With nearly 4,000 local affiliates as it celebrates its centennial, Boys and Girls Clubs of America still is learning how to keep everyone funded, happy and on the same page.

By Nicole Rollender

The elevator-speech push ensures that someone walking into a BGCA club in Duluth, Minn., would receive the same message as someone walking into a Jacksonville, Fla., club. And, Aschermann says, it’s working. In 2003, a new public-awareness survey showed about 80 percent of the U.S. public was familiar with BGCA — up more than 65 percent from 1993.