About the World Scout Foundation and World Scouting
The World Scout Foundation (WSF) is a Swiss foundation that exists to support the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) in its mission to educate and empower young people to develop as active, global citizens and be ready for life. WOSM is the organisation that unites the 176 National Scout Organisations; World Scouting is the worldwide Movement as a whole, which WOSM coordinates and represents. All resources mobilised by the Foundation are for the benefit of World Scouting and are allocated to one of two fund types: the General Endowment Fund (unrestricted), from which the investment returns provide an annual operational grant to World Scouting and fund the Foundation's governance and fundraising; and the Designated Purpose Funds (restricted), which are earmarked for specific global Scouting projects.
World Scouting is the world's largest educational youth movement. Founded in 1907, it now engages nearly 60 million young people, adult leaders, and volunteers across 224 countries and territories, delivering a structured, values-based educational programme that helps them become active, responsible citizens.
More than 500 million people have taken part since it began, and since 2013 alone, Scouts have contributed nearly 3 billion hours of community service toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Scouting operates through 176 National Scout Organisations (NSOs) — the independent, in-country bodies (one per country, similar to a national federation) that deliver Scouting locally. These NSOs are supported globally by the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM).
