Renewing a spirit of membership, participation, and experimentation within the YMCA
11 ideas and experiments for the Y’s new 10-year strategy to “create connected communities”
A quick reminder: We’re hosting a virtual event on “The Civic and the Sacred” featuring Elizabeth Oldfield (Fully Alive), Helen Brosnan (United Auto Workers), and Chris Butler (Center for Christianity & Public Life) tomorrow, 11/21 at 12PM ET. Follow this link to learn more and register.
I’ve probably spent more than half of my days inside a YMCA (or a YMHA, RIP).
In high school, I would go to the Y for an hour before school started, then at least three hours after school got out. I spent so much time on the basketball court that I was eventually offered my first job as a “Court Manager.” This entailed dry-mopping the court when I arrived, dry-mopping the court when I left, and shooting on “The Gun” for several hours in between. Though my high school jewfro may be long gone (sorry if that’s not PC; that’s what we called it), my Y patronage is still going strong. I became a “nationwide” member about a decade ago, and since, I’ve visited well over 100 Ys across four cross-country road trips and dozens of regional trips. You didn’t ask for it, but here are my official YMCA superlatives:
The Best Place to Play Pickup Basketball: The Irsay Family YMCA in Indianapolis
The Easiest Y to Get Lost In: The Cambridge YMCA
The Best-Named Room in a YMCA: The “Randy Travis Wellness Center” at the Rapid City YMCA
I’m essentially a Y connoisseur, and I’ve come to think of the Y as one of the most remarkable institutions in the U.S. Part of the Y’s remarkability is its unmatched geographic footprint: As I’ve learned on my road trips, no matter where you are in the country, you’re likely no more than an hour from the nearest Y. Another remarkable element is its cross-class membership: In many communities, the Y is one of the only third places where residents from all class backgrounds can participate alongside one another. The Y is also remarkable (to me, at least) because it’s a federated network: Each institution is governed locally, and then part of the national network, so power flows from the bottom-up (not the top-down). Historically, this distributed model has been fertile ground for experimentation. For instance, James Naismith invented basketball at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield in 1891, George Corsan invented group swim lessons at the Detroit YMCA in 1909, and Joseph Sobek invented racquetball at the Greenwich YMCA (of course) in 1950.
Despite these strengths, it’s hard to deny that the YMCA has strayed from its communal, participatory, experimental, and soulful roots. The Y was once an institution of genuine “membership,” where you were expected to benefit, contribute, and deepen your participation; now, Y membership can feel more like a pure transaction. The Y was once an institution of bottom-up experimental ferment, where new sports were invented (see above) and new clubs and forms of civic life were created; now, the Y is more of a conduit for top-down campaigns initiated by government or philanthropy. The Y was once an institution focused on the collective “spiritual formation” of young people and adults; now, it feels more like a place for individualized, secularized “wellness.” And, at the most basic level, the Y was once a place where people would talk to each other all the time; now, the Y can have the feel of a library: A sea of silent individuals on their phones, with their headphones in, following their own workouts.
It is because of all the things that make the Y remarkable — along with all of the ways it has fallen short — that I believe the Y has more untapped potential than any institution in the U.S. I believe in the spirit that inspired the YMCA’s founding, and I believe that this same spirit can be renewed and re-embedded within this 175-year-old anchor of civic life. My sense is that national and local Y leadership feel similarly, and the YMCA’s new 10-year strategic plan focused on “creating connected communities” can be a rallying cry for spiritual and institutional renewal. But what should this renewal look like? And, more importantly, how should this renewal be realized?
What follows is my initial attempt to imagine the possibilities for institutional renewal within local Ys and across the YMCA network. It’s not much focused on youth because, well, I don’t know what I’m talking about in that realm. It’s not a strategic plan, and it’s not a fully-baked suite of programs to be implemented from the top-down. It’s not even a set of ideas that only the Y can act on. Rather, it’s my first crack at a few principles that could guide this renewal — along with a smattering of experiments, organized around these principles, to be run at local Ys and potentially diffused throughout the federated network. Consider this list a starting point, not an end point. I invite you to read it. I invite you to respond in the comments (or email me directly) with your ideas for the Y’s renewal. And, if the spirit moves you, I invite you to put these experiments into practice in your local Y community.
Principles
1. Cultivate civic “membership.”
The YMCA can orient its strategy not just around promoting “belonging” and “connection,” but cultivating civic “membership”: a type of communal relationship into which we are invited to benefit and to which we are asked to actively contribute our gifts. This means intentionally facilitating members’ connection to one another and the Y, and it means expecting members to participate in caring for and shaping the institution. A Y organized around this version of “membership” would engender a form of deep belonging: Members would become such a part of the community that they feel responsible for honoring its past, stewarding its present, and creating its future.
2. “Thicken” the community.
The YMCA can become a “thick” community — that is, a community where members have continuous opportunities to broaden, deepen, and grow through their participation over time. Thick communities often look like communities within communities — not just a single activity, program, or group — inviting members into several accessible entry points for participation, encouraging members to diversify and deepen their involvement through a range of outlets, and calling members into contribution and leadership. A thicker community at the Y is a stickier community at the Y; it’s a community built not on one membership, but a web of overlapping memberships.
3. Commit to experimentation.
The YMCA can renew itself by re-embracing its experimental roots. This means encouraging experiments within local Ys, no matter how weird or off-the-wall they may be. This means celebrating the learnings that come from the successes and shortcomings of these experiments. And this means diffusing, adapting, and translating successful experiments across the federated network. An experimental Y can become an alive Y — one that is renewing itself from within, and, in the process, renewing civic life in the communities it calls home.
1. Cultivate Membership
Establish official roles and committees to promote “membership.”
If local Ys want to commit to making themselves genuine communities of civic “membership,” they could create official “Membership Director” positions and “Membership Committees” to integrate a civic membership lens across their activities. Such membership roles and committees would not be all that different from the role Pete Davis and I envisioned in the City Membership toolkit. Membership Directors could be full-time roles dedicated to advancing the strategy, coordination, and community engagement for fostering connection and membership at the Y. Membership Committees could involve a mix of leaders from across Y departments — along with some Y members and local community leaders — all committed to working through the Y to bolster community membership.
This could be a big commitment, so where should local Ys begin? The Membership Committee is a good place to start, generating buy-in across Y leaders, members, and community partners to promote connection and membership within the Y and in the broader community. From there, Y leadership can identify an existing role at the Y, adding to that position the responsibilities of strategizing, experimenting with, coordinating, and driving membership. Eventually, this could be expanded to a full-time, standalone Membership Director position. The Membership Director and Membership Committee can serve as both the foundation and quarterback for a Y’s membership and connection efforts. These roles signal and begin to institutionalize the Y’s investment in strengthening membership — both within and beyond the Y’s four walls.
Create “Welcoming Liaison” roles to help welcome new members.
It can be really hard to meet people when joining a new Y, especially if you’re new to the place where you’re joining. But the Y can make it easier for newcomers to integrate into the Y community by intentionally focusing on welcoming new members. Imagine if every Y had a crew of “Welcoming Liaisons” — members who have a responsibility to introduce themselves to new members, connect them with fellow members who they would get along with, and refer them to activities that may be of interest. Think of these welcoming liaisons as serving a similar role to a religious leader who welcomes new congregants: They would provide a warm welcome to new members, and they would invite them to get more deeply involved in the community. It is important that these welcomes feel organic; that’s why members should take on this role rather than staff. How, if at all, should these welcoming liaisons be compensated? A small monthly stipend or a free membership could likely do the trick.
This minor investment would be well worth it: A community where members feel they are welcomed, connected, and contributing is a community that members are far more likely to commit to for the long-haul.
Invite members to participate in decision-making and governance.
Membership at most Ys feels more like the transactional exchange you experience at any old gym than a membership where you’re expected to contribute and participate in decision-making. But the Y isn’t any old gym, and it doesn’t need to act like one. The Y can tap back into its cooperative roots and invite members to shape everything from activities, to programs, to leadership, to organizational governance. This could begin with a lower-lift option, such as launching a board of directors committee exclusively for members (who aren’t just the big donors). In time, the Y can become a fully participatory institution, creating many entry points for members to host events and activities, many roles for members to participate in leadership (not just volunteer), and many committees for members to join in co-governance of the business and membership.
Such a cultural and structural shift could transform the Y member experience from something that is merely consumed, to something that is co-created and co-produced. This shift toward collective governance — first at a few Ys, then across the Y network — could have systemic implications too, helping to rebuild our withered civic muscles.
2. Thicken Community
Serve as the local connective tissue.
The vast majority of communities are missing a civic institution with a sole focus on strengthening the connective tissue of local civic life. Such an institution would connect residents to one another, connect residents to civic groups, and connect civic groups with one another. In an ideal world, these missing connective tissue institutions would be locally rooted, but connected horizontally across place (think a Chamber of Commerce, but for civic life). Given the Y’s national geographic footprint, bottom-up federated network model, and commitment to membership, it can evolve into this institution in many neighborhoods, towns, cities, and regions across the country.
But to become the connective tissue for their local communities, the Y would really need to turn out beyond its four walls and position itself as a civic hub. This would mean expanding its constituency of care to include all community residents (not just paying Y members). This would mean inviting local civic groups, their leaders, and neighbors in as co-governing members of a shared project to strengthen local civic life. And this would mean committing to the adaptive, iterative, and collaborative work of civic cultivation of their particular places, not a set of “silver bullet” programs, activities, or solutions. Some of the ideas that follow — becoming a “club of clubs,” hosting activities fairs, offering microgrants — can be initial steps toward testing and realizing this vision.
Become a “club of clubs.”
Many local groups and clubs have leaders who don’t know each other, membership bases that are siloed from one another, difficulties with accessing space, and challenges with just getting off the ground. By becoming a “club of clubs,” the Y can serve as a homebase for clubs to meet and host events, encourage these groups to organize cross-over gatherings together, and provide a space for group leaders to connect with and support one another (a la Build IRL). Also like Build IRL, the Y could even become a place where people who want to start new clubs and groups go to launch them. This approach would both break clubs and their members out of their siloes and seed new groups in the community. Plus, it would have the added benefit of helping to “thicken” community at the Y, creating the conditions for new and existing Y members to deepen and diversify their involvement as members.
Host an annual “activities fair.”
Many Y’s already host summer camp fairs and youth sports fairs for kids; there is no reason they shouldn’t also organize “activities fairs” or “joining fairs” for adults. I’ve written about this idea before, and it’s a simple one: Host a one-day event where groups are invited to showcase their work, and people are invited to learn about and potentially join these groups. The key to success is generating enough buy-in from both sides — community groups and residents alike — to ensure sufficient turnout to make participation in the activities fair worthwhile. A local Y could start by experimenting with a pilot activities fair — both to take lessons learned and create some momentum — before turning it into an annual event. Hosting an activities fair would be a win-win for the local Y and their community. The act of organizing the event would help the Y build more connectivity with community groups and residents, while participation in the activities fair would help boost resident participation and membership in the community groups that make up civic life.
Create clubs and support groups for parents.
Every day, Ys across the country welcome diverse groups of parents to support their kids’ swim lessons, practices, games, and more. This presents an opportunity to build social support for parents, especially across lines of class, race, and geography. While the Y already has “Family Time” programs, they could go a level deeper and create ongoing clubs and support groups for parents. These groups could meet while their kids are at the Y for activities, and they could take many forms, including peer support groups for both parents, dads-only groups, moms-only groups, or activity-based groups. Regardless of form, the key would be to create accessible and consistent outlets for parents to connect and deepen their relationships — both in general and across lines of difference.
3. Commit to Experimentation
Provide grants to local Ys to promote experimentation.
Re-engendering an ethos of experimentation across the YMCA network will likely involve cultural change in many local Ys. To encourage more experimentation, YMCA National can give out grants to local Ys to experiment with new practices, activities, programs, roles, and other ideas to deepen connection, belonging, and membership. Such grants need not be large (e.g., $5,000-$10,000) and should be minimally restrictive. Local Y leaders (maybe even members) should be able to propose a test, share what they hope to learn, and receive funding to try it out. YMCA National can create a community of practice of grantees to facilitate peer support, live learning, and, in time, the broader diffusion of experiments that “worked.” Not only can these experimentation grants help the Y begin to rediscover its legacy of experimentation, but they can also leverage the Y’s federated network to its advantage, planting seeds of renewal that can be spread from place-to-place.
Experiment with “screen-free” hours (and days).
It’s harder to meet people in gyms than it used to be, in part because everyone has their headphones in and they’re staring at their phone screens. If the Y wants to be a site of genuine connection, they should experiment with going “screen-free.” This could start with something as simple as identifying one Saturday morning, maybe from 7AM-10AM, as a screen-free morning experiment. If it shows promise, this could evolve to become a monthly or weekly ritual — every Saturday from 7AM-10AM could be a screen-free morning. Then, if that worked, imagine if the Y observed a sabbath from screens every Saturday, all day. The upshot of this experiment could be transformational, both renewing the Y as a place of conversation and connection (at least on Saturdays!) and, potentially, creating a translatable model for phone-free third places beyond the Y.
Organize an annual “Neighborhood Olympics.”
In many communities, neighbors lack connection with each other within their neighborhoods, and neighbors certainly lack connection across neighborhoods. The YMCA could take inspiration from Warm Cookies of the Revolution’s “Stompin’ Ground Games” and host a “Neighborhood Olympics.” This Olympics-style competition could encourage neighbors, both kids and adults, to team up on various sporting events (i.e., basketball, soccer, etc.) and compete against other neighborhoods. Considering that most Ys have experience organizing sports camps and leagues — and most Ys have longstanding relationships with the community — local Ys could be well-positioned to host neighborhood olympics in their communities. The initial experiment could be something as simple as a few small tournaments — 3-on-3 basketball, cornhole, pie-eating contests, you name it — with neighborhoods competing against each other. But, over time, a neighborhood olympics could become an enduring community ritual that connects neighbors to another and to the place they call home.
Create a community microgrants initiative.
Just as a Neighborhood Olympics can activate neighbors to connect with one another in fun and joyful ways, so too can microgrants for neighbor gatherings. As I wrote about a few months ago, microgrant initiatives both create the permission structure for neighbors to take the countercultural (and often vulnerable) step of bringing their neighbors together, and the accountability structure for organizers to actually follow through on hosting these gatherings.
The YMCA, with its deep community roots and broad community reach, is just the type of anchor institution that could organize and run these microgrant programs. Local Ys can start with a microgrant experiment as simple as the one I ran in Charlottesville this past spring — perhaps distributing 50 microgrants at $100 per microgrant to members and non-members alike, and encouraging neighbors to either propose their own gathering or host a specific type of gathering (i.e., dinners, block parties, etc.). In time, local Ys can make these microgrant initiatives an annual tradition in their communities, much like the City of Boston’s microgrants for summer block parties. While the microgrants should be for the whole community, not just Y members, the very act of promoting, running, and distributing the microgrants will help the Y cultivate further relationships and credibility in the places they serve.
Spot On! Fortunately the YMCA of the Chesapeake has not become an organization of just wellness obsessed individuals focused on their cell phones, but a true community hub. We are in the process of creating a strategic plan for the next 3 years and the issues of family connections, volunteer engagement, and community partner collaboration underpin all of principles. The one thing that we and probably every other Y are facing is declining and uncertain sources of revenue. Both federal and state sources are decreasing, implying even greater dependence on private giving. On the expense side, we need increasing funds for financial aid to members, community outreach, and unfunded chronic disease prevention programs. Membership alone doesn’t cover all we need to do to fulfill our mission. Thank you for the insightful comments and suggestions, and for being part of the Y Family!
Great article, I also grew up at the Y and there is so much potential there. I'm curious, what's your perspective on why this isn't happening? What pressures or incentives are the leaders focused on, instead of this?