1. Using Data for Retention
Fliss Callanan
Deputy Lead Volunteer, Membership Growth and Retention

2. Why do girls join Girlguiding?
Taken from survey sent to parents of girls who have recently left Girlguiding.
Talk about the top three reasons to join (new friends, fun and try new things). Any surprises? Do you recognise this from your own experiences of working with the girls? What do girls love about Girlguiding and why do they stay in guiding?
What do you notice about the reason to join and actual experience. We’ll come back to this later…

3. Girlguiding Anywhere County – girl membership numbers (August 2016)
238
1,098
2,069
968

4. Girl membership – moving up
Every year thousands of girls join Girlguiding and experience their first taste of adventure, fun and guiding friendship.
But, for every girl who joins Girlguiding another girl leaves.
The national (and Girlguiding Anywhere County) %s of girls leaving Girlguiding in 2015 are:
Rainbows 40% left (35%) 57% (54%) left at transition
Brownies 70% left (66%) 49% (45%) left at transition
Guides 86% left (85%) 25% (25%) left at transition
38% of girls stay three years or more years
Retention data for internal use only
For internal use only
Transition is defined as ‘6 months leading into the top age of each section’ (e.g. 10 for Brownie to Guide)
Girls staying three or more years is important because our alumnae research shows us that girls really start to benefit from guiding at this point. So the more we can encourage girls to stay and move up the sections the greater the positive impact we will have on their lives
Some additional info: slight trend to girls leaving at a younger age, 65% of Guides left by the time they were 13, trends are the same across the levels – but there are local differences.

5. Stepping off – girls who left guiding in Girlguiding Anywhere in 2015
On average Guides leave at 12.9 years
On average Brownies leave at 9.6 years
On average Rainbows leave at 6.9 years
- 408
For internal use only
Numbers in pink are the numbers of girls who left GG in 2015 (Note: we don’t have final figures for The Senior Section as we need to link to adult data to see if girls stayed on as volunteers – currently looking into this)
Any thoughts? Comments?
- 709
- 237

6. Why do girls leave? We had other commitments
The programme activities weren’t exciting
My daughter didn’t learn many new skills
My daughter didn’t feel included or valued
I wasn’t happy with the behaviour of the leadership group
What did you enjoy least?
The programme lacked excitement
The activities were pitched too young or were boring
The social interaction between girls
Girlguiding have been conducting online surveys with some of our members/parents of members leaving Girlguiding to find out more.
“The research showed a high level of respondents who reported a positive experience; for example over 30% of respondents reported they would change nothing at all about their experience, and as below, the top reason for leaving was more associated with external factors than those related to Girlguiding.”
What do you think? Does this chime with your experiences?
Note that the sample size was very small so this is not a definitive list just an indication.
If the girls are leaving for other commitments what does that tell us about what we are offering? Why do the girls put other commitments above Guiding?
How can we change this?

7. Why do girls join Girlguiding?
Look again at the differences.

8. What are Girlguiding doing?
Using the data and research to influence future work:
Programme
Quality pilots
GO development
Membership Communication plan around growth
Developing new resources to support volunteers with growth and moving girls between sections
National volunteer recruitment campaign and ‘recruitment bootcamp’ in 2017
Tools and templates to help volunteers use data to plan for growth:
Is there anything else that would help?

9. What can we do locally Go on a journey: Join together: For the girl:
Understand what transitions look like in your area
Get to know each other and work together to help girls on their guiding journey
Create a guiding family and family units to help girls moving up
Fill gaps in the local guiding sections/offer
Do joint event and activities
Go on a journey:
Make the most of the new programme launch
Learn new skills or invite others to share their skills
Share programme ideas and embed quality guiding
Have fun adventures
Refreshing annual events and avoiding repetition
For the girl:
Girls designing the programme, being supported to take on new personal challenges, making new friends, keen & excited to take the next big step and supporting their peers to move up
Be proud and shout out:
Celebrate achievements and special milestones together
Let families and your community know about the amazing opportunities available and the impact of guiding

10. Plan for growth What are your local challenges?
E.g. We lose Brownies before they join Guides
What does it look like at the moment?
E.g. Lots of Brownies aged 10 and Brownies not moving up to Guides. Leaders don’t know each other very well.
What would you like it to look like?
E.g. More Brownies move up to Guides across all our groups and Leaders work together to help girls on their guiding journey
What are you going to do?
E.g. 1. Brownie and Guide Leaders to meet up for cake and get to know each other 2. Brownie and Guide Leaders arrange to visit each others groups 3. As an area discuss how girls currently transition and think about what we can do differently 4. Plan a Guides run Brownies night and invite Brownie parents along
When are you going to do it?
How is it going?

12. Girlguiding _______ County - Rainbows
__ moving up from the section before successfully
MOVING UP
JOINING IN
__ girls leaving Girlguiding
August
___ girls and young women
__ % of girls were new to Guiding
Of which __ girls left within 6 months of transition to the next section
__ moving up to next section successfully
You can adapt and change to suit your local area and priorities - feel free to add arrows, change arrows, focus on girls or focus on volunteers.
MOVING ON
MOVING OUT

13. Girlguiding ______ County - Brownies
__ moving up from the section before successfully
MOVING UP
JOINING IN
__ girls leaving Girlguiding
August
___ girls and young women
__ % of girls were new to Guiding
Of which __ girls left within 6 months of transition to the next section
__ moving up to next section successfully
You can adapt and change to suit your local area and priorities - feel free to add arrows, change arrows, focus on girls or focus on volunteers.
MOVING ON
MOVING OUT

14. Girlguiding _______ County - Guides
__ moving up from the section before successfully
MOVING UP
JOINING IN
__ girls leaving Girlguiding
August
___ girls and young women
__ % of girls were new to Guiding
Of which __ girls left within 6 months of transition to the next section
__ moving up to next section successfully
You can adapt and change to suit your local area and priorities - feel free to add arrows, change arrows, focus on girls or focus on volunteers.
MOVING ON
MOVING OUT

15. Retention snap shot Rainbows left Girlguiding while a Rainbow
NAME: ________________
Thoughts,
initial outcomes
Rainbows
Active members went to Brownies
left Girlguiding while a Rainbow
left at transition
Brownies
Active members went to Guides
left Girlguiding while a Brownie
left at transition
Guides
Active members went to The Senior Section
left Girlguiding while a Guide
left at transition

16. Stepping off – girls who left guiding in 2015
On average Guides leave at 12.9 years
On average Brownies leave at 9.6 years
On average Rainbows leave at 6.9 years
- 408
For internal use only
Numbers in pink are the numbers of girls who left GG in 2015 (Note: we don’t have final figures for The Senior Section as we need to link to adult data to see if girls stayed on as volunteers – currently looking into this)
Any thoughts? Comments?
- 709
- 237