BICYCLE FRIENDLY AMERICA
BFA AS AN ADVOCACY TOOL
How advocacy organizations are using the program to boost their efforts
T
he Bicycle Friendly America program isn’t just a guide for communities, businesses and universities — it’s also a helpful, ready-made tool that can be used by advocacy organizations to grow their capacity and enhance their leadership among diverse stakeholders. Here are how two very different organizations are using the BFA program to make Mississippi and Minnesota more bike-friendly.
BIKE WALK MISSISSIPPI A Statewide Campaign with Local Impact
BY MELODY MOODY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR As a way to expand its reach and to improve its overall bicycle friendliness, Bike Walk Mississippi, the statewide advocacy organization, started to strategize how to use the Bicycle Friendly Community program as a model to motivate more local communities to apply. With only two Bronze-level Bicycle Friendly Communities in Mississippi, we investigated and soon found that there were several issues hindering the program. We quickly found that there was plenty of interest, but some communities didn’t know how to effectively take the next steps. Some had already applied, not received a designation and moved on to other things. Others were interested in becoming more bike-friendly, but simply didn’t know the program existed. Meanwhile, at the statewide level, Bike Walk Mississippi was working on a strategy to increase Mississippi’s overall Bi24 AMERICAN BICYCLIST
Bike Walk Mississippi advocates.
cycle Friendly State ranking. As an effort to kill two birds with one stone, in July 2012, Bike Walk Mississippi created the “Bicycle Friendly Mississippi” campaign. The effort worked from both ends of the spectrum. It served as a “bottom-up” grassroots effort to help build local demand, power and ownership. But it also incorporated a “top-down” approach by using this overwhelming community demand to influence policy change with state agencies, the state Legislature and members of Congress. By cre ating advisor y coalitions throughout the state, Bike Walk Mississippi is hoping to put the power back into the hands of local advocates by using the BFC application as a way to connect with their local officials by providing a roadmap, helping to brainstorm grassroots projects and educating them on how to transform their communities. In order to create a replicable model for communities statewide, Bike Walk Mississippi has been collecting local examples, success stories and best practices and distributing them through its community resource
tool-kit and a “how-to” guide. This two-tiered approach has allowed Bike Walk Mississippi to increase its local community partnerships, political support and civic engagement in each congressional district and has provided opportunities for increased reach, awareness & funding opportunities for Bike Walk Mississippi to grow and sustain the campaign efforts. Shortly after the launch of the campaign, Bike Walk Mississippi received a capacity building grant through Advocacy Advance and hired a part-time Advocacy Campaign Manager to lead the effort by working with four pilot projects to facilitate and guide the process on the local level. The program works by using the BFC application as a first step toward self-assessment and gathering together stakeholders to fill out the application together. Through this process, communities are able to strategically assess their strengths, their barriers and get a more comprehensive picture of what it means to be bicycle friendly. After the self-assessment process is finished, the application is sent to the League and begins to hold open public meetings to give input on establishing action plans under each of the 5 E’s. All of the other goals established by the public meetings and action teams are then made part of the long-term action plan. Since launching the campaign, three of the four pilot communities were honored to receive an “Honorable Mention” as BFC, and each have plans to continue working on increased bicycle friendliness. Each community has adopted differ-