GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR DEVELOPING AN EAGLE PROJECT

and Trail to Eagle

• Work on the rank requirements of Eagle. Make sure you have leadership positions while a Life scout.
• Provide this leadership to the troop. This means you need to actively attend a minimum of 12 troop meetings a year to demonstrate this.
• Be sure to demonstrate that you are living by the Scout Oath & Law.
• Attend Troop “Life to Eagle” Meetings.
• You do not have to have all your merit badges completed before you start or finish your project.
• Your project must be complete and submitted by your 18th birthday. If possible start your project by the time you are 16.5 years old, do not wait.
• Obtain project idea lists and possible sponsoring organizations from your scoutmaster or on-line. Talk with various possible sponsoring organizations about their needs. Get ideas from your parents, friends, scoutmasters, and possible sponsoring organizations.
• The project must be constructive, have permanence, and of positive value to the community. It cannot be a maintenance project, such as painting a room. It does not have to be a construction project. It can be a how-to instructional video and guide for developing similar material; a summer recreation or theater program –a road map for how to develop the program and then implementing it; it can also be a construction project. Most importantly think of something that you would enjoy and like to do.
• The project must be original you cannot duplicate someone else's; it cannot build off of or add onto another project. Scouts cannot share an Eagle project.
• Before you start to write, discuss your ideas and concepts with Mr. Hart. Fully understand what needs to be in your project proposal. Settle in on a project and develop its concept more fully with Mr. Hart and the sponsoring organization.
• Your project must demonstrate your planning and organizational skills; your ability to coordinate your’s and other’s work; your ability to estimate cost and develop a schedule, and identify and secure funding and/or donations.
• Most important your project must demonstrate your leadership. Adult “superintendents” can advise and guide, but you must lead the crew(s) and work. Therefore, your project must be structured to involve other youths (other scouts, school friends, family, etc.)
• Begin drafting your project proposal. You may have to go back and forth between the sponsoring organization and Mr. Hart – it is important that the write-up clearly communicate what will be done, what the sponsor can expect to have when you are done.
• Have the sponsoring organization representative sign-off on the project. If this organization receives any government funding, is a governmental entity, or receives grant money, you need to obtain from them a letter stating that “the scope of this project is not budgeted within the next 5 years, it is additional to any work scheduled to be performed and is not in competition with internal or external resources.”
• Review project with Mr. Hart and Mr. Dolcich.
• Funding – only a small and limited amount of funding can come directly from your ISA. Your parents and Scoutmaster are not allowed to fund the project. The best time to raise money and obtain contributions of material is in October thru early December when firms are establishing who and what they will contribute to in the following year.
• Review and discuss with Mr. Hart the proper way to request funding. It cannot be in Class “A” uniform. Remember phone calls often don’t get returned, and it is harder to say no “face-to-face.” You can use neighborhood flyers, personal letters or have fund raising events.