Research Paper on YWCA of New York City

Introduction

Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) is a non-governmental organization which was formed to empower women and fight against racism. It has been in existence for the last 158 years, since its start, YWCA in New York have been fighting for social justice and offering training programs in elementary and middle schools to sensitize students on the importance of cultural diversity and the need to embrace each other's culture.

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Since the inception of YWCA, they have been holding various activities which are meant to bring girls together. Music competition is one of the activities which they have been organizing in New York; these have enabled many girls to identify their talents. The winners are provided with a certificate of recognition and have a chance to showcase performance at Merkin Concert Hall.

In the United States, some individuals have been at the forefront in championing for the rights of girls in society apart from YWCA organizations. Dorothy Height is a women rights activist who has been championing for the rights of women in the society; she was also involved in the fight against racism which African-American women were subjected to (Crewe, 2009). She emphasized majorly on issues revolving around unemployment, illiteracy, and awareness. As a result of her determination in service to women, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the year 1994. From her services, YWCA learned much from her, and they were able to bolster their service delivery to the target groups in society.

There are various programs which YWCA have initiated with the aim of empowering girls in the society in terms of education. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) is one of the programs which was initiated to empower girls in education so that they can equally compete in the male-dominated fields in education. There have been other organizations in existence which are championing for the rights of girls in New York City. The Lighthouse Mission and opportunity council are the top competitors of the YWCA.

Opportunity Council (Oppco) is an NGO organization whose activities is based in New York City; it aims to improve the living standards of people by enabling them to access education and offering direct assistance in some instances ("A Community Health Program for the YWCA", 2011). The Lighthouse Mission is another Non-governmental Organization whose main objective is to provide housing to the homeless people in the society. It is worth to note that these organizations are humanitarian organizations whose main objective is to offer assistance to the less fortunate in society. These organizations compete to receive donations from donors to enable them to carry out their charitable missions.

Within the charity organizations, YWCA, Oppco, and Lighthouse Mission are competing to get support from the society and sponsors. Utilization of Michael Porter's five forces model provides a lead to determine which of them is fairing on well and destined to attract more donors (Asad, 2012). Porter's model takes into consideration new competitors, rivalry intensity, substitute products, the power of consumers, and the power of suppliers.

YWCA was the first non-governmental organization to be formed to champion for the rights of the women in the society and to fight against racism ("the Y : YMCA of the USA", 2019). On its formation, YWCA was received positively in New York City as it was going to uplift the spirit of women in the society. Due to the high demand of the humanitarian services in the society, other NGOs assisting the society thus subjecting YWCA to competition. The existing competition was based on the service delivery to the society and not financial competition.

The existing organizations offering humanitarian services have got different powers to attract clients. For these organizations to offer services, it means that people to be served should be willing to receive services from the firms. YWCA is the most preferred organization to offer guiding services to girls in society; this is attributed to its record in offering substantial services in the past. Through this organization, several girls have been guided, and from them, great leaders emanated, this makes it the most needed organization to offer services in New York City as compared to Oppco.

YWCA is an organization which has expanded its services to more than 100 countries. This has made it attract more donors as their services are felt beyond the United States (Peck, 2018). For them to ensure that they get in touch with many girls, YWCA has incorporated competition activities like music competition to attract more girls hence find a large of girls to talk to and encourage them in education through STEM to ensure that they join the male-dominated sector of education.

YWCA organization offers its services to girls, women, and people who have been affected by racism in society (Somerville, 2009). This organization has an aim to ensure that all girls in society are treated the same way as their male counterparts. Also with the realization that racism has been a negative menace in the society, YWCA decided to incorporate fight against racism in the services they provide to the society. With their good track record on service delivery, they have been able to receive many donors who were used to expand the services of YWCA to other countries.

Due to the dynamic nature of the society, clients who have been seeking services from YWCA are likely to shift to other non-governmental organizations offering services to humanity. New organizations like Lighthouse Mission offers services which affect human beings directly; hence they might shift their loyalty to these new organizations (Dupont & Robertson, 2008). Lighthouse Mission is an organization which offers assistance to the homeless in the society, this, therefore, means that one would opt to be served by an organization which is likely to provide him or her with accommodation rather than just moral support.

YWCA has majored in offering their services to girls in society and anti-racism (Johnson, 2008). New NGOs which has come up are offering their services to everybody in the society regardless of the age and gender; this depicts that they will attract a large pool of clients hence their development in the future. It is predicted that if YWCA keeps concentrating on offering services to girls alone in society, they will end up having a smaller number of clients to serve in society.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is worth to note that the existence of these non-governmental organizations in society has enabled society to reduce cases of mistreatment of girls and cases of racism. With the adoption of STEM by YWCA, many girls have been able to venture into the academic fields which are majorly dominated by male. Due to the increased need in society to offer assistance to needy and provide moral support, other Non-Governmental organizations has been on the rise to offer their services to the society.

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