Girl Scouts Fair Play, Equal Pay®

Girl Scouts launched the Fair Play, Equal Pay® Gender Parity Initiative to challenge organizations to take action now to help build a more equitable future for women and girls. We believe gender should not be a barrier to equal opportunities for leadership and success.

The Gender Parity Initiative is intended to be a powerful catalyst toward parity in the workplace. Girl Scouts has set a bold goal for organizations to ensure women of diverse backgrounds hold 30% of leadership roles and earn equal pay for equal work by 2030. Without the commitment of our partners, at the current rate of progress, it will take 132 years to reach full parity.

The statistics regarding pay parity are even more daunting.  According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s 2022 “Women in the Workforce” Report, in 2021, women earned about $0.82 for every dollar earned by men. Hispanic and Latina women earned about $0.58, while Black women earned about $0.63 for every dollar a White man earned. 

Over the past 50 years, women in the United States have made great strides in education and entry into the workforce. However, despite these advances, women comprise only 34% of the STEM workforce and have lower median salaries than their male counterparts. To reach gender parity in these areas, we must accelerate our current rate of progress.

Girl Scouts believes it's time for change. Our ambitious goals: by 2030, women will receive equal pay for equal work, and women of diverse backgrounds will hold 30% of leadership roles.

GSUSA is challenging companies and organizations to participate in all components of the Girl Scouts Fair Play Equal Pay initiative.  Girl Scouts is the only organization in the United States to have created a program with four vital components: a parity pledge, an assessment, a specific plan and available resources for implementing change (enablement), and certification.

We understand that transforming the workplace is foundational to progress toward gender parity. GSUSA is partnering with a backend gender parity partner to perform the gender parity assessments, employing best-in-class methodologies for annual review/auditing/reporting of the company's gender parity status, including participant's workforce data, assessing the percentage of female leaders and if there are any unexplained pay disparities. We have worked with the gender parity partner to develop metric-driven parameters and facilitate the availability of training and enablement tools essential to address the gaps.

By effectively measuring culture, policies, and practices within the initiative's framework, we can track progress towards achieving equitable and inclusive workplaces, pay parity, and 30% or greater diverse female leadership within organizations.

Girl Scouts' mission is to build girls of courage, confidence, and character who make the world a better place. Through programs from coast to coast, Girl Scouts of all backgrounds and abilities can be unapologetically themselves as they discover their strengths and rise to meet new challenges. Backed by trusted adult volunteers, mentors, and millions of alums, Girl Scouts lead the way as they find their voices and make changes that improve their communities.

With more than a million girl members in grades K-12 and more than 600,000 adult volunteers, Girl Scouts of the USA is the largest girl leadership organization in the world. Our membership includes more than 316,000 girls from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds and more than 240,000 girls from lower-income households. Girl Scouts has 112 councils available to serve girls in every zip code across the country and has an extensive network of more than 50 million individuals who identify as Girl Scout alums.

Girl Scouts' tradition has been to be bold. The Girl Scout mission statement says that we build girl leaders who make the world a better place. Through Fair Play Equal Pay, we are helping the world prepare for our girls and all the skills, talent, and value they bring to the table, which aligns with the Girl Scout mission. Simply put, girls need to believe they can put the leadership skills they learn at Girl Scouts to work in the world they inherit. The concept that someone can't be what they can't see rings true for far too many girls. Girl Scouts is challenging organizations to walk with us and help create workplaces supporting today's girls into becoming tomorrow's leaders.

Gender Parity is a business imperative for GSUSA. It aligns with Girl Scouts' strategy in the competitive marketplace and provides girls with a future prepared to embrace their talents. It differentiates the Girl Scout brand, positions us as passionate advocates for girls' futures, and places us firmly in the ongoing national dialogue regarding this global, high-profile issue.

Girl Scouts has prepared girls to be leaders in this country for over 110 years, and now we are preparing the world for their leadership. Girl Scouts will leverage its national presence and long-standing, trustworthy reputation to impact the forward movement toward achieving gender parity in the workplace.

Girl Scouts has successfully developed female leadership programming since our existence, becoming the world's largest leadership organization for girls, with a presence in every US zip code and 90 countries.  We are a top 10 trusted brand and have demonstrated success- over 50% of female business leaders, 73% of US Senators, and 100% of female secretaries of state proudly identify as Girl Scouts.

We also created a Council CEO Advisory Task Force to gain input and insights from local Girl Scout councils as we planned this GSUSA-led initiative. The task force was comprised of six Council CEOs who added their local perspective and helped build enthusiasm and support for the initiative across the Movement. Organizing an advisory council is part of GSUSA's established framework and process for consistently and effectively implementing strategic national initiatives.

The support of MIT Solve, combined with our vast network of vendors, business relationships, and community partnerships, will ensure that the Girl Scouts Gender Parity Initiative is poised for significant growth over the upcoming years.

We are influencing over 2 million employees by just those who signed the pledge and about 50,000 employees through the assessment.

Through our work with a unique consulting firm underwritten by a foundation grant, GSUSA developed an engagement strategy that includes one-on-one conversations with a subset of GSUSA vendors to gain their insights regarding participating in Fair Play and Equal Pay. Based on learnings from the engagement, we know that many companies are interested in or have already set goals and stood up internal programs to make progress in achieving gender parity. Our interviews provided the following insights which further support our implementation plan:

Although adoption has been steadily growing, with companies signing the gender parity pledge and participating in the assessment in increasing numbers, we would like to understand what resources and support are essential to accelerate the success and impact of the initiative. We are open to coaching, networking, and exploring new avenues and angles to propel the initiative forward and secure engagement from additional companies.

Girls Scouts has not yet substantially tapped into our massive network of over 50 million entrepreneurial, socially conscious alums to support the gender parity initiative. Such alumni include Melinda French Gates, Susan Wojcicki, Katie Couric, and Tammy Duckworth. We want to explore opportunities to leverage this active network thoughtfully and effectively.

Chief Financial Officer of GSUSA with 10 years of tenure at Girl Scouts

One of the most comprehensive and solutions-oriented corporate gender parity programs to date, the initiative leverages the power and impact of the Girl Scout brand to encourage companies to take the pledge toward parity and equal pay for equal work and increased diverse female leadership. Based on GSUSA's research, Girl Scouts is the only organization in the United States to create a program that includes these vital components: leadership commitment through a parity pledge, a rigorous assessment of workplace culture and practices, a specific plan, and available resources for implementing change (enablement), and certification. 

The initiative incorporates a pledge but goes much further in applying a trio of assessment, certification, and enablement frameworks, tools, and methodologies. We are poised to thoroughly assess and help organizations address gaps in their gender parity efforts through purposeful collaboration. This innovative certification evaluates the commitment of an organization’s leadership to parity. It assesses the commitment to enabling talent and representative leadership at all levels of their organization to achieve career advancement, creating a pipeline of female talent. As organizations continue to make progress, address gaps, and reassess, they can continue to make progress over time and ultimately achieve pay parity and 30% female leadership or greater within their organizations.

Fair Play, Equal Pay is a solution that identifies and provides meaningful recommendations to address pay inequity that will change lives here in the US... and ripples out to the world.  When women receive equal pay, poverty in US working women is cut in half, the US economy gains $513B, and $12 trillion is added to the global GDP by 2025. Girl Scouts has set a bold goal for organizations to ensure women of diverse backgrounds hold 30% of leadership roles and earn equal pay for equal work by 2030.  Within five years, we aim to impact 50 or more companies through the Gender Parity Assessment and Certification, with over 25 in STEM-focused industries. Specifically, we are looking to achieve our goal in the next 1-5 years by performing the following:

Vendor Engagement & Pledge

• Identify vendor needs and clearly articulate how this solution helps to achieve goals. 
• Increase the number of vendors that take the Girl Scout Gender Parity Pledge.

Assessment, Certification & Enablement

• Increase the number of vendors in assessment to address gap areas in achieving gender parity.
• Increase the number of vendors that reach pay parity and 30% female leadership goals.
• Increase the number of vendors that are certified at various levels.

Advocacy & Adoption:

• Leveraging input from the CEO Advisory Task Force to reach additional companies across various geographic regions nationwide and of various sizes and industries.
• Increase advocacy among Girl Scouts alum, non-profit, and business partners.

By effectively measuring culture, policies, and practices within the initiative's framework, we can track progress towards achieving equitable and inclusive workplaces, pay parity, and 30% or greater diverse female leadership within organizations, especially in STEM-related fields.  Organizations will retake the certification annually (for companies with greater than 400 employees) or bi-annually (for companies with 100-400 employees), and their progress will be tracked with a change in their objective scores and level of certification (one-four stars).

The following are just a few of the achievements that we have accomplished to date:

• We have secured 61 companies to commit to Fair Play, Equal Pay Pledge, impacting approximately 2 million employees. 
• 8 companies have completed the Fair Play, Equal Pay Assessment, with 7 earning the Girl Scouts Gender Parity Certification, impacting almost 50,000 employees.
• Promoted gender parity and Fair Play, Equal Pay through various vendor forums and events, including Fiserv’s Women’s History Month Fireside Chat, Women in Governance’s Annual Gala, and NEPC’s Investment Diversity Advisory Council.
• Highlighted the Fair Play, Equal Pay on GSUSA’s social media channels, garnering nearly 746,000 impressions via social media, and in the Girl Scout Network newsletter, with a circulation of 727,401 readers.
• On Tuesday, March 14, 2023, in celebration of Equal Pay Day, GSUSA recognized seven partners that have committed to gender parity through our gender parity initiative with an announcement on PR Newswire that garnered 190M impressions, including national outlets such as MarketWatch, Benzinga, Markets Insider, and coverage from several local media entities across the country. 
• Developed and rolled out Post-Certification Action Plan, which detailed specific marketing and communication that would occur once a vendor earns certification. Highlighted WTW’s certification through social and paid media.
• Promoted initiative through paid media with Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) newsletters and paid social campaign on LinkedIn, marking the first external push for the initiative outside of existing vendors.

Fair Play, Equal Pay will enable companies to demonstrate in tangible results their commitment to gender parity and demonstrate gender parity is a priority in their organizations. Through our research, we have found several organizations that have galvanized CEOs’ commitment to gender parity through a public pledge and/or declaration of support. These organizations have collectively gathered thousands of CEO signatures. These organizations have also contributed to the gender parity landscape by building communities that share best practices and ideas.

Nevertheless, as reported in the study “Women in the Workplace 2016” by LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company, “although company commitment to gender diversity is at an all-time high, companies don’t consistently put their commitment into practice, and many employees are not on board.” GSUSA aims to accelerate progress toward achieving gender parity by promoting inclusion through Fair Play, Equal Pay. The initiative incorporates a pledge but goes much further in applying a trio of assessment, certification, and enablement frameworks, tools, and methodologies. We are poised to thoroughly assess and help organizations address gaps in their gender parity efforts through purposeful collaboration.

GSUSA is starting the process by challenging our vendor partners to take part in all components of Fair Play, Equal Pay.  GSUSA is "putting our money where our mouth is" and ensuring that we align our partnerships with partner organizations and vendor partners, demonstrating a commitment to female leadership. Further, as we advocate for parity, we emphasize the strength and importance of our voice in the critically relevant national dialogue around the issues of gender parity and pay equity.

Specifically, Fair Play, Equal Pay demonstrates the power of our $1B spending by encouraging those we spend money with to be gender-friendly, provide like pay for like work, and support female leaders to succeed. Through this impactful initiative, we ensure that gender parity is exemplified in every part of our business, including our supply chain.

We do not plan to stop with our partnering organizations and vendor partners, with a particular focus on engaging companies in STEM fields with significant gender parity challenges.  Through a focused accelerator program that we engaged in before launching the initiative, we conducted interviews with top IT vendors. We pursued diverse opportunities to engage with investment partners to understand gender parity challenges in traditionally male-denominated STEM industries, such as Technology and Finance.  We learned that in these industries, high and broad awareness, deliberate focus on gender parity, and implementation of widespread programs are necessary to achieve impact. In Technology specifically that there is significant support for STEM skills development and creating a workforce pipeline of highly skilled female talent.  This is where Girl Scouts is uniquely positioned to meet the needs and address the challenges in STEM-related fields.  Girl Scouts delivers the Girl Scouts leadership experience, based on solid research, to our girls with programs in STEM and entrepreneurship. Current partners value Girl Scouts' expertise in building a workforce of diverse, skilled leaders.

We understand that transforming the workplace is foundational to progress toward gender parity. GSUSA is partnering with a backend gender parity partner to create and host an online assessment platform and perform the gender parity assessments, employing best-in-class methodologies for annual review/auditing/reporting of the company's gender parity status, including participant's workforce data, assessing the percentage of female leaders and if there are any unexplained pay disparities. We have worked with the gender parity partner to develop metric-driven parameters and facilitate the availability of training and enablement tools essential to address the gaps.

Twenty

Since 2019

We commit to doing all we can, using our collective power, to help create the change in our communities that is long overdue. We will do our part to dismantle systemic racism. We recognize that this is far from easy or fast work, but we are Girl Scouts—we believe in sisterhood, justice, and fairness—so we are in it for the long haul. We act when we see a need and live by our Girl Scout Law, which demands we seek racial equity for everyone. We teach girls to lead by example, and to that end, we are committed to doing the difficult work to become an anti-racist organization. We are making an initial financial investment to partner with race, inclusion, and equity experts, focusing on girls and women. This will support the following actions we will take at all levels of our national organization:

• 1. Leadership. Girl Scouts of the USA is convening a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Racial Justice Steering Committee to help create an organization that works for all girls. This means ensuring that Black, Indigenous, Latina, and all girls of color feel supported, welcomed, and treated with dignity and respect. The steering committee comprises national board members, national staff, and Girl Scout council CEOs helping guide and prioritize this work.
• 2. Staff. This change starts from within, so Girl Scouts commits to strengthening hiring practices that help us reflect the communities we serve. We will also support and train all Girl Scout staff in diversity, equity, and inclusion and earnestly pursue the ongoing work of recognizing and challenging our biases and internalized racism.
• 3. Volunteers. The strength of our organization rests among our more than 700,000 dedicated volunteers. We will provide additional resources, training, and support to ensure these champions of girls are equipped to serve all girls equitably.
• 4. Most importantly, Girls. All girls' voices must be heard. We will provide all girls a place to feel heard and have the resources and support they need to raise their voices and change their corner of the world. We are asking for all Girl Scouts—girls, volunteers, alums, supporters, families, staff, suppliers, and service providers—to commit to making the world more equitable.

The Girl Scouts of USA and All Girl Scouts Council aim to build girls of courage, confidence, and character through the Girl Scout Leadership Experience (GSLE) model.  The GSLE encourages girls to Discover themselves, Connect with others, and Take Action to improve the world. Guided by supportive adults and peers, Girl Scouts engage in age-appropriate activities that are girl-led, cooperative, and hands-on. Participating in the GSLE helps girls develop essential leadership skills to become successful adults. Girls who engage in the GSLE are more likely to enjoy and attribute their leadership skills to Girl Scouts. The GSLE delivers "fun with a purpose" by helping girls gain valuable life skills and unique new experiences while having fun and building friendships! The three Girl Scout processes are:

• Girl Led means that girls of every age take an active and grade-appropriate role in figuring out what, where, when, why, and how of what they do.
•  Learning by Doing is hands-on learning that engages girls in an ongoing cycle of action and reflection. When girls actively participate in meaningful activities and later reflect on them, they better understand concepts and master skills.
• Cooperative Learning is designed to promote sharing knowledge, skills, and learning in an atmosphere of respect and cooperation as girls work together on goals that they accomplish with the help of others. These three processes promote the fun and friendship that have always been integral to Girl Scouting.

We plan to fund through donations and grants through individual and institutional giving. We've received 1.2 million dollars in foundational funding for this initiative.

Girl Scouts is working with Women in Governance (WiG), a recognized leader in the gender parity space whose assessment and analytical tools will be instrumental in informing GSUSA's decision to certify a current and potential Girl Scout vendor. The initiative is sponsored thanks in large part to a generous grant from The David and Lura Lovell Foundation. This national foundation supports initiatives in four main areas, by invitation only, including Gender Parity.