Latitude,
Bicycle Colorado continually writes grants to CDOT for Safe Routes to School programming with schools throughout the state. Sometimes those grants do pay BC enough to justify our two full time education staff, a van, its insurance, gas, bicycles, maintenance etc.. , our desk space, health insurance, phones, heat, and sometimes they don't. We do publish our financials to our membership base through our newsletter and I believe they are also available on our website.
I'm not sure it is fair to compare us to a commercial sales and education company. We are a nonprofit with the mission of creating a more bicycle friendly Colorado. Unless we can get our membership numbers (7,000) closer to matching the actual number of cyclists in Colorado (1,000,000) we will find it quite difficult to find the financial wiggle room to pay for two full time education staff. (and I promise you that BC staff are not living high on the hog!) Like many nonprofits in Colorado, grant writing is essential to keeping the boat afloat.
However, other states/cities have been able to use this funding to show the importance of this kind of programming and then create a more permanent stream of funds for educating students, parents, and teachers on the Safe Routes to School movement. Until we reach either of those two goals (higher membership or a dedicated funding stream) we do need to find a way to pay for this important programming throughout the state and currently that is with federally funded Safe Routes to School monies.
This all said, your questions are good ones and a reminder to us here at BC that we need to be more transparent about where our money goes and how we use it to improve bicycling in Colorado. I hope that clears up any questions you might have had.
Who knows? One day, maybe we’ll get a chance to ride together in these friendly Colorado conditions . 