3 Ways to Build a Stronger Pro-Transit/Bike Coalition
If you want to have good coalition partners, be a good coalition partner
If you want to win something big, working in coalition with other advocacy & interest groups is essential. When you or your group make an ask of a politician, the smaller and more niche you are, the easier you are to ignore. The less representative you are of the overall community, the easier it is for a politician to ignore you. A key way to be unignorably politically powerful is to show that it’s not just you who wants that thing. Do that by bulking up your number of direct supporters and by building a coalition of supporter groups.
Expanding your coalition shows it’s not just you and it expands the concept of who wants that thing. In other words, it’s easy for a politician to ignore bus riders asking for more bus service funding, because of course the “bus people” want that. But when they see churches, businesses and community groups also demanding more funding for buses; the politician sees that it’s not just “bus people” making the demand, but it’s everyone.
There is a lot that goes into building a winning coalition and working in coalition effectively and if you want help with that, email me at Carter@carterlavin to schedule a conversation. But for this piece I want to lay out a key element to successful coalition work: if you want to have good coalition partners, be a good coalition partner. It’s the larger version of the saying “if you want a friend, be a friend.” Here are three of the easiest ways to do that:
Come with compassion, openness, and humility- Over my years as a political organizer, the one thing that I see which unites pretty much everyone is that we all have full plates of stuff to do and things to worry about. Pretty much everyone is at capacity and if they had extra time or energy in their day, they likely would rather use it on “their stuff” than spend it on whatever “your thing” is. Try to weave that understanding into your outreach work as often as you can. Trying to get them to stop working on “their thing” to work on “your thing” by telling them “your thing” is more important is generally ineffective, and potentially insulting. “Their issue” is just as important to them as “your issue” is to you. Yes, your plate is full too with “your thing,” but try to expand your compassion to encompass “their thing” even if you don’t have the time or energy to take action on it. You don’t have to stop doing “your thing” and start working on “their thing,” but working in coalition becomes a lot easier when you extend your compassion to your potential partner’s thing too.
Help them with “their thing”- Sign their petition, go to their march or rally, take that action they are asking people to take. You can do it on behalf of your campaign (e.g. send their action alert to your supporter list), but you can also just do it on behalf of yourself. It’s the right thing to do, and it naturally creates new pathways to make a connection when you reach out to them afterwards. At the action itself, you might want to try and say a quick hello, but recognize that it’s their big day and they are extra busy so it’s not the time to try and pitch them on “your thing.” By supporting them with “their thing”, you help start to build what can potentially be a meaningful connection. To be clear, you might help someone with “their thing” and they still say no to helping you with “your thing” and that’s ok. They do not owe you anything and thinking that you taking action means they “owe” you is a corrosive idea. But helping them with “their thing” is good in its own right and creates more possibilities even if they don’t say “yes” back to you immediately.
Explicitly include “their thing” in “your thing”– “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” - Lilla Watson. As you expand your compassion and help them with “their thing” you can better see the truth– there is no “their thing” and “your thing”, whether we understand it or not and whether we like it or not– we are all in this together. And hey, if you’re a transportation engineer reading this, that might seem a bit too touchy-feely to be relevant to your work of trying to get a bus-only lane built so I’ll give you an example of what that looks like in practice. If you are trying to get a bus-only lane built and you want to get faith groups signed on in support of your project, then you need to be extremely clear with those groups and the overall community about how your bus-only lane will help those faith groups towards their goals. You can’t just say “this project will help churches” and expect a lot of churches to sign on. You have to make a clear case for the connection. For example, “this bus-only lane that goes from the north side of town and passes this church will make it easier for seniors who cannot comfortably drive anymore to reliably get to their church and continue engaging meaningfully in their community.” Your bus-only lane probably goes beyond just that church and provides broader value too, but it also contains that value so make it explicit in your outreach to the groups it will matter to.
All of this is one of the main reasons why I love doing and helping transportation advocates– our infrastructure work supports so many other people’s efforts to make the world a better place. Don’t shy away from that in your advocacy, embrace it and you will win bigger and faster changes.
Want help building out a coalition to win the change you’re looking for? Let’s chat– email me at Carter@carterlavin to schedule a conversation.
Example of a coalition of supporters who signed on to a letter advocating for more funding to anti-traffic violence measures in Oakland, CA
Free upcoming online events!
7/19 @ 5:30pm PT— Transit & Bike Activism Training: how to win bigger by bridging the local and state-wide organizing gap. Learn more and register here. Sponsored by Cleverhood! Learn more about how Cleverhood's stylish and effective rain capes can keep you dry while you ride at Cleverhood.com.
7/26 @ 5:30pm PT— Join your fellow transportation advocates at the July Open Discussion Zoom Happy Hour! This month’s topic: "Translating Bike Joy into Bike Political Power." Come share your thoughts and learn from allies. Register here.
7/27 @ 5:30pm PT— Free Bike Activism Training: “A beginner's guide to getting a protected bike lane in your community.” Learn more and register here.
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Recent interviews to check out!
"How To Train an Army of Sustainable Transportation Advocates”- The Brake: A Streetsblog Podcast
“Training Active Mobility Activists”- Active Towns Podcast