Participatory Budgeting
I am a big fan of collective decision-making. Communities come together to share ideas, build upon one another’s input, such that the end result is far stronger, more robust and thoughtful than a decision made by a single person.
This kind of community organizing has dominated my professional career, including:
Working with Indigenous youth on an art co-op social enterprise at the Native Friendship Centre of Montreal;
Supporting youth and community from the Yellowknives Dene First Nation to translate experiences about traditional physical activity and wellbeing on the land into priorities for the local wellness office; and,
More recently, collaborating with residents, agencies, businesses, and governments to test and prototype ideas to promote urban wellbeing.
That’s why I’m really excited to partner with Councillor Andrew Knack from Nakota Isga in launching a Participatory Budgeting project this summer! We want to invite residents, community groups, neighbours, children, seniors, families to help us spend our ward budget, activate public spaces, and catalyze ideas that you may have had for a long time.
Typically, each councillor has an office budget that covers staffing, communication needs, hosting etc. For the first time, we want to take this budget decision-making process to the streets to seek ideas that can invest these dollars back into our neighbourhoods.
What is Participatory Budgeting?
I first learned about participatory budgeting from my previous work with a national philanthropic foundation. What intrigued me was that unlike a traditional micro-granting process where it is often an adjudication panel that decides which group receives funding, it is community members and applicants themselves who make that decision. Through open dialogue, and transparency of information, people can see each other’s idea submissions, identify areas of shared interest and similar approaches, and find ways to collaborate and synergize, so that limited funding can be amplified for much broader impact.
Participatory budgeting began in Porto Alegre, Brazil back in the ‘80s and is now practiced in communities around the world. These examples inspire me:
In 2013, a Halifax City Councillor started a process to involve community members in spending his ward discretionary funds for positive change. Many Councillors have since followed suit.
In 2021, the City of Montreal invited residents to help prioritize projects to advance social and ecological transition. You can check out the winning projects here.
Since 2011, participatory budgeting has been a key component of the New York City local government that not only results in stronger budgetary decisions but also deeply involves community members.
In all these instances, the scale is much larger than what our two ward offices can manage. But we hope through a learning and testing mindset, we can jumpstart a process with communities that:
Promotes civic literacy and participation;
Engages folks who are not typically engaged in city discussions;
Contributes to a continuous culture shift at the City towards working in an agile, adaptive, and collaborative way; and,
Catalyzes and activates spaces and ideas to foster positive change.
Will you join us?
We will be hosting several community workshops this spring and summer to:
Introduce the idea
Brainstorm
Develop projects
Vote and prioritize
Our goal is to make the process as accessible and open as possible, offering a variety of ways to easily share ideas digitally and in-person (online forms, video or social media submissions, workshops, etc.).Most importantly, we want to have fun and learn together. At our first info session on April 19th, we hope to craft some more criteria for the process and this project together with those of you who participate.
We will make mistakes along the way, but we will also gain much more from the process. Will you join us?
Join us for an info session on April 19th at 5:30PM, online. RSVP here.
