YMCA of the USA Healthier Communities Initiatives

As part of the YMCA of the USA’s (Y-USA’s) Healthier Communities Initiative, Pioneering Healthier Communities (PHC) engages community leaders, convened by Ys, in policy and environmental change efforts that support and promote healthy lifestyles. This initiative shifts the focus of work from inside the Y walls into the broader community, empowering communities with proven strategies and models to create and sustain positive, lasting change for healthy living.

Strategic Objectives and Activities

The chief strategic objectives for this work include:

Enhancing the importance of a healthy lifestyle;

Building relationships within communities by focusing on the leading health issues facing communities;

Strengthening the capacity for coalition building in communities;

Attracting a new set of volunteers to the effort to build a healthy community; and

Increasing the community’s ability to promote policy and environmental changes that encourage and support sustainable healthy living.

In July 2004, Y-USA launched Pioneering Healthier Communities (PHC), the Y’s signature initiative that focuses on: collaborative engagement with community leaders, how environments influence health and well-being, and the role policy plays in sustaining change. In 2011, 11 Ys were selected to participate in PHC. With support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and corporate and foundation donors, approximately 129 PHC Ys and their communities are currently participating.

Key PHC principles:

• High-level community leaders are involved at every step, utilizing their positions, influence and ability to make changes within their organization and within the greater community;

• Multiple sectors and diverse organizations are involved to maximize experience, assets, resources and skills;

• The ultimate goal is to influence policy and environmental changes to improve community environments;

• Local initiatives are organically grown with strategies specific to the needs of each community;

• Y serves as convener in the community and co-leads with partner.

• Utilizing a distributed leadership approach, to help increase the sustainability of the learned approaches to policy and environmental changes.