20/21 social impact report

Social Impact Report 20/21

I joined Bike for Good last December, after a hectic year of the full 2020 experience. I started right before the second lockdown, which proved to be challenging. It was quite difficult starting a new job with a bunch of colleagues I wouldn’t get to meet until months later; it was a while before I even met my manager! I come from a communications and equalities background. Prior to Bike for Good, I worked in events, interfaith relations, employability for Muslim women and stakeholder engagement in the public sector; all with aspects of communications, but not a bike in sight! I attended a women's interfaith cycling event hosted by Bike for Good in 2019, and it was my first time cycling on the roads in Glasgow. I loved the group cycle and it really unlocked something in me - I knew how to ride a bike but I wasn't much of a cyclist. Cycling was something I reserved for holidays but didn't do much of at home. Alongside all the social media, campaigns, websites, blogs and press releases I've been busy with, I've also been doing road-confidence lessons with a colleague. I think there's a misconception that you need to be a full-time cyclist to be in this line of work.Fariha Saeed

Warm welcome from our Communications Lead Fariha

Our community outreach team deliver a series of projects and services to get people around glasgow cycling

We provide the people of glasgow with access to low-cost quality bikes. Our team of mechanics refurbish over 1000 bikes a year, donated by the public. It's a cycle!

Bike sales & services

Our mission is to change lives through cycling. We focus on these three key impacts. You'll see these three symbols throughout the report.

Our impact themes

Skills & Development

Active Travel

Health & Wellbeing

We enable people to ride a bike - we believe that cycling is the most effective and sustainable form of transport, enhancing our chances for a healthy life and environment

A healthy and inclusive environment where everyone in the community benefits from more people cycling

mission

vision

798 donated bikes were stripped for parts, to be used by our teams and volunteers

2096 bikes were donated to us, and we sold 987

61% of participants now cycle as their main mode of transport, an increase of 47% before engaging with us

Engagement in our services led to a 60% increase in bike access, through bike ownership and nextbike

2484 people engaged with our Community Outreach team this year across different projects

38% of these people were new to us. We adapted our services to deliver support to people affected by the pandemic

Highlights 20/21

'Learn to ride' sessions such as 1-1 cycle training went up by 196%

We only held 22% fewer Active Travel sessions because we adopted a more personal style of work with less of a group focus

Click to read about the bikes we provided to children

food and care packages delivered to vulnerable and shielding people

1687

Click to read about our pop-up Dr Bikes

We raised £12,555 through public donations! Click to read

Since the beginning of the pandemic, cycling has become a lifeline for many. Bike for Good played a key role in helping to facilitate this - just one week into the the first lockdown, we developed services and activities in partnership with our many community partners to support families, people shielding, as well as key workers who worked tirelessly to keep us safe.

Click to read a Key Workers cycling story

people delivered food and medicine

people given access to bikes

294

Covid-19 response

188

Changing priorites

New priorities and social restrictions reflect the massive change in activities delivered compared to the previous year.

Helping communities during Covid-19

People: 374Appointments: 417

Bike Repairs

Click the images above to read more

We operated the "Cycle Repair Scheme" to provide free repairs & maintenance for those facing financial difficulty due to the pandemic.

We limited our opening hours and changed the way we were operated to keep everyone safe. This approach was constantly adapted

West Hub:798South Hub: 189

Bike Sales

We provide access to low-cost quality bikes, diverting tonnes of waste from landfills. We do this by taking public bike donations, refurbishing those bikes (or stripping them to use for parts), then re-selling them back to the public from both of our community hubs, Revolve certified. On average, our team of excellent mechanics refurbish 1000 bikes a year. We also offer bike maintenance and service repairs from both our hubs.

West Hub:1596South Hub: 500

Bike Donations

Bike sales and repairs

"My return to volunteering was everything I thought it would be - welcoming, friendly, fulfilling, and great to be challenged by oily bits of bikes." - Stuart Kerr

Click the image above to read Thomas and Martin's volunteer story

Volunteering hours were spent, despite social restrictions

Volunteers engaged with us at both our hubs

1668

33

Volunteers

We sadly had to halt all of our volunteering activity at the start of the initial lockdown. However, before long our volunteers supported our food delivery programme. By Christmas, we had 30 return but we were unable to recruit any new volunteers, despite having a big waiting list.

.... We also send out a monthly newsletter to over 3,400 subscribers! Click the image below to sign up to our newsletter

198,804 reach

20,878 reach

279,648 reach

Much of our activity and most of our events had to move online during 2020. We've grown our online audience, reaching 107515 unique website visitors and 1633553 hits. Our social media engagement has increased exponentially too, reaching 27375 people on average each month on Facebook. Over the last year we had:

Online activity

Bike Loans

Cycling Activities

Dr Bikes

24% of those are able to do so for leisure and 40% of them have the skills, confidence and knowledge to cycle on roads for active travel.

We saw a 30% Increase in the number of people cycling as their main mode of travel, through:

86.6

tons of CO2 emissions were saved by participants through their active travel journey!

of these people were new to us this year

people engaged with an active travel activity

747

67%

As part of our Active Travel theme , we encourage people to take up cycling for their commute and as their preferred mode of transport. We support many individuals through cycle training, youth engagement, equipment loans, climate change awareness and led rides.

Active Travel

click on each image to read their active travel story

click image above for more on campaign

Key Workers were supported on their cycling journey through:1-1 Cycle trainingBike & equipment loans Road skills lessons

115

There was a massive surge in people cycling during the initial 2020 lockdown, all around the world! This spike slowed down as restrictions and weather changed. Glasgow was no exception to this, as people slowly started returning to previous forms of transport.We wanted to remind people locally that cycling was not just for lockdown and is something we should do all year round. We launched a campaign in January 2021 offering help to Key Workers, so they could use cycling to commute.Our billboard in the south-side had 72,000 impressions and we had an overall reach of about 32,145 on social media.

Key Workers campaign

said their mental health improved

make more use of outdoor spaces

said cycling activities helped them make new friends

Community Groups worked with and 6 of them set up cycling clubs

10

People were provided with a bike as part of Bikes for All

484

People engaged with the health & wellbeing team. 89% of those were new and 482 were supported in response to the pandemic.

1065

Our health & wellbeing focus is to promote the mental and physical benefits of cycling. We support organisations to create cycling hubs, delivering confidence-building sessions and increase bike access for those on low-income.

“When I cycle my body tries to catch up with my mind. it’s therapeutic” - MORE cycle club participant

Health & Wellbeing

Click on each image to read their health & wellbeing story

Of participants believe their life chances and employability has improved

Of participants are likely to seek further training, voluntary or paid work

Said their course made them feel better about themselves

people

Maintenance classes were particularly popular, delivered to

406

672

People engaged with a skills & development class, programme or activity

click on each image to read their skills & development story

Our skills & development side of the organisation offers people a chance to enhance their skills and employability prospects. We offer a range of classes and courses, such as bike maintenance, Fix Your Own Bike, Build Your Own Bike and a cycle maintenance qualification. We got creative in our approach to restrictions, moving many of these services online.

Skills & Development

Festive giveaway

New Scots project

Wumenu Community Farm

• We provided bikes and transport poverty relief to 22 new scots
• We did a festive bike giveaway where we reburfbished 100 kids bikes for families around glasgow
• We sent a truck-load of bikes to friends of Wumenu Community Farm in Ghana.

The local Glasgow community helped us stay afloat during a challenging and difficult period at the start of the pandemic, and we did our best to give back both here and abroad.

It's all about community!

Click on each image to find out more about our community work

click above to read Hannah & Shgufta's pedal pals story

166

80

users are currently signed up and active on pedal pals

people signed up over the weekend after we first launched

in april 2021, we were deligted to launch pedal pals - an online platform to connect cyclists across glasgow.

pedal pals

The group currently has 17 members, including staff, trustees and volunteers

We created a number of sub-groups that focus on:

• Training and Volunteering
• Communication and Language
• Disability Awareness & Accessibility

Since the group's inception, it has:

1. Established a ‘Glasgow Cycling Diversity Collective’ to work with other community cycling organisations
2. Coordinated a programme of Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) training for the staff team
3. Designed a programme of training and volunteer opportunities for New Scots, following a series of consultation sessions with refugees and asylum seekers.
4. Continued expanding the programme for women & non-binary people
5. Made changes to our recruitment process and expanded where we advertise roles
6. Initiated a D&I Audit with Mor Diversity

We can't wait to see how the group grows and develops and anticipate many positive changes, both internally and across the wider Glasgow cycling community

Shgufta

Robin

click on each image to meet members of the DWG

Diversity Working Group

On 25th August 2020, we posted our diversity statement of intent, in which we stated our committment to address the unconscious racial biases and lack of diversity in Bike for Good.We then established our diversity working group that same month.

63% were using less public transport

43% were using the bike 5-6 days a week

24 people took part in the pilot. From our findings:

of participants were "very satisfied" with the scheme overall

92.9%

“It is a quality I wouldn’t otherwise have access to.”“The subscription model works really well for me - I don’t know how to maintain bikes.”“I’m delighted with my Elephant bike, it has had a massive positive impact on my Independence.”

In 2020, we set out to establish a socially driven bike share scheme. It is designed to break down access barriers to cycling while promoting a circular economy. The pilot kicked off in October 2020, where users paid a monthly £20 fee and were provided with a bike & all the equipment needed, along with a service of repair covering maintenance, breakdown and insurance. Most of our pilot participants are still subscribed to the service!

Scotland's first-ever bike subscription service!

expenditure

income

Financial summary

Thanks to our supporters and funders

• Motion Forward: In June 2021 we will launch Motion Forward, in partnership with Vélogik - a fleet maintenance service provider which will generate an income to support Bike for Good’s charitable activities. Click the image to read more on our partnership and the services we will offer ➡️
• New Scots Project: To support refugees and asylum seekers living in Glasgow, from April 2021 we will offer bespoke volunteering and skills development activities along with Build Your Own Bike sessions.
• Glasgow Women on Wheels Cycle Festival (GWOW) - in September 2021, we are excited to launch our second GWOW festival to support and encourage women and non-binary people into cycling! Keep an eye on our socials for more info coming soon!

This year has certainly been a challenge but it has also highlighted how resilient we are at Bike for Good and how important it is to work collaboratively to overcome adversity. Looking forward to 2021-22, we are confident that we will emerge from the pandemic stronger than ever. To do this, we are launching several new partnership projects, services and even a new joint venture!

Looking Forward...

& finally, team Bike for Good want to say thanks to everyone that supported us through a challenging, yet rewarding year!