No metaphors here: building an actual bridge.
I was intensely involved in civic affairs back in Detroit (even apart from that coffeehouse I owned). But getting involved in my adopted hometown of Columbus was a halting, frustrating affair. So much of Columbus was monetized, baked, and apportioned. But civics found me once I moved my family into the Cranbrook subdivision in 2016.
I found that our neighborhood was one divided—literally. The stream that bisects the neighborhood was conspicuously unbridged. To be sure: there HAD been a bridge when the neighborhood had been carved out of farmland in 1957, but the years had taken their toll. Worse still, Columbus City Schools, who own the land at the missing crossing, had no plans to replace the bridge. What ensued was a multiyear saga of neighbors teaming up with environmental activists to lobby (and gently twist arms of) local officials, raise a bunch of money, and ultimately build a bridge. An actual, walk-across it, bridge.
Here’s how I helped.
Landing on a story, starting with the facts.
Among the biggest stumbling blocks was getting every neighbor of the same page. Nobody could remember when the bridge was officially removed, but they all had memories of crossing it as kids. Nobody knew that Laura Fay of Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed (FLOW) had already been flexing some of her old grant-writing muscle, and had raised a good amount of funds to replace the bridge. Columbus City Schools, who owned the right of way where the bridge would be built, had no plans to replace the bridge (they’d been busing kids from the north side of the neighborhood to the southside of the neighborhood rather that replace the structure), but they’d said, effectively, “If you want to replace the bridge on your own time and dime, for it.” So we took them up on that.
Short story long: we needed to get our story straight, so I did what I do, and I made a flyer.
This was an early edition, showing the progress, and correcting a rumor Id helped propogate that Cranbrook Elementary was on the chopping block. To be fair, it had been years ago, and sadly it is again now. Still, it got CCS’s attention, which we’d need to get again later…
Seeking wider attention for the project, I pitched the story to several local media outlets, and an a connection with the Columbus Dispatch paid off, and we got some nice coverage. I repurposed (with permission) the story as part of an updated flyer, included it with a call-for-donations door drop, and it yielded a nice amount of financial support from individual neighbor donors. It helped having public awareness later when, after having raised all the necessary funds for the bridge, the CCS official who’d given us the green light stopped returning our calls. I dashed off a letter that was shared with a strategically chosen circle of officials with the power to make things go our way, and they would.
Getting ink, getting mean.
From 2020 into 2021, work was happening in muddy fits and stops. For much of the pandemic, there were a number of large cartons onsite: in fact, the bridge, waiting there in the wind and wet for something. Indeed, things were happening behind the scenes. Important things.
But while something was happening, nobody could tell what it was from looking at it, which left the door wide open for one of the immutable laws of branding: If you don’t tell folks what the story is, they’ll make up their own, and you definitely won’t like it. So in late spring of 2021, I (forcefully) offered my communication skills to the cause. FLOW was driving the volunteer efforts, and mustering the talent, materials and equipment. All I did was help them develop a plan to communicate it all (and they were NOT natural born communicators—get-amazing-things-done-types seldom are.
So, for the neighborhood Facebook page, I concocted and executed a messaging strategy coordinated with volunteer days. It was straight forward answering the simple questions 1) Where we are now, 2) What needs to happen next 3) What you will be doing to help. Don’t feel obligated to read them (the neighbors did, and we had amazing and purposeful turnout) but here are couple:
Telegraphing the final steps.
Pardon my language, but my contributions made a hell of a difference. I hauled my share of dirt, stone, hardware and fiberglass (it’s a fiberglass bridge), but getting the word out, heard, listened to and responded to made a good deal of difference. It got the story straight at the outset and rallied volunteers to the conclusion, the assembed bridge hoisted by a donated crane and dropped into place on the abutments (I missed the actual event—I was in a client presentation where “bridge” factored heavily, and only metaphorically). I was there to welcome the first resident to cross the bridge—an 80-something year-old neighbor who’s an original, 1957-vintage resident of the subdivision. And
I’m damn proud.
Building an actual damn bridge.
It’s a great story, really. I only bored you with my part of it. The project was a true neighborhood effort, with an enormous amount of support from FLOW. Cranbrook happened to count among its people a retired engineer, a guy who installs swimming pools (skid steer loaders and concrete mixers galore), a talented photographer, a seasoned adman/agitator (myself), and dozens of selfless souls with strong backs. Here are some pictures. Come visit.
