Two men square off across a net and play a paddle sport called pickleball. Mothers file into the library for a breast-feeding class. A dozen or so elderly gentlemen hunch over chess boards.
Its 250,000-square-foot facility - two buildings, really - is a rabbit warren with a surprise at virtually every turn. The 92nd Street Y occupies the street front of an entire block on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Sure, his book offers plenty for the nonprofit leader, but in the Y’s story, you’ll learn how Timms and his organization did what many dream about: reimagine a traditional, brick-and-mortar charity for the digital age. Timms has made the Y a proving ground for his ideas - and a case study for venerable nonprofits. These two strands of work are tightly intertwined. “I remember thinking four months ago what a terrific idea that was,” he says with cheerful, if weary, sarcasm.
Inconveniently, that drive launched publicly just after Timms and his team closed out Giving Tuesday. As executive director of the 92nd Street Y, the legendary New York community and cultural center, he is leading a $180 million capital campaign. His energy seems a half-stop shy of its usual full-throttle hum. In his forecasts of the future, good triumphs over evil because good is smart, good is strategic, and good deploys technology wisely. Typically, a phone conversation with Timms - indeed, almost any conversation with him - is like throwing open a window on today’s stuffy realities and drinking in a breeze of tomorrow’s possibilities. He is, in short, one of the most recognizable figures in American philanthropy, which is remarkable given that a decade or so ago he worked in his native Britain with two charities whose patron was the Prince of Wales. Foundation and corporate chieftains turn to him for advice. Thanks to the success of this digitally driven campaign - $680 million raised online in the United States over six years - national media tap him as a spokesman for the nonprofit world. You may know him as the father of Giving Tuesday, the 24-hour global blitz that promotes charitable giving in the wake of Black Friday and Cyber Monday consumer excesses. MARK ABRAMSON, FOR THE CHRONICLE MEET THE FUTURE: In his decade at New York’s 92 Street Y, Henry Timms has overseen a digital-age makeover of the 144-year-old charity.
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