CHAPEL HILL - The YMCA of the Triangle and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA have agreed on a framework for working more closely next year, reversing a decision made earlier this year .

The YMCA of the Triangle will provide leadership in fundraising, staff development and fiscal oversight under a one-year management agreement that begins Jan. 1. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA will maintain its 501(c)3 nonprofit status.

“The two YMCAs share the same mission and cause,“ said Doug McMillan, CEO of the YMCA of the Triangle. “This is a natural, healthy progression to our relationship.”

The announcement – the details of which will be worked out over the next 45 days – reverses a statement the Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA made in March that it was no longer pursuing a possible merger or more formal relationship with the YMCA of the Triangle.

Some Chapel Hill-Carrboro community members and elected officials had opposed merger because the Triangle YMCA’s non-discrimination policy does not include sexual orientation and its membership language did not explicitly treat gay and lesbian families like other families, though it does charge them the same.

As part of the new agreement, each YMCA will retain its board, charter and corporate identity, Triangle YMCA spokeswoman Jennifer Nelson said Friday.

“No policies are required to change on either side, though some may change as we work together to improve service and support to the entire region,” she said.

In an interview, Jennifer Trapani, president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA, said the local organization rethought things after former CEO Jerry Whortan resigned in May. The new agreement will save the projected $130,000 to $150,000 salary of a new leader, she said. She would not disclose the cost of the pending management agreement but said it would be less than that.

Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA leaders have said they want to double their membership to 7,000 people in five years and that they needed the larger YMCA’s help to do that. The local YMCA has a budget of just over $5 million; the larger YMCA, about $60 million, Trapani said.

“We know that the YMCA of the Triangle is one of the best YMCAs in the nation,” she said. “Any time there’s a change in leadership it call the question, ‘Now what do you do?’”.

The YMCA of the Triangle recently opened two new centers in Durham, the renovated Lakewood YMCA on Chapel Hill Road and the Hope Valley Farms YMCA Aquatics Center in Southern Durham, according to the news release. Recently, the YMCA of the Triangle signed a contract to build an aquatics center in Knightdale to expand service to eastern Wake County.

The YMCA of the Triangle’s standardized tutorial program, Y Learning, currently serves more than 1,000 children in third-through eighth grades in Wake, Durham, Lee and Pamlico counties.