Investing In a Shared Future
Resourcing partners.
Building a connected mobility network is like constructing a bridge — each partner is a pillar that must be reinforced with funding, tools, knowledge, and trust. No pillar stands alone; together, they support the weight of sustainable city-wide change.
Resourcing partners is the next step in The Playbook — it outlines the how. How will each partner contribute to reinforcing the shared goal? They need the resources that fit their needs. This step is centered on the support necessary to carry out one’s role in the partnership. The Playbook acknowledges that each partner requires customized resources to strengthen the partnership.
To best advance the coalition’s shared goal, partners need both resources and strategic, consistent messaging to underscore that street improvements benefit everyone. Philanthropy closes that resource gap to encourage cooperation. At this step, City Thread conducts a strategic audit to assess each philanthropic partner’s funding capacity, finalize the messaging approach, and shape a shared action plan and budget.
Community stakeholders must be fully resourced and supported to participate productively in a city-wide project. Community groups need to see their input reflected in real outcomes. City staff need clear priorities from leadership and the assurance that they’ll be backed when they deliver. Elected officials need to know their constituents support the work. And philanthropy needs to see broad buy-in and momentum to invest. When these pieces are aligned, projects succeed.
This step is critical to The Playbook’s success because all work has value and should be respected through some avenue of compensation, whether it's funding or professional development. Just as every pillar contributes to the strength of a bridge, each partner contributes meaningfully to the partnership.
“When it becomes an extra responsibility, that's when relationships can get frayed— when it feels like there's extra responsibility, but not the capacity to deliver on it,” says Dan Favre, former executive director of Bike Easy, a founding member of the New Orleans Complete Streets Coalition. “You build trust by resourcing folks.”
Before City Thread, Sara and Kyle led The Final Mile, an initiative of PeopleForBikes to accelerate the construction of safe and complete bicycle networks in five U.S. cities, including New Orleans. In 24 months, the city invested $30M in street improvements in Algiers, the city’s second oldest neighborhood, including 11 miles of new protected bikeways. The strategy that City Thread partners recommended in this step included tactics like polling the community to solicit documented support, funding coalition members to participate in canvassing efforts, and creating a mini-grant program to fund coalition members for projects that resonated with the people they serve.
“We could collaborate with the folks in the coalition without having to pay them, which solves a lot of issues for us, where we're not playing favorites and having to go through the procurement process,” says Jennifer Ruley, mobility and safety division manager for the Department of Public Works at the City of New Orleans. “It cuts out all those steps that need to happen traditionally, which take a long time, and oftentimes politics gets involved. We avoided that by enabling this grant to pay the partners directly.”
Through strategic resourcing, New Orleans transformed the way it delivered bike infrastructure. By securing funding that enabled direct community partner compensation, technical expertise, and expanded team capacity, the city shifted from an isolated approach to a collaborative one.
This phase of The Playbook ensures that no one has to carry the weight alone. It recognizes that effective collaboration means valuing everyone’s contribution, not just in words, but through tangible support.
Together, let’s figure out what’s needed to reach your goals. Contact us at hello@citythread.org.
