Big Wins @ Equiticity

Dear Equiticity Movement,

No mixed feelings at Equiticity as we come to the end of 2022. At Equiticity, we reflect on big wins this past year with?a sense of certainty of what comes next.?

When we secured our IRS 501(c)(3) status this past May and became an independent, nonprofit organization, we did not imagine the rapid acceleration of our racial equity agenda.?

Here’s what we’ve been up to:

• Mobility Opportunities Fund (MOF): With an extraordinary gift from ComEd, Equiticity is promoting racial equity and mobility justice by expanding access to climate-friendly modes of transportation in the predominantly?Black neighborhood of North Lawndale on Chicago's Westside. Stipends from MOF will help residents purchase conventional bicycles, electric bicycles, electric cargo bikes, and electric vehicles. The program intends to help grow mobility, while also reducing carbon emissions, lowering transportation costs, and improving employment outcomes.?Make an annual campaign gift to sustain and grow the Mobility Opportunities Fund for years to come.
• Community Mobility Rituals (CMRs): Our 2022 season of Community Mobility Rituals (CMRs) reached several thousand people and hosted over 75 mobility events, including community bicycle rides, neighborhood walking tours, public transit excursions, group scooter rolls, and open street festivals. We coined the term "Community Mobility Rituals" to describe mobility events which become normalized and ritualized in neighborhoods. CMRs are designed to increase social cohesion and collective trust at the neighborhood level. Our CMRs are scheduled with a rhythmic frequency (weekly, monthly, or annually), and always free, open to the public, and hyper-local focused. CMRs help neighbors get to know one another, increasing socialization and trust in our neighborhoods, while also decreasing the perceptions of violence. CMRs help people consider how active modes of?travel – walking, cycling, transit?– fit into a healthy lifestyle and transform communities. When more people bike, walk, shop, and explore parks in our neighborhoods, our streets become more vibrant. More vibrant streets support safer, less violent, and more economically thriving communities. Equiticity's Community Mobility Rituals have attracted partnerships with?community based organizations across?Chicago. We also secured major financial support from Main Street America, The Chicago Community Trust, Prince Charitable Trusts, Chicago Park District, Lyft, Superpedestrian, REI, and PeopleForBikes.?Make an annual campaign gift today to expand Equiticity’s Community Mobility Rituals to more Chicago neighborhoods.
• BikeForce: Equiticity’s exciting workforce development program launched this past summer through the generosity of IMC Foundation and Steans Family Foundation. Through a partnership with Afterschool Matters and Collins High School in Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood, BikeForce trained up a group of young people in the technologies of the emerging transportation revolution (electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, e-bikes, e-scooters and the associated battery systems and electric motors). Once proficient in acoustic bike repair and a growing familiarity with electrical components inside e-bikes and e-scooters – our BikeForce apprentices will be better prepared for more educational, employment, and entrepreneurial opportunities.?Make an annual campaign gift today to allow more young people to train in Equiticity’s BikeForce program.
• The Go Hub: Soon, Equiticity’s programs and activities will have their very own physical homes in Chicago’s North Lawndale and Bronzeville neighborhoods. With national and local support, Equiticity is growing our staff to transform The Go Hub from vision to reality. Already, we’ve reimagined the traditional mobility hub from focusing exclusively on shared mobility devices and infrastructure, to a more equitable mobility hub model designed to meet the unique transportation needs of Black and Brown residents of low to moderate-income neighborhoods enduring severe transportation inequities. Equiticity’s The Go Hub will fully integrate the hardware of traditional mobility hubs with “software” (community programs and strategies to socialize people around the act of mobility) -- all positioned in a physical space that serves as a neighborhood welcome center. When bringing these three components together, The Go Hub aims to improve transportation outcomes, as well as environmental, health, safety, and economic outcomes for racially marginalized communities.?Make an annual campaign gift today to move Equiticity’s The Go Hub from vision to reality.
• Mobility Justice in Chicago - Research & Advocacy: From our?Biking Where Black research?to our recently published?Commuting Carless?research, we are using both quantitative and qualitative data to better understand the severity of inequities experienced by racially marginalized communities. Our research is designed to inform and support our advocacy work. We are proud to serve as founding members of two impactful Chicago-based advocacy coalitions: the Transportation Equity Network (TEN) and the Free To Move (FTM) coalition. With TEN, we are operationalizing racial equity and mobility justice in our region's transportation system. With FTM, we are working to establish racially equitable traffic safety here in Chicago.?Make an annual campaign gift today to execute more compelling and impactful research to move policymakers.

How has Equiticity done so much this?past year??

Our racial equity movement – and our steadfast commitment to racial equity, mobility justice, and environmental justice – has helped us secure generous support from individuals such as yourselves, as well as from foundations, corporations, and government agencies.

As a result, we’ve been privileged to receive significant investments in general operations funding, which propel our movement forward. Our major funders in 2022 include Wayfarer Foundation, Chicago Park District, REI, Energy Foundation, TransitCenter, ComEd, Healthy Communities Foundation, SVP Chicago, IMC Foundation, Main Street America, Microsoft, TechRise, Greenlining, Center for Neighborhood Technology, and Steans Family Foundation.

Please join with our partners in providing the support we need to transform ourselves, our neighborhoods, and our cities.

This is how we build a movement, creating systemic change in our society.?

There’s still time to be part of Equiticity’s racial equity movement this year, by making a 100% tax deductible donation to?The Equiticity 2023 Power + Equity Campaign.?

Please donate today.

Thank you all for your sustained partnership and steadfast support of Equiticity, and for helping us achieve big wins this year.

Warm regards,?

Olatunji Oboi Reed?

President & CEO, Equiticity