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Six years. Twenty-four hundred bicycles.
At a glance, Bike for Mike, a not-for-profit organization in Hamilton, Ont., appears to help fight poverty by providing bicycles to elementary-school children in low-income households.
And that was certainly the ambition when the organization started. Things changed, however, when it began asking critical questions of itself.
“What problem are we trying to solve?,” Bike for Mike founder Mark Chamberlain said Thursday night (Sept. 29) at the Sheraton Hamilton Hotel. “Are we trying to solve the problem of getting bikes to kids, or are we trying to solve the problem of getting kids riding to and from school, or riding on a regular basis.”
As a result, Bike for Mike broadened its impact.
Chamberlain’s address launched a Board Governance BootCamp Friday and Saturday hosted by Capacity Canada, with The Cowan Foundation and The United Way of Burlington and Greater Hamilton as partners.
Based in Waterloo, Capacity Canada is a not-for-profit that provides supportive services to organizations in the charitable sector. Its Governance BootCamps build stronger, more resilient organizations by bringing board leaders and administrators together to help them understand their separate but complementary roles.
Guest speakers the night before the BootCamps begin, set the tone for the work ahead, said Cathy Brothers, Capacity’s chief executive officer.
Board members need to be critical thinkers and generators of ideas who aren’t afraid to ask “why” questions that drill into the core reasons their organizations exist, Chamberlain said.
“Quite often organizations start solving problems as opposed to standing back and asking, ‘Why are we solving this problem?’ or ‘Why are we solving it in this way,’ ” he said.
A serial entrepreneur behind such companies as PV Labs and Trivaris Ltd., Chamberlain is an active community game-changer whose roles have included chairing the Hamilton Community Foundation and the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction. He was named Distinguished Citizen of the Year by the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce in 2008.
Bike for Mike was inspired by Chamberlain’s son Mike, an avid cyclist who died in 2010. Bicycling helped relieve Mike’s mental illness and he wanted to see Hamilton develop a strong bicycling culture and infrastructure.
The organization has experienced a shift in purpose, Mark Chamberlain said, driven in no small part by feedback from children.
Not having a bike obviously keeps them from riding to school. But even those who do have bikes are held back by safety concerns — their own and those of their parents.
So, Bike for Mike redefined the problem, Chamberlain said: “How do we get kids, as their first choice, to get on a bike or walk to school?” It has been working closely with schools to move change along. Adult-led “bike trains” — which collect student cyclists along a route — is one possibility.
More than 20 people from a dozen community groups will examine governance challenges and expectations at the BootCamp. They will wrap up on Saturday and head home with an assignment due Dec. 1, when they reconvene. They have to take the lessons learned at the BootCamp and apply them to real situations in their organizations.
Chamberlain called on participants to set stretch goals and not settle for half measures. Bike for Mike wants to see 100 percent of students who live close to schools getting to class by cycling or walking. A bit of a reach, he admitted, but it creates “the solution set that allows us the opportunity for 100 percent.”
Next spring, Bike for Mike plans to hold a student-run bike summit to talk about changes that would get more children choosing cycling or walking for their school commute.
“If I have one dream,” Chamberlain said, “it’s having 3,000 kids riding bicycles to city hall to present their plan and saying, ‘Please do this for us.’ ”
