Advancing equity, diversity and inclusion in biking and walking has become a stated goal of a number of Alliance organizations. In our State of the Movement report, we asked our members who they're partnering with most frequently right now — and were somewhat surprised by the results. Who's missing from this list and how can we start to authentically bridge critical gaps in our work by partnering more closely with community groups?
In this post we examine the results of our survey, best practices in community partnerships and an example of that collaboration in action.
Current partnerships
According to our State of the Movement survey, local departments of transportation (DOT) are by far the most common partner for member organizations, with 75% of organizations interacting with them on a daily or frequent basis. Public health groups, bike shops/outdoor retail and state transportation departments came next. Our research found that the least present are relationships with law enforcement, social justice/equity groups and faith-based organizations, the latter of which 86% of members reported working with only occasionally or not at all.
Looking closer, large organizations collaborated with educational institutions far more than their smaller counterparts. Almost half of the Alliance’s large member organizations listed them as their most consistent partner. Small and volunteer organizations more closely reflected the overall trend of collaborating with local DOTs, bike shops, public health groups and state DOTs.
What's missing? Perhaps it was the wording or structure of the survey, but we were suprised to see that community-based organizations weren't higher up on the list. Cultivating those partnerships was a key aspect of our 2015 National Training — Organizing, Leadership and Digital Strategies for a Stronger Movement.
Community Partnerships
As our trainer, Hemly Ordonez, Vice President of Digital Strategy & Mobilization for Fission Strategy, pointed out, true partnerships with diverse communities make our organizations more sustainable and effective. Not to mention, when we’re advocating for public policy and street-level changes, “communities have the RIGHT to be involved.”
As Ordonez explained, “community partnership allows target communities and your organization to work in full partnership envisioning, developing, implementing, and evaluating programs.”
- It integrates the target communities’ realistic perspectives and experiences with your organization’s perspective.
- It offers each party the opportunity to suggest and make decisions.
- And it recognizes and values the contributions of each.
Click here to read the Four Levels of Community Partnership and 10 Tips for Moving up the Ladder.
Community partnership in action
When Oregon advocates mobilized to bring Vision Zero to Portland they took a proactive approach to cultivating new partnerships — and integrating those partners’ insight into the central tenets of the campaign to eliminate all traffic fatalities on their collective streets.
Over the course of two years, 10 of 13 pedestrian fatalities happened in East Portland neighborhoods — where high-crash corridors that often lack basic infrastructure like sidewalks run through areas with the highest density of low-income communities, communities of color, older adults and kids.
"We had heard of Vision Zero as a growing movement in the U.S. and we knew our new Bureau of Transportation director had expressed interest,” says Noel Mickelberry, Executive Director of Oregon Walks. “But, we also knew we needed to reach out to community partners in these areas and to groups that were seeing the disproportionate impact and make sure these communities saw [Vision Zero] as a priority, too. Through that process we reached out to and had 25 different organizations sign on in support of bringing Vision Zero to Portland.”
"Six months later, we partnered with the Bicycle Transportation Alliance to dig into where and who and how crashes were happening, so we could develop recommendations that would fit the needs of the city and our partners. Following the research, we reached out to each of the community groups to help develop our recommendations, to collaborate to ensure that the community priorities they saw were reflected in this report."
"Some groups were extremely supportive but had concerns about how their communities see disproportionate [police] enforcement and targeting and wanted to make sure those kinds of issues were addressed in the recommendations. Because of that, some of the issues were different than what a lot of people might expect looking at a transportation-related report. We called for assurances against racial profiling and for communities of color and community leaders to help create those policies when it comes to Vision Zero enforcement."
"We also called for supporting legislation that allows for the issue of Driver Cards to Oregon residents who pass the test, because, at the same time we were calling for increased education for drivers, we have a huge portion of our immigrant community that's unable to get a driver's license and is left out of conversation."
"We made sure that the report built goals around what we were hearing at that table from our partners."
