Venturing is a youth-led program all about building adventures with your friends. Choose to do activities that matter to you and develop essential skills like leadership, event-planning, organization, communication, and responsibility while having a blast!
Everyone has that moment that opens their eyes to a bigger world than they ever imagined. It might happen while paddling a quiet lake, bonding with new friends around a beach bonfire, or rising to the challenge of leading an exhausted crew to the edges of adventure. Venturing empowers you to create your own experiences while bringing Scouting values to life through high adventure outdoor activities and challenging real-world projects.
The Venturing Program runs under the A-L-P-S model. We use this model to help Venturers grow in adventure, leadership, personal development, and service. You can learn more about advancement and awards below.
There are four ranks in the Venturing program: Venturing, Discovery, Pathfinder, and Summit. We have designed them to work with crews of any specialization, and each rank serves as a benchmark along a Venturer’s journey.
The Venturing specialty awards, while not a part of the core Venturing recognition program, allow Venturers to discover specific areas more in-depth.
We’ve designed the Venturing program to develop youth participants into experienced leaders.
View our most frequently asked questions.
Terminology, the ALPS model, crew leadership and scholarships—answered below.
In order to be a good advocate for the Venturing program, it is essential to know the correct program terminology like “crews” and organizational structure. The name of the program is Venturing, a unit is called a Venturing Crew, and a youth in the program is called a Venturer.
Venturing uses four areas of emphasis to help the crew plan and carry out its program. ALPS stands for: Adventure, Leadership, Personal Growth, and Service.
Venturing has a distinct history as part of the BSA. After the old Exploring program was reorganized, Venturing was officially created by the BSA executive board on February 9, 1998, with a focus on outdoor-oriented posts.
A Venturing Officers’ Association, or VOA, consists of a team of youth officers who are supported by advisors. It provides leadership opportunities that prepare young people for their respective futures and gives them a voice to help strengthen the Venturing program.
Yes! Dozens of universities, Scouting America local councils, and religious, civic, and military organizations offer college scholarships to Venturing Summit Rank recipients. Some scholarships are needs-based; others are merit-based.
Whether you want to wear the official green shirts or crew-specific garments, your Venturing crew has the power to choose its uniform!
