Central Florida Y struggles to recover from financial blow
The COVID-19 pandemic cost the YMCA of Central Florida over half its $70 million annual revenue and the loss of nearly 94,000 members, its CEO reports — a blow that led the nonprofit to permanently shutter two of its Ys and lay off more than half its staff.
Despite that, Kevin Bolding, hired last fall to lead the six-county organization, said he’s optimistic about the Y’s capacity to recover and reposition itself. While many nonprofits have been tight-lipped about their pandemic financial woes for fear of scaring off potential donors, Bolding said he hopes a new era of transparency will give both members and donors a better understanding of all the Y does and inspire them to help.
“First of all, probably 50% to 60% of the companies in our country are still trying to recover, so we’re no different,” Bolding said. “Second, we understand how we need to evolve, and we’re working on that. And third, this Y has a history of support from the community that goes back decades. It’s a very strong foundation.”
The Y has never been just a recreation center. Once known globally as the Young Men’s Christian Association, its roots in Orlando reach back to 1885. And though the charity decades ago welcomed other faiths and women, it also has
steadily added a range of programs that promote both physical and emotional well-being: youth and adult sports leagues, summer and holiday camps, community swim lessons, child development centers, after-school programs and healthy eating and wellness programs for people with diabetes and first responders.
It also has a scholarship program that currently supports over 13,000 members.
In December 2020, when philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott, former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, doled out an astounding $4.2 billion in pandemic aid across the country, she included $10 million for the Central Florida Y. It was one of only two local recipients, along with the Heart of Florida United Way.
“It really helped,” Bolding said. “If the Y didn’t have that support, even more dire decisions would have been made. Consider we have still not fully reopened our Osceola Y — and, really, none of our facilities is completely back to full [pre-pandemic] hours. There’s a lot of recovery that still has to happen there.”
The Y is not alone in those struggles. The fitness sector was one of the hardest hit by pandemic shutdowns, social distancing requirements and public fear of contagion. According to IHRSA, a global health and fitness association, nearly a quarter of the 40,000 U.S. fitness facilities open at the start of the pandemic had permanently closed by July 2021. Collectively, the nation’s gyms and fitness studios lost $29.2 billion in revenue in the first 16 months.
Many were among the first to face COVID lockdowns and the last to reopen.
In Central Florida, the Y followed local government orders to shutter temporarily in March 2020, and it didn’t begin the slow, partial reopening until two months later. Even then, locations limited capacity and required members to make reservations.
By summer 2020, the Cocoa YMCA Family Center, already facing financial woes before the pandemic, said it would close permanently.
In January 2021, the Y announced it also would not reopen its aging 15,000-square-foot recreation complex in Tangelo Park, which needed an estimated $4 million in renovations. And in August, the Y’s board of directors voted to sell the historic 70-acre Camp Wewa to the city of Apopka for $4.7 million.
Those decisions, while painful, were necessary, said Ken Robinson, president and CEO of Dr. Phillips Charities, one of the Central Florida Y’s biggest donors.
“Anytime you have a downturn … you have to stop and look at your operations and see where you’re being the most effective, and then make changes accordingly,” Robinson said. “I believe they’ve done a very good job of that.”
Bolding didn’t arrive until after those decisions were made, but Robinson said the Y went through an extensive search to replace the retiring Dan Wilcox and that it chose Bolding for “his forward thinking.”
At 51, he is a 27-year veteran of YMCAs, from his tiny hometown facility in Lynchburg, Va. — where he served as both executive director and night janitor — to leadership roles at Ys in Detroit, Miami and Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Business Times named him “Outstanding CEO.”
“I think people sometimes think, ‘Well, the Y’s a nonprofit, so you don’t really have to worry about the bottom-line stuff. You get to play with kids all day,’ ” he said. “But you’re running a business. And you’re running a business that in normal times only has a 3% margin. Most people wouldn’t ever even start that business.”
Even before the pandemic, the organization had started to lose members — lured away by cheaper plans at gyms without swimming pools and community programs, and the growing popularity of home fitness equipment such as Peloton.
But there is some evidence to suggest that, more recently, the toll of the long pandemic is prompting people to look for ways to reconnect. Bolding said nearly 70% of the Y’s members have returned, and he is working to find new ways to engage others, including perhaps programs that take place outdoors or at non-Y facilities.
And work on one major expansion, launched before the pandemic, is still plowing ahead despite the financial setbacks.
Late this year, the Y is expected to open its $17 million, 31,000-squarefoot facility in The Packing District bordering College Park. Now under construction, the two-story Leonard & Marjorie Williams YMCA will feature a swimming pool, a kids’ splash pad area, wellness and fitness classes, a child-development center and a rooftop yoga garden overlooking the lake of an adjacent park.
More than half the money for that project — $8.9 million — plus 5 acres of land came from Dr. Phillips Charities, which is developing the mixed-use Packing District.
“It’s going to be spectacular,” Bolding said. “And it’s going to be a new flagship for us so we can show the community that we are continuing to invest.”