One Street News

June 2010

Vol. 3, Issue 5

1. African Connections
2. Social Bike Business Happenings
3. Resources Highlights – UWABA’s Enticing Model
4. Hot Topics – Surrendering the Spotlight 

African Connections

In December last year, we received an email from Uganda asking for our help. As an international organization that serves local leaders around the world, this was not unusual. We often get quick emails from organizations that seem to hope we’ll just send them a check. But One Street doesn’t work that way. Instead we provide leaders of bicycle advocacy organizations with the tools they need to build long-lasting relationships with their own funders and partners—fishing lessons rather than fish.  

Something about this email from Uganda was different. They were asking for advice on starting their organization—Ride 4 a Woman. And when they responded emphatically to our email with basic organization development advice, we knew we had connected with a group destined to succeed.

But Ride 4 a Woman (R4W) has not chosen an easy path. Their primary objectives are to empower women in the area surrounding Bwindi National Park. These women work long hours and have no access to childcare or job training that could help them find better jobs. So one of the first tasks for R4W is to build a community center where the women can find all of this as well as connect to learn from each other. They plan to raise much of the necessary funding by renting bicycles to tourists. 

And that’s where One Street’s Social Bike Business program came into play. R4W leaders have now added three bicycle repair stations to their community center design plans which will serve not only for maintaining and repairing their rental fleet, but as the bicycle job training stations for the women at the center. We look forward to offering them our job training curriculum once they are ready.

In the meantime, we have been seeking potential partners in their area who can offer bicycle mechanic trainers, bicycle repair manuals and bicycles for the women. We also hope to help them find more long term funders. At the Velo-city conference in Copenhagen at the end of June, One Street’s executive director, Sue Knaup, connected with several leaders of African bicycle advocacy organization. All of these leaders were enthusiastic about helping R4W succeed. We send our thanks to them and our partners at the European Cyclists’ Federation for expanding Velo-city into a global conference that attracted these important African leaders.  

The R4W team broke ground for their community center just a few weeks ago. Find photos of their hard work here. It’s happening and there’s no time to waste! If you would like to send a donation or, if you plan to be over there, rent one of their bikes, make sure to contact them at ride4awoman{at}gmail.com. You can also find their mailing address and phone number in the R4W brochure frontside & brochure backside . 

Social Bike Business Happenings

Of course, the addition of Ride 4 a Woman in Uganda to our Social Bike Business local partners is very exciting. But we are also enjoying big new steps in other realms for the program. Our partners in Budapest are building their ground team, adding district officials and community leaders who are ready to offer buildings and job training support for the program. In Prague, our local team is making important adjustments to their program plan that will help them seek funding to establish their center.  

Back at the home base, we are looking forward to welcoming Michael Dummeyer, our VISTA member who will soon start working for the program full-time for a full year out of our Prescott, Arizona office. Michael’s tasks include:

• working with current and prospective local Social Bike Business partners to create a web-based manual for launching a Social Bike Business program;
• fully developing our seven-module Social Bike Business job training curriculum;
• helping us raise funds for the program.

Look for updates on these and other exciting next steps for the program in upcoming newsletters and on our Social Bike Business web page.  

Resources Highlights – UWABA’s Enticing Model

During our recent outreach to local African bicycle advocacy organizations, we discovered an impressive model. UWABA’s talent for promoting their work and, most importantly, the fun they are having bringing together everyday cyclists to advocate for better conditions in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, shines throughout their website: http://www.uwaba.or.tz/index-en.htm . Set aside a few minutes to enjoy it. This is not a high-tech website, which actually adds to its effectiveness. We’re sure you will get pulled into their story, smiling and cheering for their work just as we have. Consider why this is and what changes you can make to your own website to ensure you engage visitors so they will cheer for and support your work.  

Hot Topics – Surrendering the Spotlight

At One Street we spend a lot of time coaching timid leaders of organizations to proudly step into the spotlight and boast about their organization’s accomplishments. Until an organization’s leaders start spending significant time on communicating their successes they will not stand a chance of receiving significant funding for their efforts. Major donors, grantmakers and government funders require that the organizations they fund show exactly how their funds helped solve particular problems. 

And yet, all too often we have seen the damage that the other extreme can cause. When an organization settles into the spotlight and will not allow credit to go to other organizations who are actually doing the difficult work on the ground, this can undermine the work and reputation of all organizations involved in the project or campaign. We most often see this dynamic with national and international organizations, but local organizations are also prone to it. We know the leaders of these organizations rarely intend to do harm to the local organizations they rely on, even if that is the result. Unfortunately, these leaders are often reacting to an unrelenting pressure from their own funders to prove their worth. These funders will not accept vague reports about assisting local organizations. They need numbers and those numbers must be attributed to the organization they fund.

How many times have you winced at similar reports? “Yeah right,” you might have said out load to photos of local relief workers with captions boasting of a national organization’s accomplishments. You dismiss the national organization as a fraud and miss out on learning about those local leaders in the photo. Both organizations lose. 

Avoid drifting onto this harmful path by starting with your funders. Let them know you work with local partners and give these partners credit for the work they do. If a funder doesn’t understand this, walk away. The immediate funding may be enticing, but the long term damage to your organization’s reputation and your relationship with your partners is simply not worth it. Keep in mind the ultimate goal of increasing bicycling, even if that means another organization gets to enjoy the spotlight instead of yours for the time being.