Note to the Village People: The lyrics in your biggest hit need an update. The organisation previously known as the YMCA is henceforth to be called “the Y”.
One of the world’s most iconic nonprofit organisations, founded 166 years ago in England as the Young Men’s Christian Association, is undergoing a major rebranding, adopting as its name the nickname everyone has used for generations.
Jonah Disend, chief executive of Redscout, a brand strategy company in New York, said adopting abbreviations in lieu of long names could make sense in an era of Twitter, with its 140-character diktat, and apps for mobile phones.
“There’s a real need to make everything fit into a bite-size space,” Disend said.
(The Y has an app, but nonprofits have not fully embraced them yet, in part over their vexation with Apple, which prohibits the use of iPhone apps for fund-raising.)