Organizing a Bike Drive for Neighborhood Bike Works To offer free and low-cost bicycle education programs we need to collect more than 1,000 bikes every year. Bike drives are a key way for us to collect the bikes that keep our programs running. Consider teaming up with a friend or co-worker to organize a bike drive at your workplace, school, or with your neighborhood group, faith community, or friends.
Here are tips for a successful drive: 1. Gather your team and set a date and time. Even if you plan to take the lead, you’ll want 4-6 volunteers on collection day(s). Think about your strategy. Do you want an outreach team and a team of bike wranglers? Consider who owns or is able to drive a large collection vehicle. How many hours is your team available to accept the drop-offs? Organize it around a season: spring and fall are usually great times when people are cleaning out their basements or garages. 2. Find a drop-off station. The drop-off location should be highly visible, accessible by car, and well known to community members. Of course, you’ll need to get permission to use the space, be it a park, gym, or the parking lot of a school, faith center, or other space. Plan to be there early to set up and late to pack up. Remember, you will want your volunteers to have access to a bathroom. 3. Publicize the drive! Announce the drive early and often. Spread the word in a variety of ways. Here are a few ways to let people know about the bike drive: Talk it up. In-person communication is likely to be the most impactful so don’t shy away from telling friends, family, co-workers, classmates, and others about the drive. Remember to tell them when and where it is and also why you are doing it. Have a flyer to give to people at the same time and enlist the help of everyone in your group to get the word out. It’s ok to remind folks so it sticks in their mind. Post attention grabbing flyers to bulletin boards in coffee shops, stores, campus buildings, libraries, recreation centers, places of worship, workplaces etc. Use old media – put the event in the calendar section of the paper.
Use social media- create a Facebook event. Tweet about it. Get an event write-up or flyer onto community blogs and add it to the calendar section, too. Post the event on sites such as craigslist and Freecycle. One to two weeks in advance of the event, announce the bike drive to email lists and groups with newsletters. There are many groups of sympathetic audiences that are already on an email list. In many cases list managers will help you spread the word to your CDC, your city block, ride group, sports team/club, PTA, sustainability group, and others. Get creative and remember to let people know the donations enable NBW to run free out- of-school time programs. Include our donation guidelines when soliciting donations. You can find the guidelines below and on our website: neighborhoodbikeworks.org The day before the event, send out reminder notices to as many groups as you can. Because you told them two weeks ago, doesn’t mean they remember!
4. Pack for the event using our packing checklist (below). Check in with volunteers in the days preceding the drive to be sure they know when and where to arrive. 5. Set up your collection station and process the bikes. You should be clearly visible with table, chairs, an NBW banner, and the necessary tools and paperwork. When a donor comes to donate their bike, greet them, THANK THEM, help them unload, and have them fill out our donation form. They keep the top half of the form since all donations to NBW are tax-deductible. We keep the bottom half so we can thank them again. If there is downtime, prepare the bikes to pack tightly into a vehicle. Use a wrench to remove the pedals and zip tie them to the bike’s frame. You can even begin to load your vehicle. Large bikes should go on first, alternating front and back wheels. Smaller bikes can be stacked on top of the larger bikes. 6. Get the bikes to NBW. We encourage groups that organize a drive to deliver the bikes to us at a time you set with an NBW staff person. The driver of the vehicle or another volunteer should unload the bike with an NBW staff person. If your group can’t deliver the bikes to NBW, talk with an NBW staff person in advance. We now have a cargo van and can pick up quality donations with it. 7. Celebrate, you’re done! Thanks for all your hard work.
We know we ask a lot of bike drive volunteers. We can offer our support by:
Publicizing the drive in our shops, on our website, in our monthly newsletter, and via social media. Loaning your team tax receipt forms, outreach materials (brochure etc.). Depending on our event schedule, we may also be able to lend you a folding table, 2 folding chairs, an NBW banner, wrenches, and zip ties. You will need to return these items when you deliver the bikes to NBW at 3943 Lancaster Ave. We’ll help unload the donated bikes at NBW.
Bike Drive Packing Checklist
Paperwork: Pens/pencils, NBW outreach materials, donation receipt forms, a printed volunteer shift schedule with phone numbers, driving directions back to NBW for the delivery Tools: wrenches and zip ties. Use these to remove pedals and attach to the bike frame if time allows. Water & snacks Appropriate layers, sunblock
What donations does NBW accept?
All bikes that are in good condition or can be fixed up! We can re-use parts from bikes with damaged frames if there are usable components All types of bikes - road, hybrid, mountain, & BMX Bikes with 20 inch wheels and larger Bike tools Accessories that are in good working condition: lights, mirrors, computers, bike racks and baskets, air pumps, panniers, saddle bags, water bottle cages & water bottles, Ulocks with key, and wind trainers Working bike trailers Trunk racks for bikes Gently used and laundered cycling clothing: jerseys, shorts, shoes, hats, jackets, arm & leg warmers NEW Bike Helmets (unfortunately, we cannot accept used helmets)
NBW does NOT accept:
Bikes with wheels smaller than 20 inches. Rusty bikes that have been left out in the weather Used bike helmets Badly damaged department store bikes (Huffy, Magna, Next, Roadmaster) Exercise bikes Rollers Roof racks for bikes
