Chicago is home to the second-largest number of association headquarters, behind Washington, D.C., but it now faces the possibility of losing one of the largest and most prominent of them, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The YMCA of the USA, the nation's largest social-service not-for-profit, which has been headquartered in the Windy City for the past twenty-five years, may move to Dallas. The two cities are the finalists in a two-year search for a site on which to build a new, larger facility, said Marie Trzupek Lynch, director of operations for the organization. About twelve cities had been considered on such criteria as access to airline service and hotels; a diverse, well-educated workforce; location within a central time zone; and strong not-for-profit and philanthropic sectors.

Chicago is home to some 2,000 associations — including the YMCA, the American Medical Association, and the American Bar Association — whose meetings contribute $2 billion annually to the local economy, and keeping them has taken on a greater sense of urgency with the loss of convention business to places like Las Vegas and Orlando. Together with its two sister organizations, the YMCA has annual revenues of $160 million and employs about 315 people, and the city is negotiating an incentive package to coax it to stay.

According to Gary LaBranche, president and CEO of the Association Forum of Chicagoland, local and state governments are stepping up their efforts to land association headquarters, or to keep them from fleeing, because the nonprofits "provide high-paying, stable, white-collar jobs that have low impact on environmental pollution and relatively low demand on the infrastructure of a city." While he could think of no associations other than the YMCA that have considered pulling up stakes in recent years, he did note that four have moved into Chicago. Nonetheless, his organization just launched a taskforce of association executives devoted to attracting more associations to the city.