The Program Division receives more than 400 merit badge suggestions each year, and they don't act upon any of them for at least a year or two. Every two years, the Boy Scout Program Committee goes through the merit badge suggestions and recommends to the Program Group Director four or five merit badges; it then goes around to other parts of the Program Group for concurrence; and then finally, it goes to the Editorial Service to coordinate and compose the actual merit badge requirements. The BSA's National Executive Board decides if the badge will go or not based upon the Program Group's recommendation. The entire process takes about three to five years.
* The committee that considers new MBs meets 3 times a year.
* The new MBs need to promote a hobby or career interest and promote the aims of Scouting.
* When submitting an idea, you need to include the rationale behind the idea, as well as potential sample requirements for the badge.
* Nearly all of the ideas for new badges are turned down for one reason or another, very few get tabled for consideration. There are two reasons for this.
o First, there are currently 121 MBs and instead of growing that number to 200 or 500 they want to keep it around 120, so if a new MB is considered another one is usually dropped. That total has remained fairly consistent for the past 20 years or more, ranging from a high of 124 to a low of 116. Here's a table showing the changes since 1983:
Period - Added/Dropped - Total
1983-1987 +1 118
1987-1989 +6 -5 119
1989-1991 +1 120
1991-1995 +4 124
1995-1996 -8 116
1996-1998 +1 117
1998-2003 +2 119
2003-2005 +1 120
2006- +1 121
o Second, it takes around $75,000 to introduce a new MB due to creating the badges themselves, printing of pamphlets, and updating and printing of the Requirement book.
For more information see:
http://usscouts.org/mb/proposals.htmlPaul S. Wolf, P.E.(Ret.) mailto:pwolf@usscouts.org
Secretary, US Scouting Service Project, Inc.
by scubascout » Sun Feb 11, 2007 6:47 pm 
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