Strategic Plan
2023 – 2024
Vision
By June 2025, San Francisco will have committed to a citywide, interconnected network of car-free and people-prioritized mobility corridors that are safe and universally accessible, while accounting for the needs and desires of existing communities that face disadvantages. Significant portions of that network will have been implemented on major thoroughfares. To achieve this vision, the number and diversity of people actively participating in this mobility movement will grow, and will look to the SF Bicycle Coalition as the nexus of the movement in San Francisco.
Why a dedicated people-first network
A city-wide, interconnected network for biking has long been a motivating dream of SFBike, and it’s become obvious that, to significantly increase the number of people using active mobility, that network must be either car-free or people-prioritized. We have a unique opportunity at this moment because the successes of Slow Streets, the JFK Promenade, Shelley Drive, and other dedicated spaces for human-scale mobility have built momentum towards the Biking & Rolling Plan (formerly known as the Active Communities Plan), the city’s updated plan for active transportation. We must harness this momentum to pass a visionary Biking & Rolling Plan — grounded in equity and community responsiveness, supportive of revitalizing SF, providing access to amenities, and safe and welcoming to all. And we must demand rapid, ambitious implementation whose place is on our streets, not on a shelf.
What we are trying to change
We have articulated these problem statements to be crystal clear about the problems we are solving so that our solutions and our work to implement them can be focused where we will have the most impact in achieving our vision.
Many people — especially Black and brown people, women and people along the gender spectrum, people with disabilities, and low-income people — don’t choose to bike or use mobility options because of multiple barriers:
- They don’t have convenient access
- They don’t feel safe
- They don’t feel like they belong in mobility spaces
The City of SF has a history of articulating plans and values for greater access to people-scaled transportation solutions and then executing them slowly, partially, or not at all. Political obstruction is presently a greater source of the problem than agency prioritization.
Our approach
In our work, we’ll focus on:
- Mode-inclusiveness. People who use any human-scaled mobility — anything that belongs in the bike lane — are welcome in our movement.
- Equity for everyone’s sake. Centering historically marginalized people is both equitable AND serves the interests of the existing SFBike base. More of everyone biking means everyone is safer; exclusion of certain people makes everyone less safe.
- Visibility. Our work will be visible and communicated clearly and often, shaping the narrative and public discourse.
- Civic optimism. The change we seek will improve the city for everyone, whether they use active transportation or not — it is a civic good. All mobility spaces should feel accessible, convenient, friendly, fun, welcoming, and hopeful. These attributes should permeate mobility lanes and activist spaces (real or virtual) alike.
Priority 1: Provide an Engagement Ladder
Our programmatic, membership, advocacy, and communications work are each integral parts of how we build a movement and make change on our streets:
- Increasing access to bicycling, by providing materials and education through our programs, builds our base.
- Building community and connection through our membership cultivation and services builds buy-in and identification with our movement.
- Increasing safety and belonging by leveraging our members in advocacy campaigns creates equitable change on our streets; these campaigns elect and hold accountable supportive officials and influence city processes and decisions
- Providing salient, actionable, and resonant communications maintains a distinct connective throughline with the movement even when we’re not face to face.
To achieve our vision, we must provide meaningful involvement of members at each stage of this ladder and encourage people to move to the next rung along it.
Priority 2: Inspire Financial Commitment
While membership isn’t our primary revenue driver, it is an initial commitment that people make to identify with and support our movement. Once they make that commitment, our members need to feel inspired and motivated to deepen that commitment by giving in larger amounts, as their financial capacity allows. To sustain our work, we need to meaningfully grow our membership and, by deepening engagement with our members, convert those who can afford greater financial support into donors.
Priority 3: Build a True Coalition
Lasting, citywide change towards more people accessing and choosing to use sustainable, human-scaled transportation must reflect the needs of all communities. Change is accelerated by acting together instead of separately. We need to do better in representing and showing up for historically marginalized communities and continually work to dismantle structural inequity in everything we do. As a result, we will earn a new reputation with historically marginalized communities for centering their needs, and amplify a greater number of more diverse voices. To do this, we will actively strengthen and increase our partnerships with community-based organizations (CBOs), better communicate SFBike’s work, and highlight the diversity of our membership.
Organizational Objectives
To build our base, we will increase access to active transportation through our programs and use them to increase awareness of our work and ultimately to grow our membership.
Key results include:
- Increase the number of public classes and activities offered by our programs by 50%
- Increase attendance at public classes and program activities by 50%
- Give away 70 bikes per quarter (280 per year)
To instill buy-in and identification with our movement, we will provide excellent constituent services and meaningful community-building activities.
Key results include:
- Hold 8 member events per year and “sell out” event capacity
- Relaunch a quarterly print newsletter to inform members of our work, distributed 4 times per year
- Increase click-through rates on our calls to action (CTAs) in digital communications by 30%
To create ambitious change in the city, we will leverage activated members to amplify our work and achieve change.
Key results include:
- Articulate an ACP platform, drawing on member and CBO partner priorities, and get it passed by the City of San Francisco
- Identify and maintain 5 signature street campaigns at any one time for SFBike to lead and win, with clear goals and parameters for success
- Elect bicycle and sustainable transportation champions in key SF races
To achieve a movement that offers meaningful, equitable benefits across SF’s many communities, we will develop partnerships with CBOs that center and highlight the needs of historically marginalized communities.
Key results include:
- Develop and/or maintain 6 partnerships each year with CBOs in Equity Priority Communities
- Work with partners to identify 2 advocacy-driven sustainable transportation projects in Equity Priority Communities to work towards
To foster understanding across our movement that centering equity benefits everyone, we will advocate for a broad, diverse coalition.
Key results include:
- Increase the narrative/storytelling market share of our longer-form content (emails, web and print) to one third of total content output
To demonstrate the importance of human-scaled mobility for a reinvigorated and vibrant city, we will build and strengthen connections with and between advocacy groups, businesses, and civic and neighborhood groups.
Key results include:
- Partner with 8 or more businesses annually to co-organize rides or events
- Reinvigorate the discount partner program and increase the number of discount partners by 10%
- Communicate quarterly about local businesses in our member discount program, highlighting member discounts
Donate
Be a champion for everyone who bikes, or wants to bike, in San Francisco. Support our work today and help grow our movement.