GSGC 2020 Vision: Strengthen Connections and Grow Community

“Eleven years after the Giving Circle launched, we’re not only still standing, but continuing to learn and grow and have ever greater impact. That is sustainability.”

Priscilla Plummer, GSGC founder

Global Sojourns Giving Circle’s deep grassroots model has matured and is in demand. In 2020, one goal is to share it.

“Our decade-old model has been refined and energized by the dynamic team of Aunties and Mentors and is being embraced by their communities,” said Priscilla.

“Others have noticed our success in Southern Africa, where community, family and economic needs are plentiful, and they want to learn our philosophy and practices,” Priscilla said. “What we’re becoming known for is doing the deep implementation.”

In the coming months, GSGC will focus on putting together a toolkit with the Aunties, who head girls clubs, and Mentors, who head boys clubs. The toolkit will bring together lessons learned and exercises clubs find most beneficial, and it will include materials that inform and inspire. It will support our network of clubs as they empower girls and reshape boys’ attitudes toward girls and women. It will give Aunties and Mentors another way to learn from one another — and be a powerful resource they can use to train others.

“We have experience, so we’re looking at how to spread the model without taking on more clubs,” Priscilla said. We want to strengthen capacity-building, to support our team to go out and train others.”

Demand is high. Enthusiasm from partner clubs is high. Sharing our model is a way to wrap our arms around others without overextending GSGC, she said.

“We want to scale up by leveraging our experience and knowledge and get this model out to others,” she said. “We’re building a network.”

Priscilla’s 2020 vision for GSGC doesn’t stop there.

In GSGC-sponsored boys clubs, attitudes are evolving to be more supportive of girls, and those efforts will continue. “Our mentors and boys club members are shifting attitudes in their own communities,” she said.

Putting more local African voices side-by-side with U.S. voices is on the list for 2020. So is growing GSGC’s donor base. “We are a community, and we really could use more committed help,” Priscilla explained. “We want to get more people involved.”

Donor education will get more emphasis. Information and conversations will emerge more frequently about the GSGC approach, and we’ll focus more on building community among donors.

Strengthening other ties, links between GSGC and the Global Sojourns travel business could become more pronounced in 2020 in an effort to inspire new and existing supporters to learn firsthand about Southern Africa and see their donor dollars at work.

“It’s about connections and relationships,” Priscilla said. “It’s being reinforced to me that a key reason this work has such impact is because we’re a community. It’s not top-down; we are interwoven. And I’m really proud of that.”

“I am ever so grateful to our circle — for the thoughtfulness and generosity of our donors, the commitment of our volunteers, and the passion of our Aunties and Mentors. Each person plays such an important role in making this transformative work possible.”