(happy music playing)
- You'll be coming up with ideas
that you think are going to work, you know.
In your mind, you're like,
"This is the best idea ever."
Like this is going to solve all of these problems,
you know this is it.
You know we've figured it out.
You know, let's hit the ground running.
And what we find every single time
that when we do that without necessarily looking
into these different groups
or people who've, maybe, tried to do the same thing,
is that we're only solving the problem
from our point of view.
So, we're not necessarily solving the problem for them.
- A Boise bicycle shop is about to make
Christmas dreams come true
for over 300 local boys and girls.
Kids had the chance to draw, on paper,
what their dream bicycle would look like.
And volunteers, along with the employees
at the Boise bicycle shop have been working non-stop
to make those wishes come true.
After hours of repairs and refurbishing,
hundreds of kids will be presented their dream bike
just in time for Christmas.
- I guess when we started the Boise Bicycle Project,
we really didn't know how to run a non-profit.
I'd worked in bicycle shops before, in the past,
but there was a lot that we didn't know that was going on.
So, from the very beginning, we really had to reach out
to a lot of different groups and seek their advice.
Figure out how we could work together
and really make sure that what we were doing
was going to be helpful to the groups
that we were trying to serve.
We have a variety of different partnerships
we've formed with all sorts of different organizations.
Whether they've been non-profit, like us,
for-profit, government.
It's become pretty fun and pretty interesting
to figure out how you can of collaborate
with these different groups.
- [Announcer] Last year, during Idaho Gives,
we pedaled over a hundred miles,
donating 24 bikes to 24 kids in 24 hours.
Your donations powered the journey
and transformed the lives of 24 kids.
This year, we're inviting you to be part of our vision.
- What's that vision, Yan?
- That Boise haz the potential
to be ze bicycle capital of America.
- For those that don't speak French, that's,
"Boise has the potential to be
the bicycle capital of America."
That's our vision.
- For 24 hours, every hour, on the hour
we'll create a community transforming event
that takes Boise one step closer to the top.
(firework exploding)
- Events include, but are not limited to,
installing new bike lanes,
putting community repair stands in parks,
leading thousands in a pedal-powered parade.
This is serious folks.
We can change the future of Boise in 24 hours.
- So we've got these great partnerships with these
for-profit organizations.
But then a lot of times, we've got these great partnerships
with other non-profits, like the Boys and Girls Club.
So, we typically are donating around
500 to 600 bicycles a year.
We could be reaching out to individual families
and searching and trying to find the kids
who really need bicycles.
But it's much, much easier for us to
find an organization who has already kind of located
and identified the kids who need the most help.
Then they could be that relay point to say,
"Hey, Boise Bicycle Project,
We've got a group of kids that needs bicycles."
And rather than us reaching out
to 10 different families,
we've got 10 kids, all at one organization,
and that organization can help transport them down here
or we can go there and teach a safety class,
or teach bicycle repair.
It's kind of weird because we're doing thing like
teaching people how to repair bicycles
and getting your hands greasy.
A lot of times the bicycles that we're working on
is a little bit older.
So it's, kind of, this older technology
and, kind of an older way of doing things,
but we're really trying to explore
new and innovative ways to do that.
And new and innovative ways to reach out to people
and educate them or to teach them about repair,
or to teach them about the benefits of bicycling.
- Once these kids have their dream bikes,
they'll be embarking on their own journey
with a goal of riding 100 miles
by the end of May's Kid's Bike-A-Thon.
- We'll provide their rides,
but we need you to power their journey.
- By pedaling 100 miles in a month,
these kids will be raising awareness
and raising funds for their brothers, sisters,
friends, classmates, for BBP's new Earn a Bike Program.
(kids cheering)
- So a lot of times when we're working on
a new program or a new idea,
we're focusing a lot on the target population
we're wanting to serve or wanting to affect.
And then we're trying to figure out who is the right group
that can help us work with this population the most.
So, if it's teenagers, who are about to enter the workforce,
maybe an organization like Life's Kitchen,
that's training kids with culinary skills,
is the best one to partner with
because they're already teaching them skills,
now we're providing transportation.
- Once you finish this program and you get a job somewhere,
how are you going to get to the new job?
- I'd like to be able to bike there.
- When you're ready, you need to come down
to the Bike Project and we'll find a bike for you
and get you all set up.
- Great.
- Cool.
- Or maybe if we wanna even work with a program
that's going to help provide bicycles for inmates
how do we figure out who the best group to do that is?
And recently we've been working on this program
to provide bicycles for inmates that are getting out
of prison in exchange for them fixing kids bikes
that we'll donate to the community.
And in order to do that, you know we had been reaching out
to other organizations who had already worked with folks
from the prison that had nothing to do with bicycles.
- So you know there's a big difference when people
are really, really excited about what they're doing
and if you look around you can tell there's excitement
you can see that people are excited to be working hand-on.
They're excited to be building bikes, learning new skills,
giving back to kids in the community.
- The collaboration teaches female inmates at the
South Boise Women's Correctional Center important skills.
It's called using their space and workforce to fix up
kids' bikes in need of repair,
in return of the hard labor after an inmate fixes up
15 bikes they'll receive a voucher good for a bike
of their own at BBP once they're released.
- You know the obvious choices aren't always the best ones
but I think when you can think about who your target
demographic is, who's worked with this target demographic
successfully in the past and getting advice from them
to see who they think you should bring to the table.
Cause they probably have dealt through the same thing
that you have, they've had to jump through the same hoops
and all these different types of things
and they can probably save you a lot along the way.
Collaborations are great when they work,
when they don't work you know it's hard
because you form these partnerships
and they're probably people that you may be working
with again in the future so you want to make sure
you're not hurting these relationships.
Recently I've had the opportunity to meet with the Governor
to talk about some kid safety stuff
and I left this safety meeting with the Governor
and it was this tremendous opportunity to try
to make some statewide changes and met
with a few other organizations
and then we kind of started working on,
alright lets see what we can do to present the Governor,
a program and a template that we think he could actually do
to create some change.
And at a certain point you have to kind of realize
when things aren't moving as fast as you want to
or other groups aren't maybe this isn't the priority
for them.
And if you can give people an easy option out,
they don't want to let you down but maybe
that's what you need to do, bring somebody else in
or just to take on the role larger
and so I think a lot of it is just a timing thing.
Once you start to realize that things aren't going
the way that you want it to
how do you lend a hand, take a little weigh out
of their pack and put it on yours,
or just take their pack off completely
and let them run up the hill
and do whatever it is they're doing
and figure out a different way to carry the load up there.
Because the worst thing you can do is to continue
to let this broken wheel get worse and worse and worse.
- I fought fire with the Idaho City Hotshots
for about three years and a couple other years
with fire as well.
And I always tell a lot of people that some
of the biggest leadership lessons that I've ever learned
and some of the most group dynamics I've ever learned
was either through fighting fires
or through wrestling in high school.
And a lot of it through fighting fires
has transferred directly over to how we lead around here.
And two of the ways that I think about the most,
one is through leadership as I always feel like anybody
that you're working with is only gonna work
as hard as their leader.
And so if they see a leader being lazy
or not carrying their own weight
nobody's gonna outwork their boss
for the most part unless they're trying to jump above.
Everybody's gonna work, as hard as,
the person who's in charge and so,
if the person who's in charge is passionate
if they're working hard,
if they believe in what they are doing I really believe
that other people will follow along the same way
and if they don't you'll have that opposite effect.
The other thing that I really learned through fire
that I didn't necessarily appreciate at the time
was really evaluating what just happened
and trying to learn from it,
so after action reviews.
And we don't necessarily use that term
when we go over things here
but anything from our Christmas Kid's Bike Giveaway
where we're donating 350 to kids in one day,
to a fun event we might be holding like Tour de Fat
where we have hundreds of volunteers coming down.
(festival music)
Immediately after those events are over we're meeting,
the leaders of the different groups,
and we're saying okay this is how it went, what went well,
what didn't go well, what person shined,
and why did this person shine,
what do we need to work on when we do this again next year,
how can we learn from our mistakes,
and these different types of things.
And I think evaluating things and evaluating things quickly
is the best way to learn
because a lot of times you don't see everything
that's going on and you see something fail
but you don't necessarily know why and somebody else
from a different prospective may have seen something
that you didn't.
And so taking the opportunity
to get these different perspectives together
again these different views that people saw
throughout the day that maybe you saw
and you didn't even pay attention to and somebody else did.
These after action reviews are so important
to always learn from your successes
and learn from your mistakes and do this in a better
and more efficient way.
Organizations usually grow best when they're really looking
at things that aren't similar to them and figuring out
how they can carry that into their own organization.
And so I think that there's a lot of different partnerships
and a lot of different collaborations that are out there
that are not obvious whatsoever,
and that a lot of different groups can learn things
from each other that are in nowhere obviously related
but have some carry over that's really helpful
when you kind of work with other organization
you figure out what the needs are
and I think that you end up putting together
a more well-rounded program
that works from a variety of different angles
and different perspectives,
just than the one you thought worked in your head.
And so you try to do things on your own
and you just can't really always do them
in a really efficient way and so when you kind
of work together to solve the greater need
of what's out there it can be so much more less work
and it can be so much more effective to really work together
(strumming guitar)
(happy music playing)