Membership scholarship funds

The Y's fundraising problem is a perception problem, and the answer is a sentence most Ys say too rarely: membership fees fund operations; donations fund access for people who cannot pay them.

Everything on this page is a way of making that concrete enough to buy.

Units that work

• A family membership for a year, or a month
• A youth membership, or a season of youth sport for a non-member
• A summer camp place, or a week of it
• A childcare subsidy for a week or a month
• A block of swim lessons, which for many families is a water safety issue rather than a recreation one
• A chronic disease or wellness programme place
• Transport to programmes, where the Y provides it

The swim lesson block is worth leading with. Framed as water safety rather than recreation it is unarguable, it is cheap, and it reframes what people think the Y is for — which is the underlying job.

Publish the numbers

Most Ys already calculate what they awarded in assistance last year and bury it in an annual report. Put it in the campaign: how much was awarded, how many households, how many camp places, how many memberships.

Aggregate figures at that level identify nobody and they answer the fee objection with evidence rather than assertion. A member who learns the Y awarded a substantial sum in assistance last year understands immediately that their dues were not doing it.

What a sponsor receives, and does not

• Yes: the knowledge that a membership, camp place or programme was funded
• Yes: aggregate reporting on the assistance programme
• Yes: recognition, and photographs of the facility and programmes
• No: the identity of any recipient household
• No: a count so small it identifies, in a small community
• No: choosing or meeting a recipient
• No: any indication of which members receive assistance

Recipients are in the building

This is the constraint that distinguishes a Y from a grant-making charity. The families receiving assistance are members — they swim in the pool, their children attend the camp, and they may be at the auction.

• Never publish a recipient count small enough to identify
• Never thank a recipient family, publicly or in a way others see
• Keep the assistance decision away from the fundraising committee and the board's auction volunteers
• Apply assistance quietly at the point of payment, with no visible separate process a child would notice at camp
• Keep price points in the catalogue genuinely accessible

Say it in the building, not only in the mail

The place to answer the fee objection is where the objection forms: at the front desk, on the class schedule, on the wall by the pool. A short standing line — that membership fees run the building and donations open it to people who cannot afford it — does more work permanently than any campaign letter.

Report it back

After the auction, tell the whole membership what was funded in units: memberships, camp places, lesson blocks. A Y that does this annually stops having the perception problem, which is worth more than any single campaign.

General information, not legal advice for your association. Affiliate obligations, brand standards and — for a YWCA — the constraints attached to domestic violence services differ. Your CEO and your national organization decide how any of this applies.