courses that you can access whenever, wherever to make the most of your volunteer experience.
My GS
My GS is your Girl Scout home base and how you access other great tools to manage the Girl Scout experience for your family and troop! By logging into My GS in the upper right-hand corner you can:
- Manage your Girl Scout membership and all the memberships in your household and troop(s).
- Find exciting in-person and virtual events for your Girl Scout, your family, or your troop to attend.
- Maintain your contact information, preferences and manage any changes within your troop.
- Access essential tools like the Volunteer Toolkit and gsLearn to make your Girl Scout volunteer experience a breeze!
Volunteer Toolkit
The Volunteer Toolkit is your official source for delivering easy, fun troop meetings year-round! This fully customizable digital planning tool is accessible on any computer, tablet, or mobile device and provides you with Girl Scout program content, award requirements, and other resources.
Through the Volunteer Toolkit, troop leaders can:
- Plan the troop’s calendar year.
- View the troop roster and email families with one click.
- View badges, Journeys and awards for all program levels including prepopulated tracks for younger and older Multi-Level troop groups (K–5 and 6–12).
- Explore meeting plans that show a breakdown of every meeting, including a list of materials needed and editable time allotments for each activity within a meeting.
- Record girls’ attendance at meetings and their badge and Journey achievements.
- Add council or custom troop events to the troop’s calendar.
- Enter the troop’s finances (depending on the council’s process).
- Easily locate resources both national and local council resources, such as Safety Activity Checkpoints.
The Volunteer Toolkit isn’t just for troop leaders!
Caregivers and administrative volunteers can have access too.
- Caregivers of Girl Scouts in a troop can see troop financial reports, download their attendance and achievement record and stay up-to-date on the great things the troop is doing throughout the year.
- Individually registered Girl Scouts and their caregivers can access badges, Journeys and awards to take charge of their experience individually.
- Administrative volunteers can see a demo version of the Volunteer Tookit to see all the programming available to troops and families, as well as provide support and training to their local volunteers.
Volunteer Toolkit- What’s New in 2022-2023?
Looking for all the new content in one place? Use the New for 2022-2023 filter when searching for meetings to find everything new in one easy place.
More than Just Badges… Programing is bringing more types of content to VTK! More than just badges and Journeys are available in the Volunteer Toolkit. Programs such as Paint Your World Purple are available and now, you’ll see “patch steps,” “patch requirements,” along with Awards, Challenges, Service Projects and much more!
All Meeting Aids for All! Just click the plus sign under meetings and add a Meeting Aid, you now have access to every meeting aid in the system, from any meeting. You can also search to mix and match to make the most out of the resources VTK has to offer.
Speaker Invitation – Customizable Email Template to support volunteers when inviting experts into their troop meetings. You can even attach meeting aids that might be helpful for the speaker in preparing the presentation to your troop.
Updates to My Troop We know the My Troop tab is the one stop shop to all things related to the members of your troop. We’ve updated the information you have access to on this tab to be even more useful: A member’s grade has been added under their Age, Contact and photo preferences have been added and pull directly from their record in myGS.; Issues with phone numbers, emails and secondary contact information have been addressed so that information is filled consistently and accurately.
Explore Even More, Without Resetting! The Explore tab is your place to find detailed Meeting Plans before you add them to your Year Plan and to find out the time-saving packages of meetings we’ve already grouped based on providing variety or a specific program topic. Now, you can keep coming back to the Explore tab to add to a year plan WITHOUT resetting it! We’ve separated the ability to delete (previously known as resetting) from the Explore tab so you can mix and match individual meetings or mix and match groups of meetings to save you time and effort. The Delete icon will live on the Year Plan tab now and provide a reminder to users that if they Delete their plan, they delete their attendance and achievements too!
Ready to learn more?
Check out the Volunteer Toolkit trainings in gsLearn before you start.Click on My GS in the upper right-hand corner to login and access gsLearn and the Volunteer Toolkit.
Caregivers
Check out our easy-access trainings available on YouTube!
gsLearn
gsLearn is Girl Scouts’ official online and on demand training platform. Confident leaders are prepared leaders, and these online learnings will give you all the info you need to be a great troop leader.
gsLearn isn’t just for volunteers! All members have access to this great tool. Click on myGS in the upper right-hand corner to login and check it out.
gsZoom
Zoom is an easy, reliable video conferencing and messaging platform with powerful security, that works across mobile and desktop devices. Safely meet with your Girl Scouts and families through virtual meetings to stay in-touch when meeting in-person is difficult. GsZoom is our unique partnership with Zoom organization to provide this essential product at a vastly reduced price point for our volunteers.
Think virtual meetings are for you? Contact us to get started!
As a Girl Scout volunteer there are a ton of really great online resources right at your finger tips, from our Volunteer Toolkit (more on that below!) to our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest!
We also offer several online training opportunities and resources that you can find here. From Volunteer Essentials to delegate training to co-leader webinars - we've got some great tools to set you up for success.
One of our most powerful online tools is our Volunteer Toolkit! This wonderful planning resource is for our Girl Scout troop co-leaders. The video above demonstrates the power of this tool and how it will help adults and girls make the most of their Girl Scout Experience.
The Volunteer Toolkit will be released in phases. Currently the toolkit can be accessed by most troop volunteers and parents and includes troop communication tools and a parent-view to keep up with troop activities. See feature highlights for volunteers and for parents.
Girls have fun when they can shape their own experiences, do hands-on activities, and work together as teams. With the new toolkit, girls and leaders can explore meeting topics and program activities together, and follow the fun as they plan their Girl Scout year.
To share your feedback please visit Contact Us and fill out our online form!
Check out our VTK Tutorials below:
Setting up Your Year Plan - Welcome to the Explore Tab! This video introduces how volunteers use the pre-built or select your own year plan options from the Explore Tab.
Setting Meeting Dates, Times and Locations - Second in the series, this video shows how to set reoccurring meeting dates, times and locations using the Manage Calendar link.
Customizing Your Year Plan - Third in the series, this video goes over the year plan tab and all of its features. How to change dates, add activities and other tools available.
Meeting Plan Overview - Fourth video in the series, this one focuses on the Meeting Plan Tab and everything it has to offer. It shows the tools available and how to customize the agenda with activity options.
Volunteer Toolkit Feature Highlights for Troop Volunteers
Plan and customize the troop’s calendar year!
Troop leaders can set a high-level overview of their troop's year including adding custom badge and Journey events and activities. Additionally, troop leaders can use pre-populated meeting plans for Daisy, Brownie, and Junior troops that include meeting agendas, supply lists, and activity instructions.
Troop meeting program content including multilevel and outdoor activities!
Access the VTK as a multilevel troop (troops with a mix of Daisy, Brownie, and Junior level).
Access 18 activities that now include a "Get Outside" option, which provides alternative outdoor options.
Manage troop rosters, attendance, and accomplishments!
Record girls' attendance at meetings and their badge and Journey achievements. Additionally, troop leaders can view their troop roster, renew girls' memberships, and update contact information.
Submit Annual Troop Finance Report!
NEW! Troop leaders will now submit the annual end-of-year troop financial report through the VTK. Simply click the "finance" tab and enter your troop's information!
One-click communication with parents!
Email parents meeting agendas and troop plans with one click!
Volunteer Toolkit Feature Highlights for Parents
Parents can now access the VTK to see what their girl’s troop or group is doing (e.g, meeting information and which badges and Journeys she is working on).
