The Summit Service Project and Rank Application

What this page is

Sections 4.3.2.0 through 4.3.4.0 of the Guide to Advancement. Every item cites the topic it came from.

A Summit service project must provide a valuable service that meets a need, and must represent a significant personal growth experience through some combination of its scope and complexity, the leadership of others, or a connection to a personal future life-goal. The impact of a project (the extent to which it makes a meaningful difference) is the most important consideration.

Four focus areas, and only one of them is compulsory

Service, scope and complexity, leadership, and personal goal connection. All four are considered together, and the balance between them matters more than any one:

• Service is required. Every Summit project must provide one.
• No particular level of scope or complexity is required.
• Leadership and personal goal connection are not required at all, but they add value and depth, and either or both may compensate for a project that needs little planning and execution. The Guide adds a practical reason for the last two that has nothing to do with advancement: a Venturer may want to show the project report to an employer or a college admissions board.

The approval that is not there

Councils and districts do not play a role in reviewing or approving Summit service projects. The crew Advisor and a designated crew member must agree that a project fulfils what is required, and that is the approval.

This is the single biggest difference from the Eagle Scout service project, where the council or district is one of four approvals and all four fall before any work begins. A crew that copies the Eagle process onto a Summit project has invented a requirement.

What a project may not be

No commercial projects, and nothing that primarily raises money even for a worthy charity. No service to Scouting America, its councils, districts, units or properties. No minimum hours. Routine labour is not normally appropriate. Only one Summit candidate may take credit for a project, though related projects are fine as long as each can be conducted and evaluated independently.

And the one that catches busy young people: this project must be different from one used for the Eagle Scout rank or the Sea Scout Quartermaster rank.

Seven Eagle topics that apply here too

4.3.2.3 states that Guide topics 9.0.2.10 through 9.0.2.16: fundraising, routine labour, misconceptions, evaluation after completion, risk management, insurance and Messengers of Peace: also apply to Summit service projects. They are written for the Eagle project and modelled on the Eagle plan; this page names the adoption rather than restating them.

After the project

The beneficiary approves first, and that approval is simply agreement that the project was carried out to their satisfaction. The crew Advisor then determines whether it meets What Is Required in the proposal form. The board of review will see the project too, but it should be rare that a project acceptable to a beneficiary and the crew Advisor is rejected by a board.

How to read the graph

The spine runs top to bottom in the order the Guide sets. Nested items are part of the item above them. Dashed lines apply only in the case written on the arrow, and the two questions above the plan decide which of those you see.