In this episode, we talk with Lynn Wilmot and Dan Dieffenbach of YMCA360, the digital platform for YMCA. On October 6, NCHPAD and YMCA360 announced a partnership to integrate NCHPAD’s fitness and wellness videos into the YMCA360 platform for YMCA members. Lynn serves as the Director of Programming, and Dan is the Co-Founder of YMCA360. We invited Lynn and Dan to discuss this exciting new collaboration and provide a deeper understanding of their work and what to expect.

To visit the official press release for this partnership, visit this page.

A full episode transcript is available below or on Buzzsprout.

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Episode Transcript

Quick Navigation (click the linked text below to jump to a new section)

• Intro
• Dan Dieffenbach discussing the work of YMCA360
• How YMCA360 got started
• The type of content YMCA360 offers and how it is adaptive
• Why YMCA360 is so important and the individuals they hope to reach
• Why YMCA360 wanted to partner with NCHPAD
• How you can ask your YMCA to carry YMCA360
• Where people can find out more about YMCA360
• Dan and Lynn’s final thoughts

*Edited for clarity*

Host: 00:04

This is Wellness, Health and Everything Else: a NCHPAD Podcast.

Welcome to Wellness, Health and Everything Else: a NCHPAD Podcast. NCHPAD is the National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability – the nation’s premier center dedicated to promoting the health and wellness of everyone. In each episode, we explore topics at the intersection of health, wellness and mobility limitations. If you have an idea for a topic, would like to learn more about a topic or are interested in our free resources, programs and partnership opportunities, email us at nchpad@uab.edu, give us a call at 866-866-8896 or check out our website at nchpad.org.

Music Interlude

In this episode, we talk with Lynn Wilmot and Dan Dieffenbach of YMCA360, the digital platform for YMCA. Lynn serves as the Director of Programming, and Dan is the Co-Founder of YMCA360. On October 6, NCHPAD and YMCA360 announced a partnership to integrate NCHPAD’s fitness and wellness videos into the YMCA360 platform for YMCA members. We invited Lynn and Dan to discuss this exciting new collaboration and provide a deeper understanding of their work and what to expect.

To get the episode started, here is Dan discussing the work of YMCA360.

Dan Dieffenbach: 01:27

We’re fresh off an announcement with Y USA, which is the governing body of the YMCA here in North America, and according to them, we are the digital platform for Ys (YMCAs). So, a really awesome title, a really incredible partnership. But what does that mean, right? We offer products, solutions, and tools for YMCA members to have the ultimate member experience. To engage with the Y 24-7, to have access to their schedule, to their instructors, to their community, to their content, as you’ll hear from Lynn talking about a robust content library. And then for staff, there are products and solutions and tools to make their lives easier. So, I think on the B2C side for the consumer, the member, you want the ultimate member experience, the hybrid membership in the building, out of the building. So now we have the physical and the digital living side by side, and one of the best brands on the planet. Ron and I like to say we deliver health and wellness for all, and if I had to boil it down, it’s a digital platform with products, solutions and tools. It gets a little techie and a little bit deep into the weeds. I would like to just say that we are trying to deliver health and wellness for all.

Host: 2:37

Dan discussed how YMCA360 got started.

Dan Dieffenbach: 02:40

So why 360 started, I’m quite a storyteller, so bear with me on this one, but I’ll never forget it. It was in 2019, a long, long time ago. I was called by an old college basketball teammate of mine, Ron McMahon, who is the current CEO of the Greater Wichita YMCA. And he and I had spent some time together on a reunion trip, and kind of talked about what our lives looked like and what our jobs looked like at that time. I was working on a very consumer-driven health and wellness product, which was going to, believe it or not, try to jam together every single piece of health and wellness onto one mobile app.  We had a lot of financing behind it, and we were going to take a swing at it. So, my job was to really build up the content library initially, and that meant celebrity chefs and celebrity workout folks, and influencers, and a track segment from Carl Lewis, and we went at it a little bit from the name brand and influencer side.

I was explaining this to Ron, and he called me a few weeks later and had a really awesome experience with one of his instructors who could not get into the YMCA on a snow day. So, she put her class, now think about this, this is 2019. She put her class on Facebook Live because she couldn’t get in there. So, she broadcast it before that was a thing, before the pandemic, if you can get your head wrapped around that. It was pretty innovative for the YMCA, pretty innovative at the time. She got 430+ people to come to her class. Normally, it’s 30 in the building. So, Ron called me shortly thereafter, in fact, probably right after, and said, “Is this something that we could do at the YMCA, what you’re doing for your other company?” And I said, “Well, we can try. Your instructors need to be rock stars on the camera. We need a tech team that is as good as Apple’s. We need some artillery to get out there and really try to build a digital response to what is happening at the Y, which is community, friendly faces, working out, feeling good about yourself, mental, physical, mind, spirit, body, all that great stuff.”

So, we went to work on it and built a prototype. I went out with a small crew out to Wichita, and we filmed some instructors doing Peloton-esque classes, and it was a really interesting experience. It was tricky at first because most of them had not been in front of a camera, but I told them, “Just teach your class. Speak to your audience through the lens, just like these are the people in the room.” And all of a sudden it clicked in. And I remember sitting there on set and going, we got something here. Like, this is really magical. If you can come into the building and have that experience physically, and then you can go to this platform and have the same experience digitally, that same relationship, that same partnership with that instructor, that coach, or that team member, we got something.

So, we put together a pilot and sort of hijacked one of the big CEO meetings at a Y conference. And I remember sitting in the back of the room and this group was talking about committees and how we get there and how we innovate, and 10 steps to even start to discuss it. And I sat there and turned over to Ron. I said, “Say, man, we have what they’re looking for. This pilot that we put together, talking about digital content, a presence on mobile, web, and TV, and delivering that 24/7. This is this is going to be incredible.” And it was! So, we did the pilot. Ron got up there and he and he spoke to all the all the red tape and the naysayers and all the things like “it’s hard to do mobile” and “It’s hard to shoot content” and “We don’t know anything about that” and “How do we do this digital platform?” And he did a great job bringing it all together and then he hit play on our pilot, and that room went bonkers. I remember one CEO, Glenn Gunderson, YMCA of the North, banged his fist on the table and said, “Let’s pour gasoline on this thing.” And I was just going, holy cow, this is this is fantastic.

So, we cut the meeting short. All these CEOs and the Y USA, the governing body, were there as well, went upstairs to the suite, and we just talked about how we do this. Like, how can we pull this off? Like, how much money do we need? Who’s going to build it? What partners in tech do we currently have to do this? And that’s where the whole thing started. Then, as you know, the pandemic hit. All bets are off, right? The Ys are trying to stay alive. The Ys are trying to stay “open.” So, they had to do content. They had to have their iPhones up and still continue their classes. And man, they did an amazing job. Like, as a community, as a movement, the Y stayed alive; it stayed in people’s lives for health and wellness. And what we did was we took probably 30 pieces of content from Wichita, and we gave it to the world. We put it on every single YMCA website internationally and got millions and millions of people coming to the YMCA to get through the pandemic. Like I had a husband and wife in Italy, an elderly couple, saying we saved their lives during the pandemic. I mean, if that’s not the power of a brand, if that’s not the global presence of something really, really special, then I’ve never seen it. And I worked for Nike and a few other big brands in my time. So, we came back from the pandemic thinking, man, this is really, really going to be valuable in people’s lives. We put our heads down and have been building it ever since. And six, seven years later, we have the digital platform for Y. So, there’s the story.

Host: 08:19

Here’s Lynn talking about the type of content YMCA360 offers and how it is adaptive to all individuals and fitness levels.

Lynn Wilmot: 08:28

Everything YMCA branches, facilities do across the country. We have some kind of content that supports those programs and those classes from infants to octogenarians, fitness, aquatics, mental well-being to arts, and almost everything in between. So, our content really reflects what happens within the YMCA. So, people can go home and participate, or if they’re traveling, wherever they might be on the planet. We have beginner through advanced level content for people of all different fitness levels.

From an adaptive lens, our Fitness First and our Mind Body channels, the all-level classes, our instructors are sharing modifications so that people can participate at their interest and ability level to ensure that we’re reaching as many people as possible. We have content that’s geared specifically towards people using chairs. We have an adaptive category with content on our platform already, but it’s about to get even better because we’re launching NCHPAD content in four brand new categories, which I’m so excited about. The first is fitness. We have meditation, we have independent living skills, and then we have nutrition.

Honestly, we have a lot of content. I think we’re sitting somewhere around 3,500 pieces of content in our library. And still, I’m really excited about NCHPAD’s content joining the platform. One of the unique things about YMCA360 is that all of our content is produced by our partners and Ys around the country. So, we all know that people who engage with YMCA love their instructors. So, our partners are producing content so that those local instructors can be in front of that audience and they’re serving their communities, of which there are just under 1,000 across the country right now.

Host: 10:29

Lynn discussed why this work is so important and the individuals they hope to reach through this partnership.

Lynn Wilmot: 10:34

Dan touched on it just a little earlier, that at the Y, we say we’re for all. And it’s so important to us that it’s not just a tagline, it’s actually our way of work. And what we’re hoping is to reach and expand our offerings to people with disabilities, people who care for people with disabilities, and we want to reach our YMCA instructors so that they can begin to develop their skills and enhance their skills in this area.

What excites me is that our partnership has three pillars of focus. The first is bringing your fabulous content onto our platform. The second is collaborating on production together, so identifying needs and gaps and then producing content that will serve and meet those gaps and needs. And then, thirdly, how do we work together to help develop our YMCA staff and their delivery of classes and activities across the country?

Otherwise, we’re experts in a lot of things and we do a lot of things, but we’re not experts in every area, and NCHPAD is. NCHPAD is the leading organization in this area of work, and your experts are wonderful, and your instructors are wonderful at what they do. So, it just seemed like a really natural fit. We’re super excited about it.

Host: 12:02

Here is Lynn discussing why YMCA360 wanted to partner with NCHPAD.

Lynn Wilmot: 12:07

Well, first, we love the work that you do, and your passion for helping support people live the healthiest versions of themselves, marries perfectly with what we do at the Y. And then, of course, when you look at, and as I was thinking about this conversation today, I was looking at our mission statements again, there are so many different similarities. You’re dedicated to promoting health and well-being for all people through evidence-based programs, initiatives, and resources. At the Y, we’re focused on building programs and in a healthy spirit, mind, and body for all. So, it seemed like a perfect marriage for us. And we wanted to expand our offerings for people with disabilities. And I chatted about this a little earlier. You’re experts in this area and so finding that connection and the way we work and the way we approach our work was so similar. It’s been a great partnership so far. Can’t wait to see what we do in the future.

Host: 13:12

We wanted to know how you can ask your YMCA to carry YMCA360.

Dan Dieffenbach: 13:17

The way that the Y works— it’s a pretty interesting community. Ys talk to Ys. And so, we’re getting a lot of partners from current successful Ys using YMCA360 and talking to other Ys. To answer your question, how do you get your Y to adopt YMCA360? I mean, members can go into the Y, they can request it. Maybe they’ve seen it from another Y, maybe there’s been some trial use happening in the area. But Y members could just reach out to their branch and contact folks and let them know that they want YMCA360. And we’ve seen that work. A lot of times at our help desk, our 24/7 email is just constantly getting responses from different scenarios. But one that we always get is How can my Y get YMCA360? And I think that’s a great question. The more members that are asking for it, for members that respond to us and respond to their local Y, we’ve been really good at following up with those Ys and circling back and doing a demonstration of the product and hopefully moving them onto the product.

Host: 14:27

Here is Dan discussing where people can find out more about YMCA360.

Dan Dieffenbach: 14:32

Yeah, so YMCA360, I mean, it’s been one of the challenges of this business. The YMCA business model is a federated model, which means that every association, and I think Lynn alluded to this, there are over 800, I think, still operating in the United States alone. So, an association is built on branches. Some of the big associations have between 10 and 20 branches, like locations. So, these are big businesses, and then there’s rural YMCAs and smaller YMCAs, and we want to try to serve all of them. And so, the federated model is interesting because they’re working in their own business environment in a siloed manner. And so, to get the word out, to talk to Ys, we are constantly at conferences, at meetings, in our partnership with Y USA. In fact, we have a webinar coming up this week to talk about the partnership and really get more Ys engaged.

And so, communication throughout The Movement – which is what the YMCA calls the North American community of YMCAs – to get the muscle of The Movement, which is what I call it when a whole bunch of Ys collaborate and get together, can be really powerful. And so that’s been one of the obstacles is like, how does a Y hear about us? We’re trying to get out as much as we can. We are a nonprofit subsidiary out of Wichita. So, we’re not a big sales organization. So, we’re not on the ground, we’re not out at conferences taking people to dinners and golfing and everything else like a lot of the vendors are. We pride ourselves in being built by the Y for the Y, which means that most of the people that work on our team, myself excluded, are Y people, current Y people or former Y people. Lynn’s one of them. Lived in the Y. Careers in the Y. Understand the business, understand the community. And I think in response even to this partnership, those are the people that understand how to make deals like this, make partnerships like this, but then deliver, whether it’s content or an experience or a community, deliver it to the Y members. And I think that’s been so important to staff our team with YMCA folks.

But there are a couple of nuts and bolts here. You can go to ymca360.org. So that’s our main URL. That’s mainly used for members or folks who are actually getting onto the platform. I’d also like to toss out another one: ymca360.org/learn-more. Hopefully, we can put a big thing on the screen that blinks and people can click on it or go over to it. But that’s really where perspective-Ys learn about who we are. And since we were born in videos, like I said earlier, that was the first swing was content, we’re still six, seven years later, still couched in content.

And we’re so much more than that. You barcode into the building, you can schedule and reserve classes, you can utilize paid sessions and personal training and swim lessons, you can engage in our loyalty program. You can do some amazing things. You can get into our what 4,000 pieces of content on-demand library and live stream. You can do so much on here that we are constantly trying to evolve into we are the digital platform for Ys. We’re not just videos. Although the videos are great, Lynn and her team have done a fantastic job of doing that, we’re so much more than that.

So those two URLs, folks can find out more about us. We can also set up demos at any time with any Ys or any prospective partners. And we have a team that does that. But the more we can get the word out, the better. Because when Ys stumble upon this platform, they say, “Wow, this truly is the hybrid membership model. This truly is the physical YMCA and the digital YMCA coming together to offer the ultimate member experience.”

Host: 18:19

Here are Dan and Lynn’s final thoughts.

Lynn Wilmot: 18:21

I would like to just take a quick moment to thank David Mariano from Y of the USA. In a conversation I was having with him, he saw the potential of our two organizations working together. And so, he was absolutely right. It’s been a fabulous partnership. So, I did want to acknowledge him for making the connection for us.

Dan Dieffenbach: 18:42

Yeah, and I would second that. And I would say that Lynn did a great job of bringing this partnership to the forefront. But that’s the triangle of success, right? Between Y USA, the governing body of The Movement, YMCA360 and the local Y coming together. That’s the triangle for success that we use as a barometer for any partnership. And then when you bring in a group like NCHPAD, it makes it really, really successful. And whenever we can partner with folks that are all about Y values and the same service that we’re trying to promote through this digital platform, it’s an exceptional partnership, and we thank you guys for that as well.

Host: 19:31

Thanks for listening to Wellness, Health and Everything Else. For a full episode transcript, visit our website and find the episode in the podcasts and videos section. You can find the official press release of this partnership on our website in the resources section. Any links mentioned in the episode can be found in the episode description on streaming platforms and on the episode page on our website. If you have questions about NCHPAD’s free resources, programs, and partnership opportunities, email us at nchpad@uab.edu, call us at 866-866-8896 or check out our website at nchpad.org.