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Last month, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) held a Bike Commute Challenge that attracted 12,000 individuals from 1,450 workplaces in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Collectively, that pool of participants commuted more than 1.3 million miles by bicycle and potentially saved taxpayers nearly $75,000 in road maintenance costs alone.

So how did they do it? I got in touch with BTA’s Programs Director, Stephanie Noll, to get some insight on that strategies and actions that made the event such a phenomenal success.

• First, the organization has a presence in area workplaces throughout the year. To draw in new participants less familiar with bike commuting, BTA regularly holds Bike Commuting 101 workshops at local businesses and companies. They also rely on current commuters to act as ambassadors for the Challenge and spread the word to co-workers. This year, a month before the Commute Challenge, BTA sent out posters to be displayed in workplaces, contacted former team captains and put out a press release for partners to include in their newsletters.

• To rev up the excitement once the Challenge started, BTA sent out weekly emails to all participants with tips, encouragement, and the announcement of weekly prize drawing winners. They also partnered with 50 bike shops that offered 10 percent discounts to participants, as well as an ad agency that ran 15-second TV ads about the Challenge.

• And they gave participants a way to engage and provide feedback — in a fun, simple way. “When you’re running a web-based Challenge,” Stephanie said, “it’s great to have some mechanisms in which people can reflect back to you the unique, fun, or impressive strategies they’re employing at their workplaces. So we ask riders to submit photos for our ‘Inspiration of the Day’ feature and to send us nominations for our ‘Team Captain of the Year’ award. Without those mechanisms for receiving feedback, we would have far less of an idea of how our program was actual playing out in individual workplaces.”

All of those efforts paid off. The Challenge attracted more than 2,000 first-time bike commuters and featured some workplaces with 100 percent participation rates. An awards ceremony on October 6th celebrated the winners of the competition with beer, tunes, pizza and prizes. And the festivities included a unique opportunity for member engagement with the organization’s executive director: Rob Sadowsky pledged to shave his beard if 50 new members signed up that night. By the end of the evening, Sadowsky’s chin was bare.

In addition to effective outreach and participant engagement, one of most important aspects of BTA’s success is the group’s development of an effective online platform for the Challenge website. Alliance member organizations interested in hosting their own Commuter Challenge are invited to create a login at www.bikecommutechallenge.com and try out the platform to see if it’s a good fit for their programming goals. Questions? Get in touch with Stephanie at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).