About Us

Mission Statement

Eliminating Racism, Empowering Women

Vision Statement

YWCA Greater Pittsburgh envisions a community that advances education, opportunity, and equity regardless of gender, race, or background.

YWCA Greater Pittsburgh is a member of a nationally recognized movement with a mission to eliminate racism and empower women.

For more than 150 years, YWCA Greater Pittsburgh has positioned itself at the forefront of the most pressing social movements. It has advocated for voting rights, civil rights, affordable housing, and pay equity. Today, YWCA Greater Pittsburgh combines direct services and advocacy to foster change.

We understand that racial and economic equity are inseparable from women’s empowerment. Women and girls of color face daily discrimination and social injustice. They are more likely to experience gender-based violence, and they face more barriers to quality care. Women of color are often their families’ primary source of income, yet many lack access to childcare, safe housing, and health care.

In response, we offer accessible child care, after school STEM education for girls, the YWCA Resource Center, supportive housing, and our Center for Race & Gender Equity. All of our programs are designed to empower the individuals that we serve educationally, socially, and economically.

1919 YWCA Silver Bay Group, Action Conversations, YWCA Greater Pittsburgh
1955 Centennial Cake, Action Conversations, YWCA Greater Pittsburgh
YWCA of Greater Pittsburgh, Action Conversations, YWCA Greater Pittsburgh

YWCA Greater Pittsburgh History

Early Days

Established in 1867, YWCA Greater Pittsburgh (or the “Women’s Christian Association” as it was first named) was first staffed by volunteers. They established educational programs, launched safe housing programs, created support networks to empower professional women, and aided immigrants seeking citizenship. At the turn of the century, YWCAs across the country began to fight for women’s rights. However, they struggled to reconcile their avowed support for women of color with their sense of privilege.

Inclusiveness

Like many of its sister Associations during the early 20th Century, YWCA Greater Pittsburgh ran racially segregated branches. As YWCAs across the country began to examine their own practices more thoughtfully, it became clear that cultural education and internal work for racial equity was needed. Therefore, in 1946, YWCAs committed to the Interracial Charter, an agreement passed at a time when segregation and subjugation were the norm. YWCAs began to work toward living their values and pushing for inclusive practices.

Dr. Dorothy Height

In 1965, YWCA USA created the Office of Racial Justice, led by civil rights icon Dr. Dorothy Height. Height had begun her involvement with the YW at the Girl Reserves Club in the East Pittsburgh borough of Rankin. As a child in the 1920s, she was accustomed to interracial play – but when she visited the white YWCA branch in downtown Pittsburgh, she was denied access to its swimming pool. Height later played a key role in advancing YWCA’s racial justice agenda.

The One Imperative: To thrust our collective power towards the elimination of racism, wherever it exists, by any means necessary.

Originally organized around a shared Christian identity and a desire for equality, YWCA’s vision made its most significant development in 1970, when Associations across the country adopted the “One Imperative: To thrust our collective power toward the elimination of racism, wherever it exists, by any means necessary.” Nearly fifty years later, the “One Imperative” remains the moral priority of our time.

The Center for Race & Gender Equity

In the 1990s, YWCA USA intensified its investment in addressing racism. And in 1996, YWCA GP launched the Center for Race Relations (now the Center for Race and Gender Equity) to educate, engage, advocate, and build community around the vision of a world in which all women and girls, especially women and girls of color, have equitable access to opportunities, education, justice, and power.

Today

Today, YWCA Greater Pittsburgh understands that racial and economic equity are inseparable from empowerment. Women and girls of color face daily discrimination and social injustice. They are more likely to experience gender-based violence, and they face more barriers to quality care. Women of color are often their families’ primary source of income, yet many lack access to childcare, safe housing, and health care.

Pittsburgh is a city in need of change, and YWCA’s mission compels us to devote ourselves to transformation so that, with our partners, we can make the Pittsburgh region truly welcoming and equitable for all. Together, we can tackle the city’s most urgent injustices.

YWCA Greater Pittsburgh FAQs

  • YWCA Greater Pittsburgh provides services, empowerment, and advocacy to eliminate racism and empower women. Our programs include the Center for Race & Gender Equity, Early Learning Centers, Opportunity Pathways Programs, and Economic Advancement Programs.

  • We have two offices, one at 2313 E Carson St. in the Southside, and the other at our Homewood Education enter at 6907 Frankstown Avenue in Homewood.

  • YWCA Greater Pittsburgh and the YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh often collaborate to provide services for families in need. However, the YW and the YM are completely separate organizations, with separate (if similar) missions. YWCA Greater Pittsburgh has offered health and wellness services in the past, but today we provide social services and advocacy.

  • YWCA Greater Pittsburgh and YWCA USA are separate organizations bound by a shared brand and mission. We often refer to YWCA USA (or “national”) as the “parent” Association, and to other local YWs as “sister” Associations. The parent provides our distinctive brand, a range of service and policy priorities, guidance, research, and conversation about best practices and need. Meanwhile, local Associations respond to the particular needs of their regions with services and advocacy.

  • Please follow this link to find out about our services and how best to contact us

  • There are many different ways to get involved, including sharing information, volunteering, attending events, becoming a donor, and enlisting in our Board of Directors or Young Leaders Board. We suggest you start by signing up for our e-newsletter, which will keep you updated about our priorities and activities. You can also follow us on social media to stay up to date on opportunities to get involved.

  • Sadly, racism and sexism are alive and well. The facts are clear from research hat the City of Pittsburgh’s Gender Equity Commission reported on and from the obvious segregation and injustice right here in our city.