Last November, I started a list to help keep track of the ever-evolving debate around participatory budgeting and its promise and merits, particularly in the United States: Participatory Budgeting: Arguments Pro and Con The goal is to compile a comprehensive list of arguments pro and con Participatory Budgeting (PB). The term participatory budgeting here refers to [...]
Today, the United States released their third Open Government National Action Plan (see also our previous posts here and here). Once again, the plan includes a number of items related to public participation, one of the three open government pillars contained in the original memorandum and directive back in 2009: U.S. Public Participation Playbook (page [...]
I look forward to speaking at Arizona State University's upcoming By the People conference on participatory democracy, civic engagement and citizenship education, December 3-5 in Tempe, AZ (see our earlier mention here). My talk will take a stab at the following: The secret of successful digital engagement: It's not (just) about the technology! As the need for participatory governance [...]
Newly-elected Mayor Sam Liccardo of San José, CA continues to advocate for the introduction of a participatory budgeting program for the city. A quick look back: Here's a May 23, 2013 article in the Mercury News that outlines then-Councilmember Liccardo's original proposal: The idea is to provide $100,000 for each of the 10 council districts to [...]
Via the Participatory Budgeting group on Facebook, Paolo Spada is asking for contributions to a list of online tools that can be applied in a participatory budgeting context. From the Facebook post: Spring break project: applications for e-PB 2015 COMMUNITY CENSUS. This was a project that Lucy Chambers started a few years back. I want [...]
Following the PB Conference in Oakland, CA last month (see here), the Participatory Budgeting Project recently released a new toolkit: "Organizing for Participatory Budgeting: How to start participatory budgeting in your community" (PDF download, registration required). Focused on promoting participatory budgeting in the United States and Canada, the toolkit aims to "help organizers and advocates [...]
I will be leading a workshop at the Participatory Budgeting Conference in Oakland next Friday: 1.4 How to Integrate Technology to Strengthen Your PB Process (Workshop) This workshop is aimed at PB organizers tasked with or interested in developing a digital engagement strategy that optimally supports their overall program. After this session, attendees will be [...]
The Stellar Development Foundation, a not-for-profit organization launched publicly this past week, is developing a new financial platform based on Stellar, their decentralized protocol for sending and receiving money in any pair of currencies. To learn more about the concept, check out their inaugural blog post. Their website contains this interesting tidbit (emphasis mine): Stellar [...]
Update 2014/07/25: The voting period for PB Vallejo is actually September 27 through October 6, 2014. Thanks for the correction, John De La Torre. Update 2014/10/07: Turn-out info for PB Valley, 2013/2014 cycle was released today and has been added. Last May, we released a collaborative spreadsheet on participatory budgeting participation metrics in North America. It has [...]
Late last year, the White House came out with an endorsement of participatory budgeting (or PB, for short) by including the concept prominently in the Second U.S. Open Government National Action Plan. Earlier this week, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) hosted a meeting on the topic, bringing together a group of [...]