One of Dayton's largest and oldest nonprofits has been busy with the opening of a new campus in Huber Heights and expanding programming to support more women and youth.
For the social services organization YWCA Dayton, which marked its 150th anniversary in 2020, it's pretty much been business as usual during the entire length of the Covid-19 pandemic. The women's organization has always been a 24/7 operation and never paused its essential services.
YWCA Dayton operates the only domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers in Montgomery and Preble counties, as well as a 24/7 crisis hot line. It also provides affordable housing and support services to women and families who are victims of abuse or experiencing sudden or chronic homelessness.
In addition, the nonprofit provides a curriculum of educational and prevention outreach programming, and advocates for legislative priorities that address racial justice and civil rights, women's economic empowerment, and women's health and safety.
"Our advocacy team just doubled, we added another full-time equivalent," said Audrey Starr, director of marketing and communications.
The YWCA's increasing advocacy work includes providing businesses and organizations with a racial justice training program titled "21-Day Racial Equity and Social Justice Challenge."
"We offer additional training depending on size of the company and how new they are to this work," Starr said, from weekly debriefings to various workshops. "It’s a need people have been asking us for."
Starr said the YWCA has always offered training to the business community, but is more recently formalizing the custom process due to increased demand. The nonprofit also recently earned a grant from KeyBank to fund a youth-focused version of the 21-Day Challenge that will launch this fall.
The YWCA held its 2021 annual meeting at the end of June at its new Huber Heights campus.
The 20-acre campus debuted this past April, and has since opened its Girls LEAD! Center. The center will host its first in-person programming with a summer camp in July. The center is equipped with a computer lab, gym, training rooms and more.
The Huber campus also has new signage and landscaping, and multi-use rooms are available for rent by community groups.
In Dayton, the YWCA's $17 million, multi-year building renovation downtown continues to hum along. In the project, floors three to seven have already finished transformations. It's preparing for its next phase of work that recently earned $500,000 in state funds to come in early 2022. That work will include HVAC, plumbing, basement and boiler work on floors one and two.
As the pandemic continues to subside, Starr said the nonprofit is eager to resume its youth programming in person and at schools. Those programs include after-school and weekend gatherings.
The YWCA's youth programming is expanding in Preble County this fall with a new youth peer-to-peer health initiative. The program will train upper-class high school students on how to speak to other students about healthy relationships.
The nonprofit this summer will also launch a new women's entrepreneurship program, Women's Empowerment 360. The WE360 program, in partnership with Ureeka, provides female entrepreneurs with weekly coaching, self-paced premium business courses, access to a national network and other wraparound services.
Starr said during the pandemic the nonprofit took extra steps to reduce a sense of isolation from social distancing for residents of its permanent supportive housing program, which live in single units.
"We worked with community organizations to donate arts and crafts and stuff like that," Starr said.
Also during the pandemic, the crisis hotline remained busy and the central building in downtown Dayton saw a spike in walk-ins at the outset of the pandemic, according to Starr.
The pandemic also altered plans for YWCA to celebrate its 150th year of service. But Starr said the interesting timing led to the nonprofit reflecting on its history and perseverance through past pandemics, recessions and wars.
"We’re still here and we’re still standing," Starr said. "It gave us a sense of legacy. It was a tough year to be a 24/7 organization."
To make up for an inevitable financial hit due to the pandemic, Starr said the YWCA participated more heavily in Giving Tuesday events and direct mail appeals in the last year.
"We have multiple funding streams and we don’t take anything for granted," Starr said. "We don’t sit back and wait for things to happen. It's about being proactive, diversifying funding and contingency plans. That’s the mode we operate in at all times. We operate like a business because we need sustainability because the community needs us."
YWCA Dayton
Address: 141 W. Third St., Dayton 45402
Founded: 1870
Top executive: Shannon Isom, president and CEO
Annual operating budget: $6 million
Employees: 57
Volunteers: 527 in 2020; average 900 per year outside of Covid
Clients served: 2,000 per year
Services: Domestic abuse shelters; rape crisis center; 24/7 crisis hotline; permanent and transitional housing; youth programs; racial and social justice advocacy.
