The Advocacy Leadership Institute: Empowering Advocates for Bikeable Communities--Connect Seattle

Cascade Activist Engagement

Common Challenges for Organizers

● Limited Time & Resources

● Building teams for bigger, less immediate

goals.

● Success on near-term goals.

● Meeting people where they’re at in terms of

time & experience.

● Sustainability

Definition of a Campaign

A campaign is a strategic effort to achieve a

specific, date-certain outcome. Every

campaign includes a strategy that involves

targeting, a theory to win, tactics, timing, and

messaging based on available resources and

powermapping.

Building Winning Campaigns

Recruit Develop Mobilize Celebrate

The Arc of a Campaign

Foundation

Tactics Kickoff Decision

Build Capacity

Resolution

Celebrate Expend

Resources

Programs:

A cycle of

campaigns

Seattle

Lay of the land

Macro Timeline

Annual - City Budgets

2013/14 - Bicycle Master Plan Update

2014 - Vote on City Parks Levy

2015 - Vote on Renewal of Transportation Levy

& Seattle District Elections

2016 - Vote on Expansion of Regional Light

Rail

2014

2015

2016

Major Neighborhood Bikeway Projects

Ballard ● Missing Link

● Ballard Bridge

Portage Bay ● SR520 Bridge Replacement

● Neighborhood Greenways

Northgate ● Northgate Bike-Ped Bridge

Westlake ● Westlake Protected Bike Lane

Downtown ● Second Avenue Protected Bike Lane

Demonstration Project

● Center City Protected Bike Lane

Network

Rainier Valley ● North-South Spine Neighborhood

Greenway

● Rainier Avenue Protected Bike Lane

Messaging Research

78% of Seattleites have a favorable view of bicyclists.

74% bike frequently or would like to do so more often.

Messaging Research: Polling

78% of Seattleites have a favorable view of bicyclists.

74% bike frequently or would like to do so more often.

Messaging Research: Hero’s Narrative

Vision

Conflict/Villain/Weapon

Elixir

Urgency

Long-Term Solution

Near-Term Local Project

Action


Vision: Imagine a Seattle where all

neighborhoods are connected by safe,

comfortable bikeways for everybody to ride,

whether you’re an eight-year-old kid or an

eighty-year-old grandma.


Conflict/Villain/Weapon: Unfortunately, we

know that’s not true today; it’s not safe

enough for most families to ride. Long-ago

special interests pushed for a roads-only

approach by rigging the transportation

system with traffic laws, road design, and

funding mechanisms that favored cars to the

exclusion of pedestrians and bicyclists.


Elixir: But we’ve seen time and time again how

caring neighbors can work together to

overcome the biggest obstacles -- from the

fights that ended freeway expansion in Seattle

to building the 2nd Avenue Protected Bike Lane

in downtown Seattle just yesterday.


Urgency: The moment couldn’t be any more

urgent. Sher Kung could’ve died on just about

any street in Seattle. In fact, the crash data

shows that Roosevelt Avenue and Pine Street

are just as dangerous as Second Avenue was.


Long-Term Solution: That’s why we’re working to secure

enough funding to implement the newly adopted Bicycle

Master Plan. We want to make sure we build more than

200 miles of protected bike lanes and neighborhood

greenways in the next decade, and to get there we’ll need

to secure $30 million a year -- up from $10 million a year

today. That’ll require pushing the Seattle City Council to

reallocate the budget, but also a much bigger renewal of

our city’s ongoing transportation levy next year in 2015.

And it’ll require electing city councilmembers who support

our goals.


Near-Term Local Project: But right now in the

next 12 months, right here in the Rainier Valley,

we have the opportunity to get SDOT to design

and build a complete north-south neighborhood

greenway connecting Franklin High School to

Rainier Beach High School. That’s pretty

amazing.


Action/Ask: That’s why we need you to do X.

Connect Seattle

● Citywide Steering

Committee(neighborhood team leaders)

● Neighborhood Teams ○ Cascade

○ Seattle Neighborhood Greenways

○ Friends of Burke-Gilman Trail

● Cascade’s Project Action Teams

Five Neighborhood Teams

Connect Seattle

● Connect Ballard

● Connect Portage Bay

● Connect Westlake

● Connect Downtown

● Connect Rainier Valley

600+ total team members

Neighborhood Teams

Each is unique:

● An independent team with independent leader

● A team led by Cascade staff

● A coalition of organizations

● Value-added tactics for shared goals with existing

organizations.

Building Winning Campaigns

Recruit Develop Mobilize Celebrate

● One-on-one meetings, activist to activist,

using Cascade’s Salsa algorithm of best

activists, into neighborhood teams.

● Bike Happy Hours

● ALI Graduates

● Cascade Ambassadors

● Online Action Alerts

Recruit

● Advocacy Leadership Institute o Three month-long program

o Quarterly mini ALIs in Seattle

o Mini ALIs outside Seattle

● One-on-one consultation with Cascade staff

● Advocacy Manual

● Hands-on experience

Develop

● Campaign Plans & Tactics o Planned by Cascade & Teams

o Executed by Teams

● Policy Rides

Mobilize

● Bike Happy Hours

● Annual Volunteer Party

● Swag o Leader & All-Star Activist T-shirts

o Callouts at Bike Happy Hours

● Feature o Braking News

o The Courier

Celebrate

Leadership Ladder for Connect Seattle Cascade Staff

Neighborhood Team Leaders - People who run the meetings and help set the direction of the

neighborhood team.

Captains - People who coordinate tactics.

Active Team Members - People who actively participate & volunteer

Team Members (Followers) - People who are on a team listserv or Facebook group.

Teams’ Campaign Work

Email Recruitment

Monthly team meetups

Monthly leadership meetings

Campaign Plans

Coalition coordination

Tactics

● Postcarding

● Ambassadors

● Event turnout - phonebanking & canvassing

● Video

● Bike Parking Applications

● Bike Blitzes

● Email Recruitment

Tools

SalsaLabs

● Email Blast List Management

● Activist Scores

● Listservs

Google Docs

Google Groups

● Leadership Team Listservs

Facebook Group

Meetup Group

VAN -> #NextNGPVAN

Phonebank Tools

Continuing Challenges

● Management.

● Moving people up the leadership ladder.

● Building more teams.

● Coordinating with partners.

● Expanding to the rest of the region -- Connect Puget Sound.

Questions?

The Advocacy Leadership Institute: Empowering Advocates for Bikeable Communities--Connect Seattle

Documents

Transcript of The Advocacy Leadership Institute: Empowering Advocates for Bikeable Communities--Connect Seattle