The "Y"

[AZRedhawk44]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/us/12Y.html?_r=2

Note to the Village People: The lyrics in your biggest hit need an update. The organization previously known as the Y.M.C.A. is henceforth to be called “the Y.”

One of the nation’s most iconic nonprofit organizations, founded 166 years ago in England as the Young Men’s Christian Association, is undergoing a major rebranding, adopting as its name the nickname everyone has used for generations.

“It’s a way of being warmer, more genuine, more welcoming, when you call yourself what everyone else calls you,” said Kate Coleman, the organization’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer.

Soon a special dictionary will be necessary to help navigate all the abbreviations being adopted as formal names by companies and charities alike: KFC. BP. Xe. AARP. A few months ago, National Public Radio sent a note to all its staff members asking everyone to refer to it as NPR.

“In many ways, we are just catching up to our audience,” said Dana David Rehm, NPR’s senior vice president for marketing and communications.

Jonah Disend, chief executive of Redscout, a brand strategy company in New York, said adopting abbreviations in lieu of long names could make sense in an era of Twitter, with its 140-character diktat, and apps for mobile phones.

“There’s a real need to make everything fit into a bite-size space,” Mr. Disend said. (The Y has an app, but nonprofits have not fully embraced them yet, in part over their vexation with Apple, which prohibits the use of iPhone apps for fund-raising.)

Brand experts say a new name can make sense when a company has outgrown its name or offers services that go way beyond what its name describes. “I’m advising a client right now to do just this,” said Larry Checco, president of Checco Communications and author of “Branding for Success: A Roadmap for Raising the Visibility and Value of Your Nonprofit Organization.”

The Y’s new name coincides with its efforts to emphasize the impact its programs have on youth, healthy living and communities. Its affiliate in Sioux City, Iowa, for instance, is working to change zoning regulations to promote sidewalks, which it hopes will encourage more people to walk. In Louisville, Ky., the local Y is trying to increase the distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables through bodegas. In low-income housing complexes in Houston, landlords have given the affiliate apartments for an after-school program to reduce vandalism by teenagers.

“We’re trying to simplify how we tell the story of what we do, and the name represents that,” said Neil Nicoll, president and chief executive of the organization, whose membership peaked in 2007 and has remained flat.

The challenge, Mr. Disend said, is to continue to make consumers and donors aware of the history, tradition and meaning behind the letters. “It’s particularly a danger in the nonprofit space, where the story and awareness of the history and mission is critical when trying to raise money,” he said.

Perhaps aware of that danger, most organizations that adopt abbreviations as names do so only for marketing and branding purposes. Legally, for example, NPR remains National Public Radio. Procter & Gamble, too, is still, for legal purposes, Procter & Gamble, though it has used P&G for branding purposes since 1999.

Conversely, the KFC Corporation is now the legal name of the restaurant chain formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, but the company uses both names in its marketing.

BP, formerly British Petroleum, adopted its initials after acquiring companies including Amoco and ARCO. ARCO itself used to be the Atlantic Richfield Company. The Obama administration’s use of the old name in chiding BP after the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has annoyed a number of British publications and political leaders.

While the public seems to have no trouble embracing abbreviated names, the news media often remains stubbornly attached to old names. AARP dropped its full name in 1999 and is frustrated that reporters still identify it as “formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons.”

“Some names die hard,” said Michelle Alvarez, a spokeswoman for AARP, which changed its name in an acknowledgment that more than half of its nearly 40 million members are not retired.

Xe Services, the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, continues to be described with both names by most media outlets.

Of course, organizations sometimes enable such bad habits. The Y said in a note to editors that affiliates collectively should be referred to by the new name, but a specific branch should still be referred to as, say, the Y.M.C.A. of Greater Seattle.

I say, they did it deliberately to irk fistful.

I think they wanted away from the "Christian" component of their name. 

[makattak]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/us/12Y.html?_r=2

I say, they did it deliberately to irk fistful.

I think they wanted away from the "Christian" component of their name. 

Ding ding ding ding ding!

Right out of the box we have the answer.

[Firethorn]

Presumably they're also doing it to get away from the 'Men' part as well.  They do take females, right?

Haven't done the research because I get free gym from work.

[Balog]

There's a separate YWCA.

[AZRedhawk44]

There's a separate YWCA.

Which is essentially a battered womens' shelter.  That's the whole point of it.

YMCA is the gym where us big mean men go to get strong so we can batter the wimmins, so they can go to the YWCA.

[Gowen]

The YMCA was abandoned by the Christian community and this scripture came to mind...

Mathew 12

43     When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
44     Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.
45     Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.

[Hawkmoon]

I think they wanted away from the "Christian" component of their name.  

I have no doubt that's the reason.

Secondarily, they can now use one name to encompass both sides of the organization, rather than dealing with the confusion they created with the YWCA (which, depending on whom you talked to and when, either was or was not affiliated with the YMCA).

When she worked as a nurse's aid at a downtown hospital, my cousin lived at the YWCA a few blocks away from the hospital. Imagine my surprise a few years later when I was told there never was such a thing in the city.

[lee n. field]

Which is essentially a battered womens' shelter.  That's the whole point of it.

YMCA is the gym where us big mean men go to get strong so we can batter the wimmins, so they can go to the YWCA.

The YWCA locally morphed into a commercial "fitness center" aimed at the female market.

[Tallpine]

Why?

TP

[BridgeRunner]

Meh.  I'm ok with it.  I'm a member of the local YMCA, and as soon as I can afford to, they're close to the top of my list of local organizations I would like to support.  I have no problem with a name change that makes women or non-Christians feel more welcome.

I can say that the first time I went to a YMCA--to participate in a judo group that met there--I felt very uncomfortable.  I really had no idea if Jews were welcome, or women, for that matter.  Of course, I practically grew up in a cave and was wary of all kinds of odd things, so I don't know how normal my feelings were.

But a close friend of mine--also a former Orthodox Jew--seriously needs some support/encouragement/opportunities for exercise, and every time I push her to join the Y, she counters that she's meaning to join the JCC (Jewish Community Center), but there are money problems.  The Y is cheaper and has better facilities, and would be much healthier for her, without all the Orthodox people there who disapprove of her, and yet she is reluctant to join.  I think that she certainly fits into the scope of the Y's mission, regardless of ethnic identity, and a name change that makes her feel less unwelcome seems like a good plan.

[AJ Dual]

The Y hasn't completely ditched the "Christian"... Our two local groups that serve the Milwaukee metro has a few inspirational scriptures on the wall and still has some bible study on the bottom of the activities roster. You barely notice the "Christian" component if you're just there to play b-ball, swim, or work out, take yoga/karate etc., but it's there if you want to make use of it.

IMO it's a good balance between the purely secular, but no hard-sell/evangelism either.

I don't know about other YWCA's, but they're essentially local feminist/lesbian .orgs and don't have any connections to the YMCA's..

[Perd Hapley]

The YMCA was abandoned by the Christian community

Link?  Anecdote? 

[vaskidmark]

I can say that the first time I went to a YMCA--to participate in a judo group that met there--I felt very uncomfortable.  I really had no idea if Jews were welcome, or women, for that matter.  Of course, I practically grew up in a cave and was wary of all kinds of odd things, so I don't know how normal my feelings were.

But a close friend of mine--also a former Orthodox Jew--seriously needs some support/encouragement/opportunities for exercise, and every time I push her to join the Y, she counters that she's meaning to join the JCC (Jewish Community Center), but there are money problems.  The Y is cheaper and has better facilities, and would be much healthier for her, without all the Orthodox people there who disapprove of her, and yet she is reluctant to join.  I think that she certainly fits into the scope of the Y's mission, regardless of ethnic identity, and a name change that makes her feel less unwelcome seems like a good plan.

The old joke used to be the Jewish teenage boys telling Momma they were going downtown to the "Ymmchkaa".  (If you do not bring up half a lung saying it, you are not pronouncing it correctly.)  Only the cities with large Conservative congregations had actual YMHAs (pronounced almost the same as YMCA).  I'll let BW explain why neither the Orthodox nor the Reform supported mikvas with card rooms.

Back in the day when the pool was sexually segregated everybody (so I was told, as I never, ever got a chance to check and see if my female cousin was telling the truth or not) skinny-dipped.  In the early days, so I'm told by those who claimed to have been there, the Jews were restricted to one end or the other - guys from towns where they were shunted to the deep end tended to do better in later life than those from towns where they were kept in the shallow end (again, so I was told).  And speaking of segregation - at least up north of the Mason-Dixon line many of the YMCA pools were probably the first place in town that were integrated.  (You want to cool off on a hot, muggy day you go to the YMCA where the water is clean or you go to the lake/river where the fish were not the only ones who pooped in the water.)  After resolving the religious debate, resolving the race debate was supposedly easier.

Don't get me started on the transformation from the original YWCA to the "femminist/wymmns-lib" centers to the rape crisis center to the cheap day care provider subsidized by United Way.  Just go ahead and wipe your unwanted cell phones clean of all stored data and donate them to the YWCA to give to battered women as 911 devices  (and remember to include your chargers!).  IMO it's the only good thing they still do.

stay safe.

[RevDisk]

I say, they did it deliberately to irk fistful.

I think they wanted away from the "Christian" component of their name. 

Odd, the local Y still seems to do religious activities of a Christian nature.  See, you're missing the point.  They're not moving away from Christian activities, they're trying to sucker in poor unsuspecting pagans and Jews with their reasonableness and such.   Subtle devils, the lot of them.   The whole "Want a towel?  Sure.   Want directions to the pool?  Sure.   Want to accept Jesus as your savior?  Sure.  HEY!  Too late, mwahahaha!" trick. 


(I am kidding.  I honestly do think highly of the Y in general terms.  They offer religious related services but don't try the hard sell.)

[41magsnub]

My Dad spent the night in the YMCA in Bozeman once right out of college when he did a small audit job out there on a budget.  He was in the communal shower and this little old man came in and started doing his thing.   Then he walked up to my Dad and asked him to scrub his back for him because he couldn't reach anymore.  The guy was so pathetic my Dad helped him out.

[Perd Hapley]

The organization previously known as the Y.M.C.A. is henceforth to be called “the Y.”

Because Association of People of No Particluar Age, Who May Not Be Particularly Religious But If You Are That's OK (APNPAWMNBPRBIYATOK) didn't look that great on a t-shirt.

[ejort]

So...will they have dining?

[SkunkApe]

So...will they have dining?

I LOL'd.  Took me a minute, but I did.

[brimic]

FWIW, my daughter's swim instructor at the YMCA is Jewish...

[Hawkmoon]

FWIW, my daughter's swim instructor at the YMCA is Jewish...

Heresy. Is NOTHING sacred?

(Referring, of course, to girls at the YMCA)

[bedlamite]

Some members are no longer Young
You don't have to be a Man
They employ people who aren't Christian
They should change it to "A"

[Hawkmoon]

Some members are no longer Young
You don't have to be a Man
They employ people who aren't Christian
They should change it to "A"

Good point. I used to have a friend (now deceased) who in her eighties used to go to a nearby Y every other day to swim. She was Jewish (sort of -- later in life she became more of a New Ager and "fell away from" being straight Hebrew).

[BReilley]

So...will they have dining?

Ohh, how I'd wanted to say something like that...