SVBC’s New Strategic Plan

Aug 10

Once upon a time, (around 1975), there was a group of dedicated volunteers who came together under the guise of environmentalism and traffic congestion to promote the use of the bike. These folks officially created the nonprofit now called Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition in 1993 and then in 2005, the organization hired its first full time executive director, Corinne Winter. Corinne grew the organization until I took over in 2015. At that time, the organization had a staff of 8 and a budget of about $800k. Today, we have 15 full time staff and a budget of $1.5 million.

There’s been a lot of change over that time and for a long while, the Board had wanted to embark on a professionally guided strategic planning process. One of the things that finally prompted the Board to move forward was the introduction of pesky scooters, or more broadly, the onslaught of different forms of micromobility. You remember, yes? All of a sudden, scooters were everywhere, and people were riding them. For those of us in the bike advocacy world, we were a bit jealous and had to ask ourselves, what are we doing wrong that we can’t convince folks to ditch their cars for bikes, but they will for scooters?

This caused the Board to evaluate whether we should keep the B in SVBC as a B or change the organization to be more inclusive of different forms of micromobility.

That was the start of the conversation to more deliberately think about the future of a bike coalition in a changing transportation ecosystem.

Today, we have a new strategic plan adopted in May, 2022. In a series of blogs over the next few ebulletins, I’ll walk through the process and outcomes so that you, the folks who are critical to the success of the bike movement, understand the direction that all of us have decided to pedal.

To start with, the Board took some time to determine what key questions the organization should think through, all under the guise of increasing the effectiveness and power of the bike movement. They were:

Geography: Evaluate the pros and cons of being an effective organization when covering such a large territory – San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, 35 cities and towns – and consider whether it might make sense to split the organization up in some way.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: To more intentionally incorporate equity, inclusion and justice into the organization’s mission and vision as outlined in the organization’s DEI plan.
Tech: To consider whether and how, given that WE ARE Silicon Valley and have access to tech, we should insert ourselves more deliberately into the development of technology in transportation.

Power of the Pedal People: And, (and this is what keeps me inspired to do this work), to elevate the importance of harnessing, developing and deploying the power of the collective action of regular normal people who like bikes. In a nutshell – how do we as an organization better and more intentionally assist all the people like you to get society to biketopia more quickly.

PROCESS

Before I go any further, I want to quickly touch on the process.

We hired a consultant, Stuart Cohen, who was the founder of one of the most powerful regional transportation, environment and equity organizations Bay Area wide, called Transform.

Once he was on board, the Board outlined a process that included gathering information on what this organization’s strengths, weaknesses and vision for the future should be. And to do that by coordinating one on one and group conversations with all sorts of folks who touch the world of transportation. That included:

The Board
The staff

The members and supporters (you)
Bike specific organizations in Silicon Valley
Bike and transportation organizations outside of Silicon Valley
City and public agency staff

As an example, you all likely recall that we had a biketevist forum where Stuart came and talked about the strategic plan and then we all broke up into zoom rooms to discuss several questions that related to the key questions outlined above. That was just one of many forums through which we were gathering information from lots of different people.

We took all that feedback, mooshed it together, and now we have a strategic plan.

PLAN STRUCTURE

The plan is broken down into the mission, vision, three strategies and then metrics. One thing that some of you may notice is that we have removed a numeric goal. It used to be 10% of trips by 2025. Now, our goal is simply to increase the number of people riding bikes. Why did we make this change?

The Board had a long conversation about the usefulness of a numeric goal and ultimately, the conclusion was that given severity of climate change, at this point, numbers are moot. We needed to have lots of folks riding bikes yesterday. Climate change is upon us and we have to pedal at full sprint to catch up. So, the number doesn’t matter much anymore. That said, tracking success is important which is why there is a very clear statement at the end of the plan about what metrics are important to collect.

MISSION STATEMENT

Our old mission statement reads: Our purpose is to create a healthy community, environment, and economy through bicycling for people who live, work, or play in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties.

The new one reads: To build healthier and more just communities by making bicycling safe and accessible for everyone

They are pretty similar so you’re probably wondering why we bothered to change it? Here’s some of the backstory:

DEI: The Board wanted to better incorporate our diversity, equity and inclusion work, which was one of the four focus questions. And so, you see the word “just” included. That was very deliberate. It speaks to the two fundamental values through which the organization now does its work as outlined in the diversity, equity and inclusion plan which are social justice and cultural humility.
Community: You’ll also notice in both, something that has not changed and that is to lead with the word “community.” We’re not doing this work for the bike alone. The bike is not the end goal. Better community is the end goal. It just so happens that the humble bicycle is an excellent tool to build more healthy and just communities.
Concise: We also wanted to shorten it, so mission accomplished there.
And the last thing to note is that these words and the combination of words were chosen very carefully. Y’all who have been a part of strategic planning processes probably know that wordsmithing abounds and at the end of the day, the Board was very very thoughtful about each and every word and how they got strung together in order to convey the mission of the organization.

Whew! Thanks for reading until the end on a topic that not everyone would find super interesting. You, the supporters of SVBC, you are the ones who make this organization what it is. You are what the strategic plan is about - harnessing the collective power and passion of all you pedalers so that we will achieve a more healthy and just community through the bicycle. Thank you for being a part of Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition and the bike movement.