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Growing the Giving Tree: How YMCA of the Northern Sky scaled a community tradition with Traction Rec
Impact
1,400+
children supported in 2025
460
families shopped for
20
years of the Giving Tree
Organization:
YMCA
Community:
30 childcare centers
Individuals Served:
55,000
OVERVIEW
A community tradition built on heart and growing every year
For nearly two decades, the Giving Tree at YMCA of the Northern Sky has been a beloved community tradition. Each year, it brings neighbours, sponsors, volunteers, and YMCA staff together around one simple goal: making families feel cared for, supported, and celebrated during the holidays.
For many people, the holidays are a joyful and carefree time spent with family and friends. For others, the season can be filled with stress and uncertainty. When day-to-day needs are already difficult to meet, the added pressure of the holidays can leave parents and caregivers feeling vulnerable, and children wondering why their experience looks different from their peers.
To help bridge that gap, communities often rally together through programs like the Giving Tree. These programs connect families in need with community members who want to give back, helping the holidays feel a little less heavy and a little more hopeful.
The YMCA of the Northern Sky’s Giving Tree began as a way to support families already receiving financial assistance through the Y’s camp scholarship program. Over time, it became clear that the need extended far beyond the families the Y was already connected to. Today, families across the Fargo area can apply to participate.
Each year, families fill out a short form for each child, sharing a mix of needs and wishes. Those children are represented by tags placed on the Giving Tree at the YMCA of the Northern Sky. Community sponsors then adopt a tag, shop for the gifts, and return them to the Y so families can pick them up before the holidays.
As demand for the program continued to grow, so did the workload required to keep the experience running smoothly for the community.
I pretty much lived the Giving Tree for about two and a half months, full time. I didn’t do anything different.
Dee Jones
Learning Centers and Camp Coordinator
challenge
When the program outgrows process
The Giving Tree is a program the Y runs with deep pride. In 2024, it was recognized as Program of the Year across the YMCA’s four-state region, a powerful reflection of the care, effort, and heart poured into it year after year.
From the outside, the Giving Tree feels like pure holiday magic. Behind the scenes, it is an operationally complex program with many moving parts, requiring staff and volunteers to spend long hours coordinating details to ensure every family is supported. Every tag represents a real child. Every gift must stay connected to the right family. Every pickup day needs to run smoothly so families feel respected and cared for.
When the Giving Tree first launched nearly 20 years ago, paper forms and spreadsheets were enough to manage the program. As demand grew, the Y introduced online forms to make it easier for families to apply. Even then, much of the work behind the scenes remained manual. Staff still needed to:
- Reconcile sponsor and donor information across multiple spreadsheets
- Clean up partial or duplicate applications manually
- Manage and organize hundreds of incoming tags and family details
- Coordinate gift drop-offs and pickup schedules
- Prepare for unadopted tags and last-minute staff shopping
- Manage volunteers and staff scheduling for sorting, shopping, and pick up days
For months at a time, the Giving Tree became a full-time focus for staff like Dee Jones, Learning Centers and Camp Coordinator, supported by a rotating group of dedicated volunteers.
The work was deeply meaningful, but it also carried real workload weight.
When serving hundreds of families and more than a thousand children, the margin for error is small. Every extra step increases the risk of something slipping, whether it's a lost tag, a separated gift, or a last-minute scramble to ensure no child is missed.
The Giving Tree was thriving. The process behind it needed a stronger foundation.
Solution
Designing for clarity and control with Traction Rec
The turning point came during a conversation between Christine Hoff, Assistant Membership Director at the YMCA of the Northern Sky, and Katie Canfield, Customer Success Specialist at Traction Rec. As Hoff shared the realities of managing the Giving Tree year after year, it became clear that the program itself was strong, but the process supporting it needed reinforcement.
Rather than asking the Y to adapt to a rigid, one-size-fits-all system, Canfield and the Traction Rec team partnered closely with Hoff to design a Giving Tree process that reflected how the program actually operates.
The goal was to maintain the tradition, but to remove friction behind the scenes so staff could spend more time supporting families, volunteers, and the broader community they serve.
The result was a custom Giving Tree workflow built within the Y’s existing system, designed to support the full lifecycle of the program from application to adoption to pickup.
For the first time, staff could clearly see where every family, tag, and gift was at every stage.
It truly feels like we’re partners, not just that we’re paying for CRM access.
Christine Hoff
Assistant Membership Director
REsults
Calmer days, fewer emergencies, and greater impact
Staff experience and capacity
The most immediate impact was felt by the people running the program. With fewer manual steps and clearer visibility, the Giving Tree became far more manageable. Staff could confidently match tags to sponsors, schedule drop-offs, and track each gift’s journey in seconds.
For the first time in years, the team was no longer juggling multiple spreadsheets to find answers. Instead, they had space to breathe during one of the busiest times of the year. "It just feels calmer, and it feels like we are ahead of the game rather than trying to play catch-up.” said Katie McCormick, VP of Marketing & Communication.
Operational reliability and improved adoption
With the application and intake process stabilized, attention could shift to the sponsor side of the Giving Tree. Improved communication, clearer tags, and better organization led to a higher percentage of tags being adopted and shopped for successfully.
In previous years, last minute staff shopping could reach nearly 200 children. In 2025, distribution began with around 70 tags remaining. With less last-minute shopping required, the Y was able to redirect time, energy, and budget into their Toy Shop, a collection of gifts used to ensure every child was taken care of. This allowed staff to fill gaps with essentials like winter coats or blankets, or add something special that helped each child feel special.
For future years, this increase in successfully adopted and shopped for tags enables the Y to increase capacity and extend the program’s reach even further.
Financial and program impact
That operational clarity translated directly into measurable impact.
In 2025, YMCA of the Northern Sky served approximately 1,400 children and 460 families, including roughly 375 families who were not yet YMCA members. That means 375 families that benefit from support, but aren't receiving it year round.
That visibility matters, because it helps the Y better understand community needs, connect families to year-round programs like camp scholarships or childcare support, or engage sponsors who want to continue giving back but are not always sure how.
Many of those sponsors and volunteers are families who were once supported by the Giving Tree themselves, returning years later to give back. That full-circle impact is a powerful reflection of community strength.
Reporting, communication, and future planning
Leading up to distribution week, Katie Canfield and the Traction Rec team stayed closely involved, helping ensure the system reflected real conditions and that staff felt confident using it when pressure was highest.
That partnership went beyond technology. During distribution week, Canfield flew in to support the Y team in person, volunteering alongside staff and community members. It was a clear reminder that this work is about showing up for people, not simply delivering software. Using the new system, YMCA staff were able to reschedule 175 families almost instantly when an unexpected blizzard rolled in on the busiest pick up day of the season. A strong process does more than improve efficiency. It supports people and communities when the unexpected happens.
A phenomenal program, now supported by a process built for growth
YMCA of the Northern Sky’s Giving Tree has always been special because of the people behind it. Staff lead with heart. Volunteers show up year after year. Sponsors give generously. Families place their trust in the YMCA during vulnerable moments.
By partnering with Traction Rec on a custom Giving Tree solution, the YMCA gained the structure and visibility needed to reduce manual work, minimize mistakes, and expand what community generosity could accomplish, without losing the heart of the program.
The mission stayed the same.
Now, the process matches it.
