Perception

Our aim: for Scouts to be more visible, trusted, respected, and seen as playing a key role in today’s society.

Progress a year on

Improving our perception

• We’re working hard to make sure the Scouts brand is frequently and positively in the public eye. It’s not just about being visible – the important part is being seen positively, so we can emphasise our core skills for life message.
• In September, our young volunteers’ kindness to others was clear during the Lying in State of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Scouts’ involvement featured in 55 national broadcast pieces over 10 days. This contributed towards a total of 23,363 media items secured through the year, creating 5.9 billion opportunities to view. Impressively, this means every adult in the UK had the chance to see positive Scouts coverage more than 85 times.
• There’s no doubt that our Scout Ambassadors help us amplify what we do. From praising young people at our Annual Day of Celebration and Achievement at Windsor, to the launch of The Big Help Out, our ambassadors are proud to speak up for Scouts. Our Chief Scout, Bear Grylls, has been tireless in his support. Bear went to key events in person, made films to support us, and even helped to light one of 100 Scouts’ beacons at the Platinum Jubilee in summer 2022.
• We’re still creating and sharing high quality, engaging content online. Our films are designed to increase our brand reach and they’ve generated over 200,000 views across our channels. Focusing on showing the relevance of Scouts for building better futures, our content proudly depicts Scouts’ involvement in many communities. Some highlights include films on events like ‘Iftar under the Stars’ in Halifax, and Diwali celebrations in London. Lots of people engaged with the film of Scouts Ambassador Dwayne Fields’ visiting the 75th anniversary Agoonoree camp for Scouts with additional needs.
• Throughout the year, we’ve proudly shared posts showing how Scouts are active members of our international movement. We’ve responded to support fellow Scouts affected by the war in Ukraine, floods in Pakistan, famine in Somalia and the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria.
• A bright moment in the year was Bear recognising 21 amazing young people with his Chief Scout’s Unsung Heroes award, which showcases Scouts’ kindness, courage, and resilience. Working with Bear, we launched a special ‘Never Give Up’ badge and neckerchief, to celebrate those who’ve gone above and beyond.
• We’re proud that our work continues to lead the sector. We’re thrilled to have won the Charity Times Charity of the Year 2022 award, along with being shortlisted for another eight major awards. Not only that, our HSBC partnership for money skills won two Corporate Engagement Awards, and, as a movement, we were honoured to receive the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Volunteering Award.

Supporting young people

• Our partnership with Inmarsat meant two lucky Scouts won the chance to watch the new I-6 F2 satellite launch from Mission Control in Florida. This amazing prize came through a Scouts competition that promoted science skills and fuelled young people’s creativity by asking how satellites can be used for good. The competition received extensive national media coverage and was supported by Scouts Ambassador, Tim Peake.
• A series of new partnerships, with big-hitting media organisations such as Disney and Dungeons and Dragons, have led to exciting programme activities designed to help young people develop their confidence and empathy skills. These partnerships have also led to some amazing ‘red carpet moments,’ where a few lucky Scouts interviewed world famous film stars like Chris Pratt, Taika Waititi and Jason Wong.
• We continue to advocate for the benefits that Scouts offers young people, with decision makers from across the political spectrum. A great example of this was a group of Sea Scouts hosting Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in Inverness – a memorable event for everyone involved.
• Working with local lead volunteers, we’re pleased we’ve secured vital government support to help local Scouts groups manage rising energy bills. The government have also committed to charity grants to help us invest in energy efficiencies.

Attracting, recruiting, and retaining volunteers

• We’re still working closely with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), successfully putting our case to the Uniformed Youth Fund (UYF) and gaining funding for the work we do with young people. We’ve also secured an unprecedented £6.3 million from UYF to grow new Scouts groups in areas of deprivation through to 2025.
• We still use paid social media and cutting edge recruitment assets to support our vital volunteer recruitment. This approach has contributed to Scouts having an impressive net gain of 3,055 new adult volunteers.

Progressing our brand

• This year, we’ve been thrilled to offer more than 100 new resources to the 30,000 regular users of our brand centre. We’ve refined our core brand, making it even more accessible online. Young people successfully collaborated with us to co-design identities for our UK Contingent for the 25th World Scout Jamboree and Roverway 24.
• Good progress has been made in our journey to review and evolve what we wear. We’ll be working with a team from Jermyn Street Design who have a breadth of uniform design experience for different practical settings and the full range of body shapes. In the year ahead, we’ll start working on new designs for Scouts, Explorers, Network, and adult volunteers. These’ll be rigorously tested to make sure what we wear is practical, appealing, affordable, and sustainable.