Despite the diversity of participants and spectrum of organizations, one thing became clear at the Alliance’s 2014 Leadership Retreat: The bike/walk advocacy has reached a watershed moment.

We are a professionalized movement — but still retain a unique passion to reimagine systems to provide safe, equitable mobility choices for all. We are rich with long-tenured experienced advocates — but also eager to welcome new and different perspectives into our ranks as colleagues and partners. We are energized by our past and continuing successes — but we’re ready to blaze new trails and expand our impact by moving in new directions.

To that end, the Alliance committed to a new project: The State of the Movement. Using a variety of data sources, including a targeted survey to our more than 200 member organizations this summer, the Alliance took a deep dive into the metrics and trends that propel our movement.

Since 2007, the Alliance has compiled a biennial Benchmarking Report to provide sophisticated analysis and credible data on biking and walking in all 50 states and a number of key cities. But mode share and crash rates aren’t the only statistics that matter in our work. The Alliance is equally invested in the advocacy that drives those outcomes: The benchmarks of the People Powered Movement itself.

To take meaningful, accountable steps forward, we have to know where we stand today.

Thanks to the participation and sharing of information from our member organizations, The State of the Movement report helps us understand who we are, what our key priorities are, where our efforts are focused and how we are working to advance biking and walking in our communities. And by identifying these initial benchmarks we aim to set an informed stage for a much larger and nuanced discussion about shared challenges, emerging trends and our best collective course forward.

We’re not alone in this endeavor. Inspired by our nation’s shifting demographics, population trends and political dynamics, many social movements and nonprofit sectors are taking stock of their current structures and programming to ensure that they are prepared to meet and serve the future. Just one example comes from the environmental movement — the native ground of the biking and walking movement — where Green 2.0: The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations provided the foundation for deeply productive conversations, partnerships and funding streams to address equity and inclusion.

Make no mistake: The State of the Movement data isn't perfect. And this report isn't a prescription — or indictment — of where we stand or where we're going. The State of the Movement is a starting point for a deeper conversation — and we need your voice.

Stay tuned to the Alliance blog and follow us on Twitter (@BikeWalk) for much for discussion over the coming weeks and months. And join us in integrating these findings into new goals and benchmarks for the movement — and Alliance programming, like the 2016 Leadership Retreat.