Volunteer Awards and Recognitions | Girl Scouts

Girl Scouts – Diamonds of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas appreciates our volunteers and feel they all deserve to be recognized for their contributions. Recognition can be accomplished through acts of appreciation and awards. The Volunteer Service Hour Awards submission deadline is February 1. The Adult Recognition Awards submission deadline is April 15.

Appreciation is an ongoing, daily process for all volunteers. Showing appreciation for one another is one way to show respect, to relate to each other’s strengths, and to build mutual commitment for Girl Scouting.

Awards are given for outstanding contributions that have made a significant impact on girls. You may nominate outstanding volunteers in your community. The Girl Scouts - Diamonds Council hosts an annual recognitions program to recognize council award recipients.

Awards Information

Girl Scouts - Diamonds celebrates extraordinary volunteers with three categories of awards: National Girl Scout (GSUSA) Adult Recognition Awards, council-specific Adult Recognition Awards, and Volunteer Service Hour Awards.

Adult Recognition Descriptions toggle arrow

Review the Adult Recognition Descriptions for detailed descriptions of each award.

Who Should Be Recognized toggle arrow

Troop Leadership Team
Troop support volunteers
Service unit team members
Special service adults
Members of the council’s Board of Directors

Volunteer Service Hour Awards toggle arrow

The Volunteer Service Hour award is for adult volunteers based on the number of hours individuals have given to the Girl Scout organization within a calendar year (January-December). Awardees will be given a personalized certificate of achievement in recognition of their volunteer commitment. This award is available for adult volunteers who serve a minimum of 100 hours. 

The online submission form is now available! For questions, please email recognitions@girlscoutsdiamonds.org.

Click here for VSA Submissions!

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Numeral Guard and Volunteer Years of Service

The Numeral Guard recognizes the number of combined girl and adult years as a registered member of Girl Scouts.

Years of Service recognizes the total number of years that a volunteer has served in Girl Scouts. These pins are presented in 5-year increments (15, 20, 25, etc.) and council provides them at no cost beginning at 15 years.

Please complete and submit the form linked below by April 15. If you are submitting for both pins, you will complete the form twice.

Numeral Guard and YOS submissions

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How to Submit a Council Award Nomination toggle arrow

The Basics: We listened to volunteer feedback and have improved our Adult Recognition submission process! We will be using Jotform to submit award nominations and endorsements. It will allow an individual to submit a nomination entry and send a unique link to each endorser to complete their endorsement. This will eliminate the previous process of downloading and uploading nomination PDFs to be submitted via email.

The Steps:
1. The Nominator uses the link below to submit a nomination. The nominator will be required to enter each endorser’s name and email address.
2. Once the nominator has submitted the nomination form, endorsements links will be sent from noreply@jotform.com to all endorsers listed on the nomination form.
3. Endorsers complete their online endorsement forms through the email from noreply@jotform.com.
4. Both the Nomination and Endorsement Forms must be received no later than April 15th. For questions, please email recognitions@girlscoutsdiamonds.org.

Who can be a nominator: Any Girl Scout volunteer, parent, community member or staff person. The nominator can also complete one of the required endorsement questionnaires.

Who can be an endorser: Any Girl Scout volunteer, parent, community member or the nominator. Staff and family members cannot complete an endorsement questionnaire for the nominee.

Time in which service was performed: Nominators and Endorsers can recognize a nominee’s volunteer service/work through April of the current membership year. Some awards ask for details from the past and current membership year, while other awards may ask about work over the last three to five years. Please reference the award descriptions for criteria.

Click here for Nomination Submissions!

Adult Volunteer Service Record Form toggle arrow

Keep track of your volunteer history and achievements with this handy Adult Volunteer Service Record. Make sure to save a copy for yourself, and give a copy to your Service Unit Recognitions Coordinator or Service Unit Director. Updates should be made annually.

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Adult Recognition Review Committee

The purpose of the Adult Recognition Review Committee is to review and approve nominations for national and council Adult Recognition Awards. Review of the nomination packets is based on the award criteria and the information provided in the packet, not on personality or identity.

After review of the nomination, the committee members score each packet’s endorsement questionnaires based on the provided scoring rubric. The average of scores for each nomination packet will determine if the award nomination is approved, changed to a different award category by committee or not approved for an award at this time.

Each packet is scored individually. An average is taken to determine the highest-scoring nominee, which will determine the recipient of adult recognition awards that only have one recipient.

The Adult Recognition Review Committee is comprised of several appointed volunteers, typically one volunteer from each of the six regions of the state, who will work in conjunction with the Volunteer Experience Department.

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Adult Recognition Appeals Process

If the Adult Recognition Review Committee determines that a nomination does not meet the criteria for an award, they may decide to:

Approve the nomination for a different award
If the candidate’s service is deemed to exceed the criteria for the nominated award, a more appropriate award may be approved. Alternatively, if the candidate has been nominated for the Honor Pin, but no indication is given that the candidate served two or more geographic areas, then they might be approved for the Appreciation Pin.

Deny the nomination
When there is no indication given that the candidate’s service met the award criteria, i.e. no information was provided which showed that the service was truly exemplary and exceeded the expectations for the position held, the nomination may be denied.

If a nomination is not approved, the nominator will be notified within one week of the Committee’s scoring deadline. At this time, information will be shared as to what is needed to make a stronger nomination should the nominator decide to appeal the decision. Nominators may follow the appeals process if they feel the nomination was not supported appropriately or the award category was changed in error.

Nominations may be revised and re‐submitted to the Volunteer Experience Department within five days of notification of the decision by the Adult Recognition Review Committee.

Based on the information in the revised nomination and discussion with the Adult Recognition Review Committee, the Volunteer Experience Department staff will follow up with the nominator regarding the final decision.