International work building files

The North American YMCA began initial steps towards the organization of international activity during the YMCA's first Student Christian Conference, at Mount Hermon, Massachusetts, in 1886. A group of one hundred students signed a pledge to participate in volunteer work in foreign countries, including John R. Mott, the future and first general secretary of the YMCA’s International Committee. The conference in addition to requests for assistance from missionaries in India, led YMCA leaders to organize the International Convention in Philadelphia in 1889, which would formally establish the basis of YMCA international work.

Trained North American secretaries began travelling to a variety of foreign countries where they established and staffed YMCAs. These fraternal secretaries would help the associations they worked with to become self-sustaining, self-governing and self-propagating. Secretaries acquired buildings, recruited and trained native staff, and performed special educational and administrative duties. The North American YMCA soon organized a subcommittee to oversee international work, known as the Foreign Department, or Foreign Committee. By 1900, eighteen YMCA secretaries were serving in India, Japan, Brazil, China and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), growing to 106 fraternal secretaries serving in fourteen nations in the following decade.

Development projects, providing agricultural, economic and educational opportunities in rural areas were common aspects to YMCA work overseas. In 1910 a building fund campaign was begun by Mott. A large donation by John D. Rockefeller towards this fund began a continual financial relationship between the Rockefeller family and the North American YMCA. In 1913 a Building Bureau was established under the leadership of Charles Sumner Ward. Its attention was entirely focused on fundraising until 1915 when architectural resources were added and a new employee, Neil McMillan, a trained architect familiar with the workings of the YMCA, was hired to lead a new planning division. Requirements for YMCA buildings became standardized and principles to building a proper YMCA building were distributed in the form of pamphlets and reports. The YMCA's Foreign Building Fund Program also assisted with the with the procurement and allotment of funds for overseas building projects. This ensured the continued development of the YMCA’s international presence.

By 1925, YMCA international work had reached its high point, with 229 fraternal secretaries serving alongside 693 native secretaries. However, beginning in 1927 the YMCA's Foreign Department was faced with a serious deficit of over a million dollars. In mid-1928 a Stabilization Fund, that had been started in earlier years and primarily raised by Mott before his retirement, was utilized to offset deficits for 1927 and 1928. John D. Rockefeller Jr. made continual, large donations to the Stabilization Funds of the late 1920s and early 1930s in order to assist the YMCA with its deficit. A retrenchment period began in many areas. The situation was worsened with the crash of the global economy in 1929. By 1933 the number of oversea fraternal secretaries was reduced to 81. Though some YMCA work was forced to cease, other work weathered the crisis because of the support of established native secretaries. The International Committee was integrated into the YMCA’s National Council in 1936 and the Foreign Department was renamed World Service.

The YMCA also played an active role in reconstruction following the second world war. In 1947, the YMCA launched the World Youth Fund, which raised $5,755,000 towards the construction of 66 buildings and the return of 641 secretaries to work abroad. In 1950 the National Council was reorganized and the International Committee was dissolved and reorganized to include the World Service of both the United States and Canada. In 1958 this International Committee launched a fundraising campaign known as the Buildings for Brotherhood program, leading to the construction of 112 new buildings in 35 different nations.

In 1970 the United States and Canada began to administer separate World Service programs, leading to the formation of the International Division under the National Board, which was established to replace the International Committee of the US and Canada. In 1973 the YMCA began its relationship with USAID after the development agency made a $1.2 million grant to the International Division. By 1981 just six American YMCA personnel served abroad, overseeing larger geographic regions. On top of that, additional personnel were assigned to individual nations, responding to individual problems or circumstances. Throughout the 1990s the YMCA's International Division continued to provide funding for developmental work with the establishment of new associations and an emphasis on student work-hosting exchange programs and international conventions to foster international fellowship.

Historical information largely adapted and quoted from World Service: A History of the Foreign Work and World Service of the Young Men’s Christian Associations of the United States and Canada, (New York: Association Press, 1957) by Kenneth Scott Latourette, and from the collection.