Day: July 24, 2023

Job: Development Manager – Community Cycling Center

Buffered Bike Lane with a bike symbol and arrow pointing forward

Job Title

Development Manager

Company / Organization

Community Cycling Center

Job Description

Organizational Overview

We love Portland and bikes. So we put our two loves together 29 years ago, creating a nonprofit organization on a mission to broaden access to bicycling and its benefits.  Our goal is to help create a healthy, sustainable Portland for all community members. Our vision is to help build a vibrant community where people of all backgrounds use bicycles to stay healthy and connected. We believe that all Portlanders—regardless of income or background—should have the opportunity to experience the joy, freedom and health benefits of bicycling. This is the motivation behind everything we do.

In addition to delivering dynamic programs that benefit underserved communities, we operate a full-service bike shop in NE Portland that is staffed by experienced mechanics from diverse cycling backgrounds. We also collaborate with community partners to generate pathways to numerous supports to meet the needs of the people we serve.

The Community Cycling Center is an equal opportunity employer and strongly values diversity, equity and inclusion. Individuals with diverse backgrounds, abilities and experiences are encouraged to apply.

Job Summary

The Development Manager at the Community Cycling Center plays an integral role in ensuring the financial health of a multi-faceted, community-based nonprofit organization and storefront business operation.The Development Manager will report to the Development Director and will support prospecting, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding individual and corporate revenue streams.They will manage development events, and support strategic long-range planning efforts.

We expect the Development Manager to individually bring in a minimum of $150,000 across all revenue streams they manage during their first 365 days.

This is a primarily remote position with in-person work required to support fundraising and donor cultivation activities throughout the year.

Essential Functions

Please note that the percentage indicators below represent an estimate of how much time each week will be spent fulfilling these functions. In terms of importance, all areas are valued equally. In all aspects of this position, we expect you to lead with racial and restorative justice with all of your work, and actively practice Community Centric Fundraising methodologies.

Events (30%)

• Actively work to bring people together around a common language and understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion through our events. Strive to support and uplift all people within the communities we serve, inclusive of a diversity of ethnicities, national origins, genders, gender identities, sexual orientations, classes, disabilities, geographic areas, ages, and other factors that contribute to a vibrant and thriving community.
• Manage, coordinate, and execute existing development events including Holiday Bike Drive, Transportation Trivia, Pedalpalooza events, corporate team-building, weeklong fee for service at Cycle Oregon, and more.
• Collaborate with the Volunteer & Events Manager and Program staff around development-specific events.
• Track ROI on all development-specific events, and demonstrate adaptability to improve results.
• Manage internal event management systems for development.
• Envision, propose, and execute new revenue generating events with an emphasis on donor cultivation.

Corporate Giving (30%)
• Prospect and solicit new funders to build out the corporate partner list. Manage pre-committed corporate partners.
• Move corporate funders in the $500 level to $1,000+ up the donor pyramid
• Manage all corporate sponsorship benefits, including private team building experiences.
• Maintain genuine relations with corporate partners through creative, persistent and friendly touchpoints.
• Collaborate with the Communications & Marketing Coordinator to manage a robust social media, marketing and media relations calendar specific to events and corporate fundraising campaigns.
• Lead all in-kind donation needs.

Individual Giving (30%)

• Prospect and solicit new individual supporters to build out the independent supporter list. Manage pre-committed corporate supporters.
• Move supporters in the $100 – $1,000 annual range up the donor pyramid.
• Manage and support solicitation campaigns for individual supporters including but limited to writing winter mailers, newsletters and LinkedIn articles.
• Maintain genuine relations with supporters through creative, persistent and friendly touchpoints.

Administrative and General (10%)

• Collaborate with the Development Director and Executive Director to implement, and monitor the annual fund development plan, outlining goals, activities, and timeline for completion with which you are tasked.
• Support the financial reconciliation process as needed.
• Work with the Bike Shop team to identify and improve development and fundraising opportunities.
• Regularly track and analyze donor data throughout the year. Lead donor strategy with most current analysis.
• Actively use the Community Cycling Center’s Salesforce database to ensure constituent records are maintained accurately. Input and track specific cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship actions related to major donors and campaign sponsors in a timely manner.
• Work with support staff to ensure acknowledgment letters are sent in a timely fashion.
• Provide support to the Board of Directors and Development Director in planning, developing, and achieving Board-led fundraising activities.

Qualifications & Characteristics

Required

• Resident of Portland, Oregon area or plans to relocate
• A deep appreciation for the mission and values of the Community Cycling Center, as well as a thorough understanding of the unique and complex community development and social justice issues facing Portland residents.
• Practices Community-Centric Fundraising.
• At least 2 years of successful and progressively responsible nonprofit fundraising experience.
• Demonstrated success in identifying, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding major gifts with a proven track record of procuring donations of $500+
• Experience in social media marketing, MailChimp, WordPress, Canva and soliciting new media relation opportunities.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently and responsibly, and to also collaborate effectively.
• Innovative, values-driven, self-directed and action-oriented personality.
• Culturally sensitive communication skills.
• Strong project management, administrative, and organizational skills.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently and responsibly, and also to collaborate effectively.
• High level of proficiency using Microsoft Office, Google Suite, Salesforce, and project management platforms.

Preferred

• Knowledge and/or personal experience of how Portlanders use bicycles to meet their daily needs.
Experience using Salesforce.
• Exhibit an established network with individual and corporate funders in the Portland region.
• Knowledge and/or personal experience of how Portlanders use bicycles to meet their daily needs.
• Coursework or training in DEI, fundraising, marketing, event planning, and/or other related fields.
• Fluency in one or more languages spoken in Portland’s marginalized communities (e.g., Spanish, Vietnamese, Somali).
• Lived experience as a member of a marginalized community.

How to Apply

How to Apply

Please submit a cover letter and resume by email with “Development Manager” as the subject line to jobs@communitycyclingcenter.org

This announcement was originally posted on July 24th, 2023

Applicants are encouraged to apply prior to the application deadline, as applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. The application deadline for this position is 5:00pm PST on August 7, 2023.

15 Portlanders sign on as plaintiffs in ‘Bicycle Bill’ lawsuit

Portland-based advocacy group BikeLoud PDX has amended their lawsuit against the City of Portland and the revised complaint was filed at the Multnomah County Courthouse Friday.

The lawsuit alleges that the City of Portland has “systematically failed to comply” with the 1971 Oregon law known as the “Bicycle Bill” (ORS 366.514) which requires cities to build cycling and pedestrian infrastructure whenever a road is reconstructed.

Circuit Court Judge Christopher Ramras dismissed the case after its first hearing back in May, but he told BikeLoud’s legal team that they could amend their complaint and refile. Specifically, Judge Ramras agreed with attorneys for the City of Portland that having BikeLoud as the sole plaintiff was problematic because the nonprofit organization, on its own, doesn’t have adequate “standing” — that is, a right to sue. Their argument was that an advocacy group is, “a pretty general and abstract [legal] interest,” and that, “There’s no special injury [legal term for harm] affecting BikeLoud’s members differently than other citizens.”

So the BikeLoud legal team — which consists of Scott Kocher of Forum Law Group and three lawyers from Thomas, Coon, Newton & Frost (both firms are BikePortland advertisers) — has added 15 Portlanders to the lawsuit.

“There are real people behind these concerns and it’s not just an abstract, generalized need for safer infrastructure.”

– Scott Kocher, lawyer for BikeLoud

The list of plaintiffs now includes: Kathryn Gavula, Petra Whitacre, Edward Gorman, Douglas Eichelberger, Allan Rudwick, Taizz Medalia, Robert Burchett, Ted Whitney, Steven Acker, Lynda Bishop, Shambra Jennings, Daniel Fuller, Mark Ontiveros, Max Woodbury, and Karen Frost.

Each one of them, BikeLoud argues in court filings, “have been adversely affected by defendant’s failure to comply with ORS 366.514 in a way that the great majority of Portland residents who do not regularly ride bicycles for transportation are not.”

Plaintiff Kathryn Gavula commutes by bike several days a week from the Mt. Tabor area to her job in Northwest Portland and bikes her three children to school in east Portland. Her route, the lawsuit says, “or routes that she would ride on a regular basis if bicycle facilities allowing safe passage existed,” include the Hoyt Yards area of the Pearl District, SE Hawthorne, and SE 82nd Ave.

The owner of West End Bikes in downtown Portland, Mark Ontiveros, is another one of the plaintiffs. “Mr. Ontiveros has compelling interests in having adequate bicycle facilities throughout Portland,” the suit alleges. “If people in Portland do not have safe and attractive places to ride bicycles, he will not have customers coming into the bicycle shop where he works.”

Max Woodbury, a 51-year-old who uses a handcycle after he became a quadriplegic following a work accident in 1996. “Among the many Portland streets upon which Mr. Woodbury depends for his mobility, he regularly uses SE Hawthorne Boulevard and SE Division Street from SE 10th to SE Cesar Chavez Blvd for restaurants and grocery and other shopping,” the suit states. “He is adversely affected by the lack of bicycle facilities at those locations.”

Another notable plaintiff is Karen Frost, the first executive director of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (now The Street Trust), the bike advocacy group that filed the original Bicycle Bill lawsuit in 1994. “Ms. Frost has not owned a car in 23 years and uses two bikes with trailers for all errands including grocery shopping, trips to the hardware store, and transporting large product purchases,” reads the amended lawsuit. “She has regular need to use Hawthorne Boulevard and the Hoyt Yards area, among other locations subject to the present lawsuit.”

“We’re hopeful that adding these individuals will make it clear there are real people behind these concerns and it’s not just an abstract, generalized need for safer infrastructure,” Kocher shared with BikePortland today.

Kocher says it could take a few months for Judge Ramras to review the amended complaint. If the judge agrees with BikeLoud, the case will move forward into the next phase of discovery and both sides will get to make their arguments. If the judge isn’t persuaded, the case would get kicked down to the Oregon Court of Appeals where it would take about two years before getting heard.

That might sound like a defeat, but BikeLoud would still have hope. After losing at district court, the BTA eventually won their case two years later at the Court of Appeals and the City of Portland was forced to recognize the Bicycle Bill and stripe bike lanes in front of Moda Center.

If BikeLoud’s case sees a similar fate, the City would be on the hook for much more than one block of bike lanes: The suit includes 21 specific locations that encompass hundreds of city blocks.

Read the amended complaint here.

Comment of the Week: Police slow down, staff shortage both to blame for enforcement woes

Some BikePortland posts spark really strong comment threads, and that was the case with Friday’s post about the statement from Commissioner Mapps’s office on recent traffic deaths.

Speaking on behalf of Commissioner Mapps, Senior Policy Advisor Shannon Carney responded to a BikePortland query with a statement which led with the need for more enforcement:

Commissioner Mapps feels that beyond PBOT’s efforts to increase speed cameras, the most effective immediate intervention is enforcement, penalties and public awareness regarding breaking traffic laws. It is also a necessity to expand PPB’s recently reinstated traffic unit as soon as possible. Finally, it’s critical to raise the community’s awareness of enforcement, which is something Commissioner Mapps plans to do through his own efforts.

Skirmishes over enforcement issues occur regularly in the BikePortland comments sections, and the back and forth has become predictable.

That’s one reason that Franci’s comment stood out. In response to the usual police “slow down” vs. “staff shortage” argument Franci wrote something I hadn’t heard before. “It’s both.” I did some very rudimentary fact checking and came across this historical timeline on the Portland Police Bureau web page, which confirmed what Franci wrote—that there had indeed been a hiring push in the late 1990s.

So in the interest of moving the conversation forward, or at least changing it a little, here is Franci’s comment:

I work daily w/PPB officers. It’s both.

The staffing situation was entirely predictable. 25-30 years ago, PPB was also short on officers. They went on a big hiring spree to fill the ranks. Those officers are now hitting 25 years and eligibility for retirement. Many of those officers have retired from PPB and gone on to work for other agencies while collecting a very generous pension on top of their current paychecks. This was happening prior to 2020 and BLM and Covid. The remaining officers resent the people of Portland and see us as the enemy for the most part. They are angry that they aren’t getting the help they expect and need. On that point, I don’t entirely blame them. PPB leadership has done this to themselves. They set up the officer shortage by, once again, not looking forward and anticipating the wave of retirements. That existing shortage was exacerbated by the events of 2020. The attitude displayed by the agency made them appear to be a very toxic place to work.

Short of wiping the slate clean by firing everyone from the chief on down and starting from scratch, I don’t know what the solution is.

Thank you Franci! You can read Franci’s comment and all the others under the original post.

Monday Roundup: Ugly bike infra, bus stop bollards, ‘traffication’ and more

Welcome to the week. Here are the most notable stories our writers and readers have come across in the past seven days…

Wait, before we start, how about a round of applause for Cyclepath Bike Shop (NE MLK Jr. Blvd and Brazee) for being a financial supporter of BikePortland?! Thanks Cyclepath!

cyclepath bike shop

Distracted driving sentence: A Florida man got a 30-year jail sentence for using his phone while driving after it resulted in the death of a young boy; but is it a ‘win’ for traffic safety advocates and will it serve as an example to others? (Streetsblog USA)

Bike boom status: Bike share is plugging along in major U.S. cities and the Covid-era bike boom is proving to have some staying power. (Bloomberg)

Cycling and politics: Fascinating to see how a rightward shift in government in Berlin has impacted the progress of bike advocates and their efforts to re-allocate road space away from car drivers. (The Times UK)

Bus stop bollards: This article is from 2019 but after my op-ed on the killing of Jeanie Diaz last week where I called for protected bus stops, I thought it was notable that a transit provider in Las Vegas installed large steel bollards at 20 bus stops as part of a pedestrian safety pilot program. (RTC Southern Nevada)

Bikes belong: This story validates my belief that until safe cycling networks exist, all state should change vehicle laws to make it clear that bicycle riders are allowed to use sidewalks and crosswalks (except in some very specific situations and locations). (Mother Jones)

Insult to injury: A bike rider in Eugene was given two citations — one for riding the wrong way on a one-way street, another for failure to obey a traffic device — after they were involved in a collision with a dump truck. (KATU)

Time to get tough: I love the framing and thinking behind this op-ed and feel it could easily apply to the automotive industry, where it’s time to take off the kid gloves and force companies to be responsible for the impacts of their products. (L.A. Times)

Framing safety: We’ve reached the point in our traffic culture dystopia where people who choose sensibly-sized cars are being fear-mongered by automotive media because of people who choose absurdly-sized ones. (The Drive)

School cycling safety: This team of advocates in Calgary came together to write reports about the safety of bike routes for 10 different schools to raise awareness of various infrastructure issues. (Calgary Herald)

Congestion pricing lawsuit: You can bet that local DOT officials are following this fight between New York and New Jersey, where the former wants to move ahead with traffic fees and the latter says it’s unfair and the sky will fall if they do. (Bloomberg)

Traffication: Latest episode of The War on Cars podcast examines yet another front in the war cars and their drivers are waging against the planet: the threat they pose to wildlife. (The War on Cars)

Ugly infra: This story from Denver resonates with me because some of the plastic post projects PBOT is installing are indeed quite ugly and I could see a Portland neighborhood playing the same card. (Westword)

Next level security: A new outfit in the UK will act as your private bike theft recovery security force, as long as you have a GPS tracker installed. This reminds me of Portland’s Timberwolves Cycle Recovery group. (Cycling Electric)

Thanks to everyone who shared links this week!

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From the Archives

Protestor blocks bus and bike lanes on Division with his car