Friends -
As I've mentioned to a few of you, through my service as VP of the board of WV Connecting Communities (more info below), I've been working to help our group try to expand our membership and fund our work. We've done well on a shoestring thus far, and I'd like to see us continue. One thought we've had is to judge the interest of trail, outdoor/bike retail, advocacy, race event, and other groups for "group" memberships to serve as policy advisors to our group. We are structured as a 501(c)(3) with the IRS so we can lobby up to 20% of our effort, but may have to change to a 501(c)(4) "Social Welfare Organization" if we want to focus more on lobbying.
I'm asking if you all will complete a very brief online poll and also share it with your statewide networks to assess statewide interest in expanded membership as described below.
The introductory letter is:
"West Virginia Connecting Communities is a statewide nonprofit advocating for more bicycling and walking possibilities. Formerly the WV Cycling Association, we restructured in 2013 to be able to lobby on behalf of advocates interested in broader walking and bicycling needs. Since then, we have been able to successfully lobby for policy change (e.g., 3 foot passing law) and hold the first two WV Bicycling Summits in 2016 and 2017.
We are looking to expand our membership and embrace a role to support a broader array of outdoor interest groups including walking, bicycling, and hiking advocacy, non-profit, and industry groups in addition to individual members.
To that end we would like to understand more about your group, organization, or business. We appreciate your time in filling out a few questions on the following pages. This should take less than 5 minutes of your time.