YMCA youth programs are incredibly beneficial for the kids, families, and communities they serve. However, running a modern-day youth program is challenging—especially without the right software and resources to support your efforts.

Let’s dive into how Arly's core platform features help YMCA youth programs grow.

How Arly Helps YMCA Youth Programs Grow

Arly’s platform features are purpose-built to help YMCAs manage several facets of youth programming, including:

1. Program Planning

Program planning is daunting without the right support. Arly's program planner provides tools rooted in research on what it takes to build a top-quality program. Evidence-based to-do lists, customizable roadmaps, budgeting templates, fundraising support, goal-setting resources, and real-time collaboration make it easy to start planning and get off on the right foot.

2. Staff Recruitment 

Your ability to run an organized and impactful youth program starts with recruiting the right staff and arming them with helpful resources. Arly's recruiting support helps you fine-tune job descriptions, onboarding, and training your team so they’re knowledgeable and ready to go. Plus, running an organized program with curated resources and guides makes it more appealing for your staff by setting them up for success.

3. Curriculum Offering

You want to design a curriculum that matches your goals. Whether your program is focused on academics, enrichment, or sports, you can match curriculum to your program goals with Arly. The platform’s flexible and expansive curriculum options include math, literacy, enrichment, social emotional learning, and physical fitness. Or, if preferred, you can use your own curriculum!

4. Participant Management

Ongoing program and participant management tools help keep things running smoothly and effectively once your program is established. Arly's participant management tools support everything from enrollment, rostering, and calendaring to managing attendance and accessing critical child safety information such as medication details, known allergies, and authorized pickups.

5. Family Engagement

The Arly app is a powerful, user-friendly tool that makes strengthening family engagement seamless. The app allows you to communicate with parents and guardians and share important program announcements to ensure families are always up to date. Additionally, our family portal is available for easy registration and data maintenance, making it simple for guardians to register kids and update necessary information any time.

6. Professional Development

Professional training and development opportunities are essential to your program’s success, ensuring all staff members are on the same page and regularly refining and growing their skill sets. Arly's self-guided online professional development opportunities allow staff members to learn at their own pace and convenience, with the option to track learning progress and download certificates as they complete different training sessions.

7. Outcomes Measurement

Measurable reporting provides visibility that helps with increasing program funding, demonstrating impact, meeting goals, making better use of resources, and more. Academic programs can demonstrate valuable learning recovery gains throughout the program by performing assessments and tracking results. Arly's program dashboard aggregates compelling data, showcasing program metrics like enrollment rates, average daily attendance, and retention rates. Outcome measurement generates actionable insights and strategies to help you build and sustain your program—not to mention your impact in your community.

8. Program Scalability

Scalability is also important when evaluating potential technology for your YMCA youth program. With a solution that can be used across various sites and programs like Arly, expanding your youth program and reaching more kiddos in your community is easier than ever. A patchwork of various solutions used across chapters of your program would invite inconsistencies, while using Arly solution across all chapters encourages consistently high quality programming for everyone involved.

Level Up Your YMCA Youth Program with Arly

With Arly at your disposal, you can access each of these digital tools in one seamless platform. Our affordable solution empowers program directors to create memorable, engaging, and impactful YMCA youth programs that truly make a difference. 

YMCA of San Francisco is the perfect example, partnering with Arly to level up its program and make a greater impact in their community. Now a Arly-Certified Association, YMCA of San Francisco’s youth program continues to grow and improve year after year—and with the right software, yours can too.

Want to join the ranks of programs like YMCA of San Francisco? Watch the YMCA webinar on demand to learn how you can expand your program’s reach by partnering with local schools in your community.