For nearly 175 years, the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit, one of the oldest YMCAs in the United States, has been part of the fabric of its community. As YMCA of the USA celebrates 175 years in 2026, the Detroit Y is approaching a major milestone of its own, with its 175th anniversary coming in 2027. Its leaders are looking beyond simply celebrating the Y’s history. They are focused on what comes next.
For Jim Baksa, that future is about expanding the Y’s reach, strengthening relationships with members, and finding better ways to demonstrate the impact the organization makes every day.
Baksa knows the Y from nearly every angle. He began his career as a lifeguard and has spent 36 years with the organization. Today, he is helping lead a strategy centered on a simple idea: The better the Y can connect its people, programs, and data, the better it can tell its story and advance its mission.
Turning participation into deeper relationships
The YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit is focused on building relationships that extend beyond a single membership or program registration. The goal is to create a progression from member, to engaged member, to donor, to volunteer. That requires more than simply offering programs. It requires understanding how people interact with the Y and having the tools to stay connected throughout that relationship.
With a new chief development officer helping expand the organization’s community reach and philanthropy efforts, telling the Y’s story has become even more important.
The organization sees technology as one of the tools that can help make that possible.
“Telling the story is key,” Baksa said.
Using ACTIVENet’s communication capabilities, mobile tools, and connected member data, the Y is exploring new ways to engage members while creating stronger connections between participation and mission.
One connected experience for members and staff
A major priority for the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit is reducing disconnected systems and duplicate work.
The organization uses ACTIVE Captivate to provide members with a mobile experience connected directly to its ACTIVENet database.
For Baksa, that connection matters. Previous mobile experiences could feel disconnected from the Y’s underlying systems, forcing members into separate experiences and requiring staff to support information in multiple places.
His philosophy is straightforward: “Don’t make staff do it twice.”
Every additional manual step creates more work and another opportunity for errors. Connecting the member experience directly to ACTIVENet helps the Y move closer to a single source of information for both staff and members.
That same philosophy shapes how Baksa thinks about the member experience.
“Anything we can put into a single location and make a one-stop shop for the user is important,” Baksa said.
The organization is now looking for additional ways to use Captivate, ACTIVE’s branded mobile app, to deliver member value, increase engagement, and create a more connected experience.
Supporting staff beyond the front desk
The Y’s focus on creating a more connected experience extends to staff as well. The Y currently uses ACTIVE Connect for attendance tracking in child care areas and is looking to expand mobile attendance across additional programs. Rather than requiring staff to return to a workstation or maintain separate attendance processes, mobile tools allow information to be captured closer to where programs are actually happening.
The organization is also interested in expanding self-service capabilities, including making it easier for members to check themselves in through mobile experiences. The objective is not simply to add more technology. It is to make technology part of the natural flow of the experience.
Making data accessible to more people
One of the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit’s biggest opportunities is making its data easier to access across the organization.
ACTIVENet contains valuable information about programs, memberships, participation, and community engagement. The challenge is getting that information into the hands of the people who need it.
Today, only a limited number of staff members may have the technical expertise to work directly with tools such as SQL or Power BI.
But the questions leaders need to answer are often remarkably straightforward:
- How many children are currently participating in day school?
- How many will transition into middle school?
- How many people participated in day camp this year?
Those questions become especially important when staff are preparing for conversations with donors, community partners, or other stakeholders.
The Y uses ACTIVE Hub to bring its data together and is interested in making that information even more accessible. The vision is simple: Allow staff to ask questions in plain language and quickly get the information they need. That could fundamentally change how data is used throughout the organization, moving insights beyond a handful of technical users and into everyday decision-making.
From data to impact
For the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit, better access to data is ultimately about something larger than reporting. It is about demonstrating impact.
Participation numbers can help tell the story of how many people the Y reaches. Connected data can help reveal how long people stay involved, how their relationship with the organization changes, and how programs affect individuals and families over time.
That information becomes powerful when the Y is talking with donors and community partners. Rather than simply describing its mission, the organization can demonstrate it. The goal is to understand not just how many people participated, but the longevity and depth of that impact.
A decade of partnership and continued progress
The YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit has worked with ACTIVE for approximately a decade, and Baksa sees that relationship as an important part of the organization’s technology evolution.
“The change we made 10 years ago, we took a giant step forward in what we can do with technology,” Baksa said. “It took 10 years to get seated in the application and to understand the power of the software and what you can get out of it. A lot of investment in time, money, and thought.”
That journey has been about more than implementing a system. Over time, the Y has learned how to use the platform more fully, how to connect more of its operations, and how to get greater value from the data and tools available to its staff.
Baksa has also seen significant product advancement in recent years.
“We have seen a lot of advancements in the last two years,” he said.
He credits ACTIVE with continuing to push the platform forward while listening to customer feedback.
“ACTIVE does a great job pushing the envelope, pushing out developments and new features.”
And that willingness to listen matters.
“ACTIVE listens. They have made changes. We understand that we are not the only YMCA, but we are also a huge proponent of the platform.”
Jim Baksa, Vice President of Information Technology
For Baksa, being a strong advocate for the platform does not mean simply accepting what exists today. It means continuing to push for what YMCA organizations will need tomorrow.
That ongoing dialogue between customer and technology partner is helping the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit build toward its next chapter.
As the organization prepares to celebrate 175 years of service in 2027, the mission remains familiar. The opportunity is to use modern technology to understand that impact more clearly, tell the story more effectively, and build stronger relationships with the people who make that mission possible.
ACTIVE is proud to partner with the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit as it builds on nearly 175 years of service and continues advancing its mission for generations to come.
