The 88th meeting of the World Executive Committee took place on Sunday 20 and Monday 21 October 2024, on the eve of the YMCA Accelerator Summit in Mombasa, Kenya.
“I am overjoyed to see how the implementation of YMCA Vision 2030 has picked up pace”, said Emma Osmundsen, Chair of YMCA Europe. “Hold tight, be patient: you have achieved a lot in 2 years: it’s working.”
World YMCA Secretary General Carlos Sanvee looked back over 2 years since the establishment of the current Committee, and the adoption of Vision 2030 at the World Council in Aarhus. “We have gone from strategy to infrastructure to implementation”. He looked back over the evolution of the World YMCA over 10 years: “we have doubled our ambition, but not the resources we need to make it reality.”
He shared several moments of reckoning in 2024 which have led to an inflection point where the World YMCA needs a strengthened global organisational model and a strengthened economic model. He laid out the contours of a strengthened economic model based on the three pillars of leveraging YMCA’s brand, leveraging its expertise and know-how, and leveraging its potential as a social enterprise. Board Members invited him to revert to them with further proposals on these three pillars.
An outline work programme for 2025 was approved, and a preliminary budget for 2025 which will be finalised by April 2025.
Soheila Hayek, President of World YMCA, stressed the primacy of united and innovative efforts to enhance the ‘FairShare’ annual contributions made by National Movements and to continue to attract government and private sector funding and ‘impact investment’ funds. The Executive Committee expressed concern that World YMCA’s increased fundraising for worldwide operational programmes does not cover its own internal costs, and called for more efforts to raise the resources needed to implement Vision 2030.
At the half-way point of their 4-year tenure, 2022-2026, Members of the Executive Committee reviewed their own roles to date and their participation in the five sub-committees: Investment, Financial Sustainability, Strategic Alignment, Resource Development, Governance & Movement Standards, and the John R Mott Foundation.
They heard from the Personnel, Governance and Election Committees, discussing issues such as Movement-wide Membership standards, and ensuring continuity in both Board and Management appointments.
The 89th meeting of the Executive Committee will be held in Hong Kong in April 2025.