One Street News

June-July 2014

Vol. 7, Issue 5

  1. Kickstarting Cures for Ailing Organizations
  2. Bike Shift Levers
  3. Resources – Treating Car Addiction
  4. Hot Topics – How Low-Income Commuters View Cycling

Kickstarting Cures for Ailing Organizations

At One Street, we work with many organizations that were founded to improve bicycling conditions for people all over the world. Unfortunately, most of the leaders of these organizations run into an insidious expectation that because they are “nonprofit” they should struggle.

We've launched a Kickstarter.com campaign to raise funds for publishing our next book, Cures for Ailing Organizations. This book aims to change that unacceptable expectation by offering:

  • Examination of organizations as living organisms,
  • A thorough diagnostic system,
  • Easy-to-remember response steps, and
  • Tools to solve common problems and prevent them in the future.

To write this book, Sue Knaup tapped her 40 years working for nonprofits and social enterprises in the fields of animal rights, environment, special populations, and bicycle advocacy. Sue shaped the book around her emergency medical response training because organizations are surprisingly like living organisms. And like organisms they can be revived to thrive once again.

The book is complete. Now we need your help to make it available to organizations around the world. Funding through Kickstarter is meant to cover the costs of final layout, print and ebook publication, and worldwide distribution.

Kickstarter operates on an all-or-nothing basis. If the funding goal is not reached in August, we will receive nothing and will not have the means to publish this book. Every pledge counts toward that goal. The Kickstarter campaign will last only through August.

Secure your early copy by contributing today at Kickstarter.com by searching “Cures for Ailing Organizations.” You can also go directly to the campaign with this link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/604592896/cures-for-ailing-organizations

Another way you can help is to forward the link to your friends. Emailing it, posting it to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn groups would be a huge boost for the campaign because the more it spreads the more likely we are to connect with the people who care about a book like this.

We’ve only got one month to reach the goal!

Thanks in advance for all your help!

Bike Shift Levers

Just a quick update on our Bike Shift Lever project: The machine shop we’re working with to refine the first mold was delayed by about a month. Finally, they have finished the work and will send it back to us this week! That means the test shifters can be poured and sent out to our patient testers. Once we receive their feedback, we can finish the final design and start the machine shop on the next mold. That second mold will cast our first production shift levers. With a good push, we should be back on schedule in a few weeks.

Resources – Treating Car Addiction

Programs designed to increase bicycling often struggle to convince people to shift even some of their trips from car to bike. Logically, they may have all the pieces in place—inviting bicycle facilities, great weather (or proper clothing to adapt), a supportive social environment—and yet many otherwise likely cyclists continue to drive.

This recent article looks at a treatment program that successfully convinced people to leave their cars at home.

Hot Topics – How Low-Income Commuters View Cycling

By: Sue Knaup, Executive Director

I have a hard time with important, well-intended studies that hinge on flawed perceptions. I suppose racism is so ingrained in cultures around the world, a leftover from our barbaric ancestors, that I shouldn’t expect too much from studies like this. Still, I found this article worth reading enough to post about it a few weeks ago on our Defying Poverty with Bicycles blog. Take a look and see if it makes you cringe.