A New Era in YMCA Staff Appreciation and Gratitude
Fact: Employees who feel appreciated stay longer, perform better, and align more closely to an organization’s mission.
Fact: Your staff is passionate about serving your members and the community at large.
Your Opportunity: To unleash a wellspring of appreciation felt towards your service staff from the community they serve.
At zero cost to your Y. It’s possible with our novel and intuitive system.
Trusted by Organizations and Nonprofits
Attention YMCA Leaders!
Imagine your front-line staff of swim instructors, daycare, camp counselors — everyone — receiving albums of photos, videos, notes, and optional monetary balances for the work they do from your members and community?
We call this:
Community-driven Staff Appreciation
Imagine Joyful, Exciting Gratitude Without the Frustration
With household usage often exceeds 50%, The Appreciation Company has proven our novel approach is powerful and effective to achieve YMCA staff appreciation and gratitude.
- Tap into latent gratitude and people’s spirit of reciprocity.
- At the same time, appreciate your organization’s program staff.
- Make “the ask” natural, seamless, and integrated into the gratitude experience.
- NEW: Reach previously untapped donor populations.
The Best Part: The Appreciation Company does the heavy lifting for you.
Let’s discuss what a pilot would look like.
How the YMCA Can Tap into Community Gratitude
Tapping into community gratitude is as simple as riding the wave of staff appreciation and offering an optional donation opportunity at the same time.
Here’s how that might work with the thousands of people who walk through your doors each day:
Consider that parents are already primed to say ‘Thank You’ at the end of a program or camp. —think group gifts for Teacher Appreciation Week or for coaches after the big game. If you have kids, you’ve probably participated in this kind of group-gifting experience.
How can the Y benefit? By riding this gratitude wave—appreciating program staff AND fundraising simultaneously with the Appreciation Company. With this method, we have seen activation rates that often exceeds 50%.
As Easy as 1, 2, 3 with The Appreciation Company
Our approach is nearly effortless for your members and community.
Imagine:
- Build “appreciation pages” – it only takes a few seconds. This is the list of staff, by program you want to recognize. Ex: counselors in a camp; daycare staff, swim instructors.
- Invite your members to appreciate. Send a link for the appreciation page via text email. Appreciation is a a personal note, a photo, and an optional monetary gift.
- Appreciation Delivered. Notify your staff to view their digital Appreciation Albums. It is common that people cry when they open their albums.
Why is this so effective?
Your members know your YMCA staff personally. Parents see first hand the impact on their child’s growth and development.
At the end of a program, your members naturally feel gratitude and want to act on it.
Just give them a chance – all you have to do is send a link at the right time with the right prompt.
That is the exact moment you can activate their gratitude to appreciate your staff.
The act of appreciation naturally extends to the act of generous giving. The Appreciation Company can appreciation and generous gifting together into one easy, natural experience.
What Research Says: How Gratitude Unlocks Generous Giving
Research has shown that expressing gratitude makes us happy.
In one study, the act of properly thanking a person creates a surge in happiness for both individuals, with benefits lasting a month.
We feel gratitude to another person after a milestone, at the end of a season, or in moments of significant impact in our lives. Underlying that emotion is the need for deep human connection that is biologically hardwired into us as a reward system.
It’s a system of reciprocity: Additional research shows that acting on feelings of gratitude benefits both the recipient and the giver.
What does it all mean? Feeling and expressing gratitude—and showing appreciation—can open up a person to further generosity like making a donation.
Book a 15-minute call to discuss whether The Appreciation Company is right for your YMCA staff appreciation and gratitude.
Why Should Your YMCA Use The Appreciation Company?
A novel yet familiar way to engage donors
This is a new way to engage your community, even while it feels familiar to them. Parents with children already appreciate teachers, coaches, and other staff involved with their kids’ lives every year. Extend that to your organization’s staff and simultaneously introduce a new way to fundraise.
Create deep connections between your staff and community through the act of appreciation
The community you serve is a grateful community. You can activate the powerful emotion of gratitude by inviting your community to appreciate your staff.
High engagement rates
The connection between your staff and program participants is deeply personal. It is human to feel a need to say “Thank you” and reciprocate at the end of a program.
Zero incremental cost to your budget
There is no cost for the YMCA to leverage The Appreciation Company. We know budgets are tight, which is why we designed our business to serve and enable your organization.
Appreciation and Fundraising, Together
We achieve activation rates of 50% or greater with our novel approach. Your YMCA can simultaneously activate your members and community served for two benefits:
- Activate on Staff Appreciation: A member, donor, or community group can express gratitude to anyone in your organization with a digital Appreciation.
- Creative Fundraising: Activate a YMCA fundraising capital campaign to the organization simultaneously.
The results:
- Your Team Members will feel seen and appreciated by the community and leadership.
- Your Community will be strengthened and your donor base will expand.
Experience the Pure Joy of Appreciating Your Staff While Fundraising
Our fundraising and appreciation solution makes it simple. Set up your organization today to see how easy it is—and how joyful.
