We mobilize for better communities all year round, but May is prime time for bicycle advocates. During National Bike Month our calendars are booked solid and the spotlight of the media and general public are upon us. So how do we ensure our organization get the most out of a month with so many opportunities to bolster your visibility, reach out to new audiences and boost your membership?

Last week, we hosted a webinar on Maximizing Bike Month, featuring Liz Murphy from the League of American Bicyclists, Elizabeth Williams from EMPACT Communities, and Serena Lehman from Cascade Bicycle Club.

Note to Alliance members: The recording and extended tipsheet from this webinar are available in the Resource Library. Please log in to gain access to the Resource Library. Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  if you have questions on how to log in.

Liz Murphy
Director of Communications, League of American Bicyclists

The League has been the national sponsor of National Bike Month for decades, but, in 2014, the organization updated its National Bike Month Guide, to include the latest ideas and best practices from all different types of organizations around the country.

Ideas to get your community engaged: From family biking to Cyclofemme, Liz highlighted the League’s list of more than two dozen event and engagement ideas, based on what’s worked best for advocates at the state and local level. One recurring theme and promising practice? Partnerships. Liz emphasized the benefits of finding a community partner — whether it’s a major employer, neighborhood bike shop or local non-profit — in enhancing the reach, impact and success of your event or programming.

Find new audiences and activate supporters with social media: In 2014, the League found success with its #BikeToEverywhere campaign on Twitter and Facebook, building on the resonance of Bike to Work Day and inspiring folks to celebrate the many places to which they ride a bicycle. Not savvy on social? Don’t worry — it’s easier than you think. The League and the Alliance hosted a series of webinars on social media 101 to get you geared up. Read through our resources at bikeleague.org/socialmedia

Be ready for your moment in the media spotlight: Bike Month is the perfect hook for media — a national event with a local angle. Be prepared to highlight what’s going on in your community and perhaps how it relates to national trends. Make it easy for reporters by creating a factsheet about your organization and local efforts, and recruit community members to be ready to share their stories or (if they’re prepped and comfortable) talk to the media.

Make your efforts part of the larger movement: The League seeks to amplify efforts at the state and local level to showcase the collective power of bicycle advocacy nationwide. Share your story or your organization’s efforts by visiting www.bikeleague.org/bikemonth or getting in touch with Liz at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Get a wealth of additional details and information in the National Bike Month Guide.

Elizabeth Williams
Founder, EMPACT Long Beach, Cali Bike Tours, and Bike to Church Day (Long Beach)

For creative Bike Month ideas, don’t start with the bike: For Elizabeth Williams (pictured right, red t-shirt), new or innovative ideas don’t start with the bike. Instead, they start by thinking about the things that inspire people’s passions — local food from the farmers’ market, finding balance in a yoga class — and connecting cycling to that activity in a fun and effective way. That’s how Bike to Church Day started: Williams deciding to ride to worship on a gorgeous Sunday morning… and thinking to herself, what if other parishioners were inspired to do the same?

Why church?: “Church is a perfect place to do an event for Bike Month,” Williams said. “In many cases, churches have such a large, diverse group of people, all meeting on the same day. It’s an excellent forum to tap into to introduce more folks to biking.” The key? Finding a willing and enthusiastic pastor or church leader. As Williams found out quickly, even an interested church, like The Rock in Long Beach, had its Sunday events planned far in advance, so finding a Sunday slot wasn’t easy. So plan ahead and be patient: Church staff have a lot on their plates!

Be clear about what you can offer: Make sure you can articulate what value you’re providing for the congregation: bike safety training, educational materials, free schwag (giveaways are always a plus!), etc. The first year, Williams had little to offer but her expertise and love of bicycling, but the second year she secured funding to purchase a bike to give away. Both years were a success, though, because Williams was able to show a benefit to the church — rather than trying to recruit its members to benefit an outside effort.

Make participation easy: Williams was confident that a lot of the congregants probably had a bike — but realized many of those bikes had likely gathered dust in the back of a garage for years. So, in consultation with the church, she arranged for parishioners to get a 10% discount on tune-ups at a nearby bike shop, reducing the financial and logistical barriers to having a ride that was ready to roll on the day of the event.

Be a partner to the parishioners’ passions and strengths: For Williams, working with congregants at The Rock who already rode a bike was critical when she needed volunteers. And the church’s engagement on social media was a crucial asset in helping to promote the event in ways she couldn’t.

Don’t be dissuaded by differences: Making Bike to Church Day happen can be challenging. Often times there are barriers if you’re not a person of the same faith, race, gender or age as the dominant segment of the congregation. But, Williams emphasized, if you’re authentic and stick to your mission those initial hurdles can be overcome and a genuine partnership can be created.

The lesson of Bike to Church — partners are paramount: For larger organizations that are difficult to cultivate a relationship, look for the internal interest groups. “A couple of years ago I worked with an African American leadership group inside of Northrup Grumman [a major security firm],” Williams shared. She’s also worked with local organizations, like Latinos in Action. “There are also Meetup groups and singles groups — really any space that already has a following is a potential partner to target willing participants or at least get people curious,” she said.

Learn more about Elizabeth's work at www.empactlb.com

Serena Lehman
Membership and Outreach Director, Cascade Bicycle Club

Make Bike Month about more than commuting to work: Over the past several years, one of the major Bike Month campaigns from the Cascade Bicycle Club in Seattle has been its Commute Challenge, which has engaged more than 16,000 participants annually in logging their miles to and from work on a bike during the month of May. But this year, the organization is making a conscious effort to widen the circle by shifting the campaign to the Bike Month Challenge and opening it up for folks’ to log their miles to any destination, not just the office.

Cultivate engagement throughout the month: For Cascade, the Bike Month Challenge isn’t simply an online portal and digital community — it’s a powerful tool offline, as well. For instance, at the start of the month the group hosts a kick off and bicycle tune-ups to get folks ready for the Challenge and hosts weekly advocacy happy hours to get riders plugged into the organization’s work beyond the Bike Month efforts.

Don’t be afraid to ask: For years, advocacy organizations have been wary of making an ask of potential members too soon. Cascade was one of them. But the Challenge proved that fear unfounded. “We learned from our friends at BTA [Bicycle Transportation Alliance in Portland, OR] to ask first thing: ‘Will you join our organization,’” Lehman said. “As soon as people put in their name and get their username and password the next thing they get asked is ‘Please support this challenge.’ We created a number of different levels with different schwag, from t-shirts to light sets, but we were nervous that people would see that and be put off, since we had rarely ever included an ask from the get-go. But we’ve heard no complaints. In fact, we’ve got a lot of positive feedback — and started seeing the t-shirts everywhere!”

… and ask… and ask: “We didn’t just ask once,” Lehman said, “We asked again and again and again. After [Challenge participants] got that primary email, we asked again — and there’s always a button on the website saying, “Your support powers our Bike Month Challenge.” We keep asking — and no one is complaining yet.”

Mobilizing in-person and online: Cascade also put their efforts out on the streets, with staff at many of the dozens of energizer stations during Bike to Work Week festivities. Even if it’s the first contact with a rider, Cascade is ready with some fre schwag and (you guessed it!) an ask. “We’ve done a variety of different items to get people to join right then and there,” Lehman said. “With the addition of online push we’ve been fairly successful, raising $50,000 for the organization and gaining over 450 members.”

Keep the momentum beyond Bike Month: Once they get those new members or interested riders in the pipeline, Cascade makes sure they have plenty of options to become engaged with the organization. “Within the first few months, they get targeted emails from us that include information on programs they might be interested in,” Lehman said. “If someone joined on Bike to Work Day and they haven’t participated with us after three months, I’m going to send them an email saying, ‘Thank you for your participation in Bike to Work Day! We thought you might be interested in this Happy Hour to learn about our advocacy work in your neighborhood.’ We’ve seen that folks who participate at least three times in the first year are much more likely to renew than if they only have that one touch point with the organization. So, again, the follow-up is very important.”

Learn more about the Cascade Bicycle Club’s Bike Month Challenge at http://www.luum.com/challenges/88/bike-month-challenge

Note to Alliance members:The recording and extended tipsheet from this webinar are available in the Resource Library. Please log in to gain access to the Resource Library. Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  if you have questions on how to log in.