Most Ys aren't looking to replace their software. They're looking to stop fighting it. That was the position Anderson Area YMCA found itself in when its longtime software vendor announced it was being sold and the product would be phased out. The Y had a year to find something new, and CFO Kelley Davies ended up leading that search. About 18 months later, here's what Amilia's platform has actually changed for her team.
The biggest shift for Anderson Area YMCA was moving routine sign-ups off the front desk and onto a checkout flow members already know how to use. In Amilia, a parent can browse programs by category, add a swim lesson or a week of camp to a cart, apply add-ons like a camp t-shirt or before care, and pay online in a few clicks, the same way they'd shop anywhere else.
That single change eliminated a problem Kelley describes vividly: the annual "camp sign-up day," when families used to line up outside the building an hour before opening. Now that line is gone, and staff time freed up by self-serve registration gets redirected to members who still want help in person. Read more about how Amilia can support YMCAs here.
"It's just like shopping on Amazon. It's too easy, almost,"Kelley said, describing the feedback she hears from members.
Amilia is built to show the full price of a program alongside the member's discount, rather than hiding the non-member rate. Membership discounts, sibling discounts, and multi-purchase offers all calculate automatically at checkout. Payment plans let families spread the cost of something like a week of camp into installments instead of paying in full up front, configurable activity by activity.
For a Y managing hundreds of transactions a week, that means less manual invoicing and fewer pricing questions at the desk.
Amilia handles check-in for members and non-members alike, whether someone has a membership, a day pass, or a single facility reservation. Members can scan in with the Amilia app, a digital wallet pass, or a physical card, and staff can look people up manually when needed. The system also integrates with registered sex offender screening providers, a requirement many Ys are now expected to meet for accreditation purposes.
One detail Kelley keeps coming back to: when a member calls with a question, the staff member on the phone is looking at the same screen the member sees. Before switching, support calls involved a lot of guesswork, staff asking members to describe what was on their screen and hoping the two systems lined up. That shared visibility has cut down on confusion on both ends of the call.
Amilia includes built-in analytics dashboards for enrollment trends, membership status, and facility usage, powered by Power BI but requiring no separate license to access. A membership management tool lets staff filter for things like upcoming cancellations and reach out before a member lapses, rather than waiting for a report to catch it after the fact.
None of these tools work in isolation. Registration, payments, check-in, and reporting are built on one platform, so a change in one area shows up everywhere else automatically. For a Y or JCC weighing a switch, whether the trigger is a sunsetting vendor, a frustrated front desk, or a board asking for better data, that's often the difference that matters most: one connected system instead of several that don't talk to each other.
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