Vision 2030 – a strategy becoming a plan

The meeting itself moved from examining context, to analysis, to planning.

The group began by reviewing the outcomes of the 35 ‘Co-Lab’ (‘collaboration laboratory’) groups which met in-person at World Council in Aarhus and the 8 which met online. Guided by a synthesis of the Co-Lab findings under each of the 12 Goals attached to the four Pillars of Impact (Community Wellbeing, Meaningful Work, Sustainable Planet, Just World), the group set out the challenges under each pillar, and the main areas which YMCA programmes can address.

The group then envisioned where it wanted the YMCA Movement to be in eight years’ time: the target date for Vision 2030, and for the realisation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. It made a first, quantified sketch of what the YMCA Movement wants to achieve under each of the four Pillars, and for itself as a global organisation.

The group then began to address four questions:

• How do we benchmark our progress on Vision 2030?
• How do we map our present situation in order to shape our future plans to deliver Vision 2030?
• What support systems do we need to make Vision 2030 a robust and shared exercise?
• What new or revised structures do we need to implement Vision 2030?

The group then discussed the optimum models for delivery and accountability, ensuring Movement-wide ownership of Vision 2030 which is as much ‘bottom-up’ as ‘top-down’. Across many different and complex YMCA ‘ecosystems’, a constant is that impetus, ideas and actions have to come from young people, and not simply cascade downwards to them.

The group discussed building on existing groupings within the YMCA Movement to create core teams for each of the four Vision 2030 Pillars of Impact, and creating channels and resources to galvanise and coordinate work at the global, regional, national and local levels.

The group completed its assignment by developing an outline Vision 2030 Implementation Framework which will be presented to the World YMCA Executive Committee at end-October 2022, and to the entire YMCA Movement thereafter.

World YMCA will also issue a Vision 2030 Activation Guidebook on how YMCAs can put Vision 2030 into practice by integrating it into their own national or local strategies.

‘Vision 2030 was my introduction to the YMCA’, said Marcus Van Wyck, new National General Secretary of YMCA South Africa. ‘I devoured it and loved it, and I wanted more. I want to be part of this. It will shape the way we move forward in South Africa.’

‘What we are attempting is concentration and focus which multiplies our impact’, said Răzvan Sassu. ‘That means all of us operating in some or all of the same impact areas, all of us sharing our stories of best practice and best progress, all of us making stronger arguments on a global stage based on the weight of shared data and evidence.’

‘Our hopes and concerns are two sides of the same coin’, said Fredrik Glad-Gernes of YMCA Norway and Bethia McNeil of Youth Impact UK. ‘The upside is that we believe we can and will be brave, take risks, and make this count. The downside is that we mustn’t go into our shells, and retreat into what we know. There must be, and we think there is, a real appetite for change.’