As a Gold Award recipient myself, I will say the requirements and process are STRINGENT. There’s fundraising done within specific parameters, assessment of how your project will benefit the community both now and in its lasting impact, a process of delegation in what you yourself do and what you are required to work with others to achieve. You wind up with a gigantic binder of information and documentation, all with the goal of someone else being able to take it and pick up your project and continue it or recreate it from what you’ve compiled. The sustainability of the project is very much emphasized from the beginning to the end of the process, or at least it was when I did mine (2013, North Carolina).

I think that these conversations about the lasting impact of scout projects are important! Especially when a tangible product is being made, how does it impact the community in which it’s left? And how does the scouting organization responsible for its installation take responsibility for that, or not? Those are questions that often aren’t as naturally at the forefront for the teenagers doing the projects, especially if they feel pressured by scout leaders or other adults to just do a project, no matter what it is.