Biking 125 Miles For Brooklyn: The Life Of A Brooklyn Org Program Officer

As a Program Officer at Brooklyn Org, site visit season has quickly become my favorite time of year because I get to combine two things I love – biking, and talking to people about their work. This August and September, I biked 125 miles over 6 weeks to visit and learn more about nonprofits across Brooklyn (and a small handful with offices in Manhattan who do work in Brooklyn). I always feel more connected to each neighborhood when I get there by bike, seeing how each place is connected to my own home or work neighborhoods. As I biked to each visit, these rides also reminded me what I love about Brooklyn – the vibrant diversity of people, foods, cultures, and languages.

Outside of work, I have been biking in Brooklyn for over a decade, and it is my favorite way to get around this city in all seasons. Through my years of biking, I’ve learned so much about the city: how architecture changes neighborhood to neighborhood, where street vendors post up selling watermelon or ice cream in the summer, how trees lining the blocks change season to season, and which streets are the best (Willoughby Ave.) and worst (5th Ave.) to bike down.

This year, Brooklyn Org received nearly 300 funding applications through our new rolling grant application process. After a detailed review and a lot of hard decisions, the Programs team selected 26 finalist organizations who were invited to submit a full proposal as a next step and participate in a site visit. We do these site visits in person because at Brooklyn Org, we believe we can learn more by having a conversation with an organization than we can through a written proposal alone. As someone who spends much of the rest of the year on a computer sending emails and doing zoom calls, I relish the opportunity to be out of the office, meet people in real life, and have in-depth conversations about the work that Brooklyn Org’s funding supports.

On these site visits, I get to hear the personal stories of nonprofit leaders and organizations who saw a need in their community and stepped up to fill it. I learn directly from staff and community members about what this looks like day-to-day so I gain a deeper understanding of their work, and I see firsthand the offices that act as community gathering spaces and resource hubs. Organizations can write about all of this in a grant application, but there is no substitute for sitting across from someone, asking thoughtful questions, and hearing about their passion for the work and why it matters in their own words.

With site visits wrapped up for this year, we are excited to announce the recipients of our next round of grants early this winter (sign up for our newsletter below to stay in the loop!). And in the meantime, I’m already getting ready to get back on my bike again for my annual support visits to check in with our current grantee partners across Brooklyn.