Social Bike Business at Velo-city

The Velo-city conference is fast approaching in early June so I’ve been busy arranging meetups and preparing my offerings. I’ll be presenting on One Street’s Social Bike Business program during the Friday parallel sessions. A nice surprise is that I am not the only presenter on bicycles and social issues. That Friday morning, One Street board member Amanda Ngabirano will speak during the plenary session on bicycles in sustainable development. During the Friday session that follows, I’ll be joined by another One Street board member, Michael Linke, as well as other leaders of social bike programs in our session called Pedaling Towards Social Change.

You can see the conference schedule here. At least on Friday, I look forward to connecting with many like-minded bike program leaders. On other days, I also see several speakers from developing countries. This gives me hope that this Velo-city will have more emphasis on serving the bicycling needs of disadvantaged people than I have seen at previous Velo-city conferences.

One unexpected and fun encounter at the conference, which I have already enjoyed, is that my Airbnb host in Nantes is Mirella at Chronovelo, a local cargo bike delivery service. That’s her in the photo. She and her company are working at the conference to haul around conference necessities. Pretty cool, eh?

One month and I’ll be on my way to Nantes! Oui, Oui!

Training Bicycle Welders

Perhaps the most popular topic in our book Defying Poverty with Bicycles is setting up a welding shop for manufacturing new bikes. Nearly every leader of a social bike business program who I have spoken with asks about the steps needed for them to set up their own welding shop. Our recommendation to use tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding, the most precise and most expensive welding system, does not bother them. They understand the benefits of using only quality steel. Writing up a budget for welding machines, jigs, and other tools seems easy enough and donors love to contribute to hard costs like this. But for some reason, the concept of a rolling training program sounds too complicated to tackle.

So, I thought it might be time to post this excerpt from the book that describes how to start trainees slowly, allow for some to move on, and focus on your star trainees to become your eventual master welders of your bikes:

“Your clients who sign up for your manufacturing training module are going to be a unique bunch. These are the craftsmen and craftswomen who already love to make things. Some will be easy to spot with handcrafted add-ons to their bikes or you might hear them talk with pride about a clever way they repaired a friend’s refrigerator by fabricating a new part out of junk. These may be your future manufacturing specialists. Don’t let them leave your center without telling them about your next social bike manufacturing course.

As I mentioned in Chapter 8, this course must be hands on. You will include some classroom time to discuss social bike design concepts, the principles of your program, welding concepts and safety, metal preparation prior to welding, and metallurgy, but the training will not begin until they actually strike a spark with a welding torch.

All novice welders have to run a lot of welds before their hand, eye and foot coordination settles into a groove. Find a source for new, inexpensive flat steel, cut it into small sections and have your students run weld after weld until they can consistently create perfect welds. If you are not a master welder, you’ll have to hire one in the beginning at least for weld inspections. As your training course progresses, your master frame welders can fill this role.

As you can imagine, handling a class of five or ten manufacturing students in this section of the course will be tough. You will need multiple welding machines and stations, or will have to stagger their practice sessions so only a few practice at once. If this is possible, great. Keep them at your center so you or your trainers can supervise their training. Another option is to partner with a local vocational school or community college that offers a welding course. Even if this school does not offer TIG welding or requires students to start with oxyacetylene or stick welding, this practice will transfer to TIG. But they should skip MIG. MIG welding is all about setting up the machine and does not require the skill and coordination of TIG.

Once your students can run perfect welds with TIG on flat steel, have them begin practicing on pipe steel. If your local vocational school offers a pipe welding course, definitely include it in your partnership. Bicycle frame welding is pipe welding and pipe welding requires additional skill to keep the proper torch and filler metal angles that result in perfect welds around the entire pipe.

Once your students have mastered pipe welding, they are ready to start melting some steel for your program. Have them start by welding the racks for your social bikes. Many of the social bikes designed by our local partners include integrated front and rear racks. These racks must first be fabricated out of small tube steel before they are welded to the bikes. You can also design some of these racks to be sold separately for customer bikes or added to bikes you refurbish. You can purchase this rack steel in long sections at a bulk cost so if a student makes a mistake, there will be minimal loss. The sales of these student-built racks will help cover the costs of the training.

Some students won’t get this far in the course. Others will graduate and get hired at your center, but won’t move past the apprentice welder level of welding your racks before they move on to something else. Only the most passionate and talented students you hire will be fit for promotion to the next, master welding level where they actually weld your social bike frames and forks.”

By envisioning such a rolling training program, it’s much easier to see how you will find your master welders. The other trainees who don’t make it that far will also benefit and may even find a lower-lever welding job outside of your program because of your training.

Have you struggled finding or training welders for your program? Are you eager to start manufacturing bicycles, but intimidated by having to set up such a training program? Please offer your experiences in the comments section.

Sue

Havana Bikes

Imagine a place with a thriving bike culture that has no access to new bikes or parts. Now imagine you are a bicycle mechanic in such a place. How would you fix the most simple brake problem without parts? How would you repair a worn out chain? This is how bicycle mechanics must work in Havana, Cuba.

In this video from last year you will see the innovative spirit of Havana’s bicycle mechanics as they struggle to keep the finite number of bicycles in their city rolling. Look closely at their clever methods and keep an eye out for some lovely old tools; especially a cast-iron truing stand.

I could watch this video over and over again imagining what these mechanics would do if they could connect with us and create their own Social Bike Business program complete with enough profits to buy new parts and even manufacture their own bikes to sell out of real storefronts. Their programs could build around the courageous beauty of the skills they’ve developed in these isolated times. Maybe this will be possible soon as restrictions are slowly lifted.

If anyone knows a bicycle mechanic living in Havana, or even one of the city’s lucky few who own a bike, please find a way to get them a copy of Defying Poverty with Bicycles. At least with that book, they could begin building on their skills to help many more people ride bikes in their city.

Sue

Achieving Mobility and Dignity for Bicyclists

When Enrique Penalosa was mayor of Bogota, Columbia, he transformed his city into a place that prioritized mobility for bicyclists and pedestrians. By spending transportation funding first on buses, sidewalks, and bikeways, he proudly proclaims Bogota made a person on a $30 bicycle equal to a person in a $30,000 car. They brought dignity to people who have no choice but to ride a bicycle.

In this TED talk, Mr. Penalosa demonstrates that by prioritizing vulnerable travelers, cities become better places for everyone, even car drivers. 

Social bike business programs cannot exist in a vacuum. Even if you can lay claim to all the best practices outlined in Defying Poverty with Bicycles, you are still dependent on your surroundings. You may have an extraordinary team leading your nonprofit. You might have lots of eager donors providing bicycles, funding, even a building. But if the people who come to your program for a bike or a career cannot walk or bicycle to and from your place, you’re facing a serious obstacle to the long-term success of your bicycle program.

I know it’s a lot easier to focus on the daily urgencies that come to your program. Find a seat post that fits this bike. Fix this flat tire. Show this new trainee how to remove a rear derailleur.

Still, by carving out just a few days each month to sit down with your city officials or coordinate your efforts with your local bicycle advocacy organization, you will be investing in the future success of your programs. City officials must hear from experts like you who understand the need to provide for people who ride bikes or walk to their destinations. They likely won’t be excited about pushing bicycle improvements, as Mr. Penalosa notes in the video. He was threatened with impeachment for making bicycle and pedestrian improvements! So you and your team of advocates will have to show your decision makers that you will be there for them throughout the effort.

Your investment of time in improving your city will pay off over time. Start with a reasonable request that will not only improve access for bicyclists, but will be a likely winner with your officials. Read more about planning a successful campaign on our Campaign Planning page.

The most important step, though, is to start now. Find out who is already working for better bicycling in your city and join them in their efforts. If no one else is doing this important work, find at least a few days each month to keep the topic front and center at your city hall.

Let me know if you need help with any bicycle program or campaign efforts. That’s what One Street is here for!

Sue

After Ferguson: Who Owns the Streets?

The killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in November stirred up many hot topics about how we live together on this planet. This sudden, horrific event on a small street in middle America raised questions about our civilization and humanity, how little we have advanced as a species.

One of these questions hits directly on One Street’s purpose by questioning why the encounter even happened. The police officer believed that Michael and his friends should not be walking in the middle of the road. For a police officer to assume that such a basic human right as walking in the public right-of-way is illegal strikes at an injustice that affects all of us. Those of us not driving an expensive motor vehicle have been shoved aside. Our public rights-of-way have been taken from us.

If this bothers you, you will enjoy this article.

Why to Avoid a Triple Bottom Line for Bike Programs

I’m fairly well fed up with the concept of the triple bottom line. The idea goes that a company or social enterprise can do a good job of ensuring all three of these at once: profits, environmental stewardship, and social good. Bull. As long as profits are in that bottom line, someone will always fudge the other two.

Here’s an excerpt from Defying Poverty with Bicycles that explains a bit why we do not recommend using this concept for Social Bike Business programs:

“As the terms social enterprise and social business have gained popularity, so has the abuse of these terms. Major corporations have been under greater scrutiny lately and often attempt to hide behind these terms to present an altruistic image. Just as many corporations have employed “green washing” to create an illusion of environmental stewardship as they continue to devour natural resources, some are learning to use “social washing” to combat claims against the social harm they are causing worldwide. So, as you do further research on these concepts, keep a wary eye out for false models. As long as a company or corporation prioritizes a monetary bottom line, social needs will always fall by the wayside.

This explains why One Street does not use the term “triple bottom line” i.e., monetary-environmental-social. We have found that many companies and corporations that tout a triple bottom line fall short of carrying it through. The monetary bottom line often overrides the other two as companies under pressure to make the most profit seek out the most desperate, impoverished people to make their products, force them to work long hours and pay them the very least they will accept, thus heightening their poverty. The pressure to meet the monetary bottom line also tempts outsourcing to new, more desperate countries leaving a wake of laid-off employees behind. On the environmental side, practices that truly protect the environment, such as replanting trees and reclaiming waste are always more expensive than environmentally destructive practices. With a monetary bottom line included, many companies can only give lip service to the other two.

Instead, One Street’s Social Bike Business model focuses on the social bottom line: the number of disadvantaged people served by the program. By following proven and successful businesses practices to increase the number of disadvantaged people served, the monetary and environmental bottom lines become unavoidable. In order to serve as many disadvantaged people as possible, the business must have strong and reliable profits. And because harming the environment harms people, this would subtract from the number of disadvantaged people served, so environmental stewardship becomes mandatory to achieve the bottom line.”

Could you envision running a bicycle program with a single, social bottom line?

Sue

Can Impact Investing Benefit Bicycle Programs?

I’ve spent the last few days studying up on the latest in the impact investing world to see if there are any new opportunities for One Street and our partners. Let’s just say, I’m glad to have resurfaced. I suppose it’s no surprise that an industry that is springing from the financial industry has entrenched itself in so much jargon and so many self-congratulating events. In recent years, I’ve also attended some of these events only to be disappointed by their lack of vision and ability to reach into the communities they claim to want to support.

Even so, through the blinding glitz and endless mazes of the websites, I did hit on a few organizations that seem to genuinely want to shift the world of investing toward supporting social enterprises that are changing the world of business. The general idea of impact investing is to invest in social businesses that ideally include all of these elements:

• Producing products that help alleviate a social problem such as water pumps for clean water or sturdy bicycles for transporting goods,
• Providing job training and jobs for impoverished people, and
• Ensuring that the products they produce help lift those same impoverished families out of poverty.

One Street’s Social Bike Business program, which includes our Bike Shift Levers, is based on these social business principles. We look for local partner organizations who also strive toward this three-fold vision.

So, I was hoping that circling back to the impact investing community would land me on likely partners for us as well as our bicycle program partners around the world. Time will tell as I prepare to send out a handful of letters to the most interesting impact investment firms. I also dug out some old files that reminded me of a few creative impact investment organizations that could directly help our partners:

Kiva.org works much like a crowdfunding platform, but instead of giving your money, you lend it. You won’t make any interest, but you do get all your money back so you can “invest” in another project. All the projects on Kiva are small businesses owned by struggling people around the world. Even a loan of $25 can push them into success.

ACCION.org is similar to Kiva as it offers small loans to small businesses and social enterprises, but their loans are larger and the lending system is a bit more complicated.

I also found some very good articles that came out in the last few months. Most claim that 2014 will be the

year of impact investing because of all the energy that has been focused into these efforts. If you want to read about some of the most active and effective impact investing organizations, read:

Is Social Impact Investing The Next Venture Capital? – Forbes, September 20, 2014

WEF Offers Impact Investing Road Map for Wealthy Families – Bloomberg, December 4, 2014

2014 in Impact Investing: The Big Bang and its Aftermath – Huffington Post, December 16, 2014

Beyond profits: Millennials embrace investing for social good – LA Times, December 7, 2014

As I wove my way through websites and articles, I was also not surprised by the lack of bicycle programs listed in the programs supported. I did find a few and you can bet that those organizations made my list to contact.

Unfortunately, most of the products that were being supported were technology based. Not that there’s anything wrong with that... But we know how much benefit bicycles could bring to an investment movement bent on alleviating poverty.

Do you know of any success stories where impact investment lifted a bicycle program into a significantly higher level of effectiveness? I don’t. The few I have come across over the years seem to show little gain from the investments made. Please share your stories and links. Even just a few great examples could inspire other similar partnerships between impact investors and great bicycle programs.

Sue