The YMCA of Greater Cincinnati oversees 17 YMCA branches (http://www.cincinnatiymca.org/...)
in Southwestern Ohio and Northern Kentucky. On June 29, 2011, the Greater Cincinnati YMCA voted to close two of its facilities located in the heart of Cincinnati proper. Both facilities are in the eastern edge of greater Uptown region of Cincinnati, a region of several older, central city neighborhoods on the hills that emanate above the Cincinnati Central Business District and nearby neighborhoods that make up Downtown Cincinnati. The Uptown region (http://www.oki.org/...) is perhaps the most diverse area in Cincinnati, which includes the University of Cincinnati's main campus and major hospitals, including several of Cincinnati's largest employers and extends up to the Xavier University area. The two neighborhoods where the YMCAs are targeted to close are Walnut Hills and East Walnut Hills, which lie at the eastern edge of the greater Uptown area. The planned closings came as a surprise to many in the community who had effectively no input in the planned closures.
The Melrose YMCA facility in the Walnut Hills neighborhood is a Family YMCA for both children and adults that primarily serves poor, working class, and lower-middle-class African-Americans. The Williams YMCA facility in the nearby East Walnut Hills area is an Adult YMCA and likely the most diverse YMCA branch in the Cincinnati area. It has younger adults, mature adults, and seniors. It is racially mixed with an approximately 60 to 40 ratio of Whites to Blacks. It is economically mixed with lower-income, middle-income, and well-to-do. It draws participants from a variety of zip codes in Cincinnati, a measure of its geographic diversity and pull. On a given night, you may see young men from the neighborhood playing ball on the basketball court, while a university professor works out on a treadmill, a government administrator works out on weight machines, and a real estate agent jogs on the track. It is diverse with regards to interests, including local politicians from both the Republican and Democratic parties among its membership.
Sudden closures of YMCA facilities are not something new. Throughout the country, local YMCA Boards have made relatively quick decisions to close YMCA branches. In many instances, the community had no to little input in the process. The YMCA of Greater Cincinnati shares in this pattern. In the southeast Indiana city of Aurora, the YMCA of Greater Cincinnati unilaterally closed a fitness center in 2009 after the city had renovated an old school building and donated it the YMCA a few years before (http://www.wlwt.com/...). After closing the facility, the YMCA of Greater Cincinnati attempted to sale the property on the private market for more than $800,000. Aurora fought back, claiming the YMCA reneged on its promise to run a fitness center for the local community in return for the donation of the renovated building. A lawsuit by Aurora resulted in a settlement between the YMCA and Aurora, with Aurora paying $100,000+ to have the facility returned to its possession. In 2009-2010, residents of Albany, New York unsuccessfully attempted to save its Downtown YMCA facility with members complaining of a lack of transparency in the local YMCA's decision-making (http://www.facebook.com/...). In 2009, residents of Norwich, Connecticut unsuccessfully attempted to save their YMCA with concerns about finances coming to the public's attention too late for it to be saved (http://www.wtnh.com/...). In 2011, residents of Bonita Springs, Florida were unsuccessful in attempts to keep their Y open after finances became an issue, although some are still working to try to re-open it (http://fortmyers.floridaweekly.com/...). After closing its mental health facility in 2010, rumors were rampant that the Austin YMCA on Chicago's west side would be closed (http://www.austinweeklynews.com/...). Though the rumors were denied and the facility remains open as of today, it would not be surprising that there had been closed door discussions over the matter, given the pattern of how YMCAs have closed across the country.
If someone is running a small non-profit organization to promote nutrition with 5 volunteers and a $5,000 per year budget, no one expects that organization, to go through extended consultation with the wider community about closing their office. However, the local YMCAs are not just non-profit organizations, but in many instances, multi-million dollar businesses that have been supported by its members, volunteers, grants and in-kind donations from government and private individuals. Because of the breadth of support and its de facto role as community centers, YMCAs often have a wider impact on the surrounding neighborhoods. Like any business, the YMCAs need to consider how to stay in business and reinvent itself. YMCA Board Members do have a fiduciary responsibility to the organizations they oversee. However, the YMCAs must do a better job of involving the community in their decision-making process given the nature of the community-oriented mission of the YMCA and community resources that have been invested into the organization. Greater transparency about major plans would offer more truth-in-investment to ensure that individuals and communities donating to the YMCA are investing in what they think, as well as to spur community support in instances that the YMCA is in trouble.
If the current Cincinnati situation provides an example, then the YMCA Board and Executive Management has executed long-range plan of closing the targeted facilities with no or little input from the greater community. In a local business paper, the CEO of the local YMCA stated that they had been grappling for over five years with what to do with the facilities, which again has come as a surprise to the community given no prior acknowledgement that they were considering shutting down two facilities. While moving to close two facilities in the heart of Cincinnati, the organization has sought grants and community partnerships to renovate facilities at the Downtown Cincinnati YMCA (http://www.bizjournals.com/...) where its headquarters are located and it has built a new YMCA (http://www.myy.org/...) in an further outlying area on the east side of Cincinnati that will target a more affluent population . Meanwhile, backlogs of maintenance issues have gone unaddressed at the two facilities targeted for closure. In hindsight, maybe you could say that you could see the writing on the wall for the two facilities.
It may turn out the YMCA facilities may really need to close. However, without a viable community participation process, many YMCA facilities may needlessly face extinction in their neighborhoods. If the community is in general consensus that it would be good to move a facility or close a facility, then everything is fine. If the community disagrees that a facility needs to be closed, then a community participation process would give the community a chance to interface with the YMCA management and others to see what can be done to save the facility, if anything. If there is adequate notice of problems, then the community can gear up in the quest to increase membership or raise funds to support facility improvements or to help plan and fund replacement facilities on-site or in a nearby area that would not involve abandoning the existing community. If, after making reasonable efforts and giving reasonable time to try to save the facilities, the efforts are unsuccessful; then the community would still feel sad about the a closure, but at least the community would know that all was done to save.
In Cincinnati, community members are beginning to respond and speak out:
http://www.facebook.com/...
http://groups.yahoo.com/...
http://www.bizjournals.com/...
Petition to support giving community a chance to save YMCAs:
http://www.ipetitions.com/...
Only time will tell if Cincinnati's local YMCA Board will even give the community a chance to fight the save the investment they have put into the facilities for decades. On July 26, Cincinnati City Council Member Wendell Young will host a community forum to discuss the proposed closures and has invited executive management from the YMCA to attend. The Council Member also met with community members and requested that the YMCA give a 6-month extension of their August 22 deadline for closing the two facilities to give time for the community to have input and possibly help save the facilities. While noting the past good work of the YMCA, the council member expressed concern about the abandonment of the YMCA in Cincinnati neighborhoods. Former Cincinnati Mayor Dwight Tillery is head of the Center for Closing the Health Gap in Greater Cincinnati, which focuses on addressing health disparities among African Americans, Hispanics, Appalachians, and other underserved populations in Greater Cincinnati. The former mayor and Christopher Smitherman, the current head of the local NAACP and a former Cincinnati City Council Member, have both expressed concerns about the YMCA closures on the minority community given the health and fitness needs of the population (http://www.naacpcincinnati.org/...). YMCA members are confused and hurt as to why such short notice was given for the planned closings. YMCA members are bewildered as to why funds were sought to assist other facilities and a new facility is being built, when the two targeted locations were supposedly in trouble and no readily visible efforts to secure funding for major improvements were made. In Spring 2011, members of the Williams YMCA held a golf outing that raised several thousand dollars for the YMCA. With the planned closing of its facility, participating members are now left wondering, "Where did the money they raised go to?" No word has been given that the YMCA of Greater Cincinnati is in any financial trouble, so the lack of transparency has left many community members to believe that YMCA Board's decision was an elective decision to quit serving some segments of Cincinnati's population and target a more uniformly affluent clientele.
In Cincinnati now, the ball is all in the YMCA's court. It can choose to be a good corporate citizen and give the community a chance to save their investment in the current facilities or it can abandon its members and the community with continued lack of transparency into its decision-making process. Unlike your local school boards, public health centers, public housing, transportation and public works; there is no mandatory community participation process for many major non-profits. Even major private companies have procedures to allow shareholder involvement. With no or little notice, major non-profit organizations that have received substantial public and private funds may make major decisions to disinvest or close facilities with The YMCA of Greater Cincinnati issued e-mails to members after it decided to close the facilities, but it did not take time to consider e-mailing members before the June 2011 Board Meeting that proposed closures were even up for consideration for a vote, much less involve the public in the more than 5-year period where the agency was considering what to do with the two facilities. The YMCA noted that there are other YMCA facilities within 3 miles of the facilities targeted for closure, but with the lack of public involvement in its planning process, it probably has little information on whether these other locations fit the rounds for existing members daily living activities or whether there is public transportation available for members that would presumptively be encouraged to go to these new locations. This does not speak anything of the personal time, money, and emotional resources that community members have consumed in investing in the existing facilities to only have the proverbial carpet pulled up from underneath them; nor does it consider facility employees who have not been promised or given preference for employment for available job opportunities in other YMCAs in Greater Cincinnati.
In its mission statement, the national YMCA states that its strength is in the community, that the Y is community centered, and that they've been listening and responding to their communities for more than 160 years (http://www.ymca.net/...). The planned and executed closings of YMCA facilities in Cincinnati and other communities by local YMCA Boards across that country do not consistently adhere to that dimension of their stated mission as it appears that many planned closings come from top-down with little input from membership or community stakeholders before closure decisions are made. Meanwhile, the applicability of state open records and meetings laws on private non-profits is spotty. It is time for the national YMCA and other major non-profit organizations to consider requiring their local affiliates to implement public participation models in their planning processes that allow communities they serve to have meaningful input on major decision-making that affects their community, especially given the tendency of many non-profits to have Board memberships that skew towards certain segments of the area population and away from others, along with high-level executives who are highly credentialed but who may not have deep roots in the communities they serve.