Impact Spotlight: The Y Identity Project
“[We want to] help leaders really listen to other leaders, help leaders listen to members, cultivate that as both a leadership practice and a spiritual practice.”
Janele Nelson, association mission director of the Pierce and Kitsap Counties YMCA, takes the spiritual component of her YMCA work very seriously—so seriously, in fact, that her recent doctoral dissertation was titled “The YMCA’s Organizational Identity at the Intersection of Christianity and Inclusion.”
As part of her doctoral studies, Nelson led a small team that created an experience called “The Y Identity Project,” a two-day intensive training for Y staff and volunteers intended to help local Ys discover their Christian identity. Her partners were Tim Hallman, association chaplain at the Fort Wayne Y, and Ryan Bean, YMCA archivist.
“I created space for staff and volunteers to talk about their personal identity and how it interfaces with the YMCA’s not just historic but present-day identity,” said Nelson. “That conversation has been a Pandora’s box for decades.”
The Y Identity Project is “creating space for Y leaders to examine and reimagine the YMCA’s identity in the 21st century.” The Project “operates from the premise that the Y’s Christian foundation isn’t simply historical context but the organization’s soul and spiritual strength—the wellspring from which its capacity for transformation flows. At the same time, it affirms what most Y leaders hold as paramount: the Y’s steadfast commitment to be a place where all people can experience belonging.”
Still in its pilot phase, The Y Identity Project comprises rich content (including the Y’s history as a Christian organization), a series of engaging exercises, and dialogues that incorporate RSD.
“It’s a space where people’s opinions matter,” Nelson says. “They’re all given equitable time, and they have the agreements. The EP structure is embedded in that experience.” To date, Nelson has led this training three times for the PKC Y.
The vision, Nelson says, is to scale the experience, with a training at the YMCA of the Rockies already planned for December 2026 and a training at the Richmond Y in the early planning phase.
“The idea is to figure out how to support other YMCAs to do it,” Nelson says. “It’s a program that has the EP structure [including RSD] embedded inside of it. It’s very respectful of people’s differences, opinions, and experiences, and it invites that. People know what they’re getting into, and we do the pre-work, where we talk to each person before they show up and ask them what they are looking for. And [we follow] these practices of agreements and time limits. We allow the space to just hold whatever is there. It’s not a sit-and-get. It’s not at all that they all have to think and believe a certain thing. It’s classic EP stuff.”
Hallman thinks the time is ripe for local Ys to consider the “C” in the “YMCA.” It is a “sweet spot for YMCAs,” Hallman says, as the organization thinks about ways to be “for all” in pluralistic communities. “This is becoming more important for our YMCA,” he reflects, “as our CEO wants to expand our chaplaincy program and have Christian principles be at the heart of what we do and also be even more ‘for all.’”
While not all local Ys have staff members who take on spiritual leadership, some local Ys do. Nelson serves the PKC Y as association mission director, Lambird is the PKC Y’s association mission coordinator, and Hallman is the Fort Wayne Y’s association chaplain. But what does this mean in practice?
“When we’ve defined chaplaincy at the YMCA,” Hallman says, “we’ve really narrowed it down to Christian presence and listening.” He oversees a team of chaplaincy volunteers, who are expected to be present at the Y at a certain space and time. “All we’re asking you to do is really listen to people,” Hallman explains.
This practice of listening—which is enhanced through The Y Identity’s Project use of RSD and the listening skills it teaches—extends also to the YMCA leadership team. Hallman says that he wants to “help leaders really listen to other leaders, help leaders listen to members, cultivate that as both a leadership practice and a spiritual practice.”
This impact spotlight is drawn from an in-depth case study on the YMCA-Essential Partners collaboration.