Bike East Bay – winner of Bicycling Magazine People’s Choice Award – is no stranger to winning campaigns. Just last year, Bike East Bay and San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, and Bikes on Board received a major win and convinced the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) System to allow bicycle access on trains. Bike East Bay also undertook a major campaign during the November 2012 election to win a local ballot measure – which required two-thirds of the vote to pass – to institute a penny sales tax to win $7.8 billion for transportation in Alameda County. That local ballot measure, unfortunately, fell 700 votes short from winning.

The entire group is pumped and ready to develop winning campaign plans. The training was facilitated by the Alliance’s Brighid O’Keane, Jackie Douglas from LivableStreets Alliance in Boston, MA; and Bike East Bay’s very own Renee Rivera.

The Winning Campaigns Training brought together a diverse group of attendees. Some were staff or board members from bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organizations, while others were volunteers or active community members learning about campaigns for the very first time. Despite the varying levels of experience, the entire group participated in lively discussion and laid the groundwork to develop a winning campaign.

Throughout the weekend, participants learned key campaign elements – everything from campaign issue definition to power mapping to how to build relationships with your elected officials to fundraising. At the end of the weekend, participants had put together a 24 impressive campaign plans that they could use on Monday morning.

Scenes from the Winning Campaigns Training in Oakland, Califronia. Top row: Participants work together to provide feedback. Bottom left: Participants eagerly wait for the Saturday afternoon bike ride to start. Bottom right: Champ from the Original Scraper Bikes and Natalie Burdick from Walk San Francisco practice their fundraising pitches.

Some of the campaign plans included winning a local ballot measure next November to include sustained funding for bicycling and walking; winning protected bike lanes along major corridors in Alameda County; providing safe and accessible bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure for senior citizens; removing pedestrian crash zones in a major downtown area.; and ensuring winter snow removal on bike paths in South Lake Tahoe.

Together, these plans and the others developed during the training will provide advocates the organization and head start to successfully win their campaigns and make the East Bay a more walkable and bikeable community for all.