Global trends
WOSM keeps on growing! While National Scout Organisations (NSOs) and Scout Regions show different national and regional trends, since the beginning of this Triennium (2021), the global WOSM’s membership has increased by 7% based on the NSO census submissions as of July 2024. According to the 2022 Official census data, as the last completed census cycle in this Triennium, the membership increase compared to the 2021 Official census is 5.1%.
Looking at absolute growth data we can determine that WOSM’s membership has completely recovered (compared to the membership data in 2019) and is continuing an overall positive growth trend. In terms of absolute growth, over 2 million youth members have joined WOSM since the beginning of this triennium. Another encouraging trend is that the number of girls in WOSM is the highest to date, amounting to almost 17 million.
In the last Triennium, 357 000 adults joined Scouting, which is less compared to the past two trienniums. This re-emphasises the need to further offer flexible, new modes of volunteering to accommodate the needs of adults in Scouting, especially in a context in which many young people can’t join the movement due to a lack of adults to ensure the right educational environment. It should be noted that the update for this Triennium is based only on the difference between one census (2021 and 2022).
Improving membership measurement
For several years now, a number of measures have been introduced to support data gathering enabling more detailed insight into our progress achieving Vision 2023 which is now even more crucial in setting grounds for the New Strategy for Scouting.
Improving the data quality and the measurement of membership is one of the key priorities defined in the area of membership growth. The WOSM Estimated Census 2024 [see details in the Methodology section] provides additional insights into our membership, a deeper understanding of the official NSO census submissions, and valuable information for membership trend analysis. It also allows us to reflect on the developments of 2023 as the first full post-pandemic year when NSOs worked in a post-pandemic environment.
The WOSM Estimated Census 2024 membership update provided additional insights into the NSO's activities in the area of membership growth. During the last year, the NSOs focused on recovering their membership and expanding into new geographical areas, and many of them conducted efforts to register these new units in an online system. Despite the membership increase in most of the NSOs, challenges in capturing data accurately persist and affect membership growth.
In 2024, additional efforts were made to enhance the reliability and consistency of the WOSM Estimated Census 2024. The improved methodology focused on a more unified approach across the regions and added additional provisions regarding the NSO context, information sourcing, and determining the confidence level for each census entry. The information was obtained through bilateral conversations with the NSOs and the NSAs, field visits, data from funded projects, WOSM services, and historical knowledge.
Figure 2: Membership update with the introduction of the WOSM Estimated Census
The WOSM Estimated Census is one of the tools used since 2017 to identify gaps and harvest insights that reflect the WOSM membership reality. The current membership, based on the WOSM Estimated Census 2024, is set at 57,040,310 members. The chart below provides long-term WOSM membership trends and the adjustment following the introduction of the WOSM Estimated census.
Looking back at 2014 – how far we came?
Back in 2014, WOSM set an ambitious vision of enabling 100 million young people to be active citizens by creating positive change in their communities. More than a fixed number, this was a call for growth and to extend the Scouting adventure and impact to as many young people as possible.
World Scouting has worked intensively during the implementation of Vision 2023 on estimating the number of Scouting beneficiaries - individuals who are positively impacted by Scouting’s programme in their community even without being members of respective NSOs. Beneficiaries are grouped into three categories based on the type of their engagement: social, educational, and humanitarian.
We are excited to report that as of the 2022 Official census and the 2024 Estimated census, in addition to its members, NSOs have reported close to 20 million beneficiaries all around the world or young people and adults that WOSM programmes often reach beyond our members. WOSM programmes often reach beyond our members. Through the census, WOSM supports NSOs is measuring beneficiaries in the following 3 categories:
social beneficiaries, meaning youth living in difficult circumstances and benefiting from the activities of the NSO
educational beneficiaries, meaning youth participating in scouting activities but not registered with the NSO
humanitarian beneficiaries, meaning youth benefiting from the humanitarian activities of the NSO
Despite the increasing number of beneficiaries, it should be mentioned that the reporting of beneficiaries is still limited. In the 2022 Official census only 24% of all NSOs and NSAs have reported at least one category of beneficiaries.
Together with the estimated number of members, this leads us to enabling 77 million children, youth and adults to be part of creating positive changes in their lives and their communities. In turn, this means that we have all together achieved 77% of Vision 2023 - while there have been so many unprecedented events challenging the Scouting mission in different parts of the globe, we are thankful for each Scout who has contributed to this and continues strengthening our Movement.
Figure 3: Young people and adults impacted by Scouting (2024 WOSM Estimated Census) and reported beneficiaries by NSOs
Reflecting back on the outgoing Vision 2023, one of the meta-indicators developed to measure our progress set an ambition to “Increase our global market share by 2%”. Taking into account the percentage of young people aged between 6 and 24 years involved in Scouting in a country where WOSM has an NSO, WOSM’s market share is currently 3.29%. Since 2014, WOSM has increased its global market share by 1,22%. Although the growth of WOSM has slightly slowed down for years 2020-2021, we are now close to the record membership seen in 2019. This is a positive trend, meaning that we have successfully achieved the ambition to engage more youth in Scouting, especially in countries where Scouting’s reach is smaller.
However, it is clear that with the impact of the pandemic seen in the membership data of 2020-2021, significant further work is needed in a number of areas to ensure achieving our new strategic priorities, including:
- Innovate youth programmes and educational programmes offered to reflect the needs and interests of young people, including those yet outside of Scouting
- Ensure a safe environment for adventures and growth, enhancing the well-being of young people
- Support the commitment and motivation of adult members by offering flexible, meaningful opportunities
- Strengthening Scouting organisations which are fit-for-purpose, able to adapt to the changing needs and position themselves as leaders within respective societies.
In the infographic below, you can find specific trends and data on the WOSM membership growth over the past 10 years. Please note that the membership analysis for the Triennium 2021-2024 is based on the progress between the 2021 and the 2022 Official census considering that the 2023 Annual reporting cycle for is currently open. This affects the number of absolute members added for this triennium compared to the previous Trienniums.
Please note that the decrease/increase in the "Others" category does not represent a change in total membership numbers. The number depends on how many NSOs that report all/some members in this category submitted their census.
Figure 4: Overview of young people and adult membership for Vision 2023 and the Triennium 2021-2024 (Official census data)
Figure 5: WOSM Membership Market share trends (pre- and post-pandemic)
Key Findings
- In the Triennium 2021-2024 WOSM’s membership has grown by 7%. This means that WOSM’s membership has almost recovered from the membership decline seen in the years 2020 and 2021.
- The number of girls in WOSM is the highest to date, amounting to almost 17 million according to the 2022 Official census.
- Based on the identified gaps and estimations by the 2024 Estimated Census, it is estimated that the current WOSM’s membership is set at 57,040,310 members.
- With the number of beneficiaries identified to benefit from Scouting’s mission, WOSM’s reach is estimated to 77 million children, youth and adults, achieving a 77% of Vision 2023.
- WOSM’s market share is currently 3.29%, a 1.22% increase since the start of Vision 2023.
WOSM has witnessed continuous and increasing membership growth between 2014 and 2022, with a 22.6% increase in membership according to the Official Census. Our membership is currently close to the number seen back in 2019, which was a historic record. This means that our NSOs regained their stance and continued growing with new or reconnecting with old members. Compared to previous trienniums, we have faced slower growth in both youth and adult members, but the recent positive trends signal promising ways ahead:
#1: We have seen a rather slow absolute growth in adult members attributable to not only COVID-19 but also an ongoing challenge in finding and retaining adult members. On the positive side, the absolute growth in adults was higher for males, which, in the past, has seen losses in membership.
#2: Youth members’ growth is shared across both genders, with 23% growth of female youth members and 12% growth of male members since 2014. The gender balance of WOSM improved from 36% to 38% during this reporting period.
#3: The additional NSO data obtained through the WOSM Estimated census suggests that membership registration is the key reason why members are not reported in the 2022 Official census. The lack of capacity of NSOs to register all members affects the membership data. The combined estimated difference due to underreporting is estimated to be more than 8,3 million members. From this difference of 8.3 million members, the lack of effective registration systems is estimated to account for 7,2 million members who are not included in the 2022 Official census. This is the primary reason for underreporting in 48 NSOs.
An additional insight from data gathered beyond the 2022 Official census data is that there are an estimated 2,9 million members in NSOs that choose not to register female members to WOSM, but these members benefit from scouting programmes, events and services provided by WOSM.
#4 Trends in market share show that WOSM is catching up with the growth of the youth population in the communities we serve. 70 NSOs (40% of all NSOs) report a market share of more than 1% compared to just 60 NSOs (35%) in 2015. However, 72 NSOs (42% of all NSOs) report a market share of less than 0.5%. This also indicates a huge potential and opportunity to reach out to more young people and strengthen our impact.
#5: The WOSM Service support through the WOSM Growth service and the regular interaction with the NSOs suggests that while most NSOs exhibit stability and organic growth, others struggle with stagnant or declining membership. Efforts to address these issues included capacity-strengthening projects, strategic planning, and collaboration with external organisations. Despite challenges, NSOs remain committed to fostering scouting principles and expanding their reach, with varying degrees of success across regions and organisational structures.
Call for action
The achievements highlighted in this report are thanks to the hard work of our National Scout Organisations and millions of Adult volunteers in local Scout Groups. Growth happens at the local level, and thanks to the continuous and hard work of National Scout Organisations such achievements are possible. Over the last triennium, WOSM has put in place a significant number of new growth & retention resources and a dedicated team of volunteers and staff to support NSOs in their growth journey. The pandemic once again demonstrated how important Scouting is. Scouting are a much-needed force of positive change. It is therefore critical that we work together to ensure every young person is offered the opportunity to join our Movement. Scouting’s impact and potential for good increase with every young person that we can help develop. Join us! If you would like to receive support to help your NSO grow, please request a Growth Service through the WOSM Services platform at https://treehouse.scout.org/wosm-services