District Eagle Project Approvals with EagleProjectTracking.com

Every year for the last three years, the Mt. Nebo District has doubled the number of boys who finish the process to become an Eagle Scout. Before 2011, the district kept track of all Eagle Project approvals on paper. Their records included the usual information: what the project was, who approved it and the scout’s information. The form then needed to travel from the approval committee to the council, where it was matched to the appropriate Eagle paperwork. It was a good system employed by many hard-working and well-meaning scout leaders. But, it was prone to human error and delay. The council knew it was losing many would-be-Eagles to logistics and frustration. They needed a better system.

At this time, Jason Petty began to run the approvals working under a Wood Badge Ticket to automate and digitize this system. It was the birth of an amazing resource. EagleProjectTracking.com has evolved over the last three years to become an invaluable tool. The Nebo District relies on it to keep track of a number of things pertaining to eagle projects. Other districts introduced to the website and what it does are clamoring to use it.

The website tracks a scout when he calls to set up an appointment with the committee for his Eagle Project approval. If the scout has met with an eagle coach and has completed the proposal section, including all the required signatures to this point, then an appointment is scheduled. When an appointment is made, the scout and his coach are sent an email explaining the time and place of the approval as well as information about what needs to be ready for the approval.

At the appointment only a few notes are taken on the website. The committee can concentrate on the boy and his project knowing that with a few minor keystrokes the program will track the members of the approval committee and details of the interview. Each coach and scout receive an automated email once the project is approved, congratulating them and detailing the next step.

The website doesn’t stop there. It is useful for many different functions. All eagle coaches and advancement committee member information is stored within the site. This can be used to send out mass emails to everyone with information on when help is needed with boards and for training purposes and to keep everyone on the same page in the district. The list of coaches is easily distributable in PDF format by putting a link on the council website and it dynamically updates every time it is loaded. This feature relieves any need for a separate website to store up-to-date coach contact information.

Coaches use the website to track which boys they are currently working with and with whom they have ever worked. Emails may be sent to the scouts from the website too in order to facilitate communications.

Documents with important information that all coaches need to do their jobs are stored on the website also. Any document which the scout or the coach needs can be found here along with training documents so they can be reviewed regularly.

Coaches may choose which notification to subscribe to in the system. Subscription options range widely from receiving a specifically defined limit of notifications to receiving everything.

But perhaps the most appealing function for any advancement committee is the reports. There is a wide a number of reports built into the system such as: Coach Participation by area, Approvals by Month, Approvals and Boards by Area, scouts who have turned in packets, which scout is ready for his board of review, all completed boards of review by year, approvals by week, month and more.

Another nice feature is the automated messaging. Once a scout is marked in the system as ready for board of review, he will get an email stating that he has been marked as ready along with the address to a website with practice questions to prepare for his board.

The Mt. Nebo district has noticed a dramatic increase in boys finishing their eagle since using this tool because it is accessible from anywhere (web based). Because of this when new features are added, you instantly get them without having to upgrade.

Visit http://eagleprojecttracking.com to sign up if you are interested in this.  It is only $10/month per district to use.