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Who We Are

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  • Mission
  • Our Story
  • Strategic Framework
  • Annual Reports

Our Mission

The Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) works with communities across the US and Canada to decide together how to best spend public money. We create and support participatory budgeting (PB) processes that deepen democracy, build stronger communities, and make public budgets more equitable and effective.

Since 2009, PBP has collaborated with grassroots and government partners to launch PB processes in over 40 cities, empowering more than 739,000 people to directly decide how to spend over $400 million in public funds.

Vision

The Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) believes that another way of governance is possible and essential, which is why PBP collaboratively transforms democracy to center community power.  We do this by collaborating with local partners on participatory processes that put real power over real budgets, policies, and decisions in the hands of the communities they impact

Values​

We are rooted in our values in order to transform and expand democracy:

• Equity & Racial Equity
• Transparency & Accessibility
• Support & Experimentation

Our Story

A Brief Timeline

Participatory Budgeting (PB) is developed

Originating in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1989, PB has now spread to multiple cities across the U.S. and Canada.

1989

Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) Launches

We launched with a vision to bring PB to North America and to support the first ever PB process in the United States in Chicago. We worked with local partners and an alderman to invest $1,000,000 in the 49th ward.

With the success of our work there, PBP worked to expand PB practice across the US and Canada, expanding to hundreds of processes over the next decade. These included the first ever process in New York City  – which grew from a handful of districts to over 30 – and Vallejo, the nation’s first citywide process, followed by Boston’s citywide youth-focused process. 

2009

PBP Grows

We had 8 staff and began to focus on expanding PB, while also building out internal infrastructure and operational processes to support our growing team, based across the US.

2013

North American Research Board Established

Making PBP a leader implementing PB, creating Key Performance Indicators, and releasing research to make this work more accessible and clear.

2014

Infrastructure changes at PBP

We transitioned from a regionally focused model to a functional work area set up, allowing us to focus on delineating between our advocacy and our implementation support services.
Shari Davis joined Josh Lerner as Co-Executive Director.

2018

Changes in Leadership

In 2020-21, our founding ED Josh Lerner transitioned out of the organization and our team transitioned to a sociocratically organized team and adopted a new co-leadership structure with three Co-Executive Directors, Shari Davis, Kristina Bank and Kristania De Leon.

This model allows PBP to live our values and engage in building the capacity of our team's leadership to take on projects and ideas that move our mission forward. 

2020

Strengthening our Mission

We expanded our mission in our multi-year strategic plan to match our expanding commitment to participatory democracy. PBP’s new mission is to collaboratively transform democracy to center community power. Our work reconnects government with citizens by engaging communities in real power over real public decisions.

2022

More to come

Over the past 13 years, PBP has partnered with hundreds of organizations to learn about, advocate for, implement and iterate participatory budgeting in cities across the United States and Canada, helping over 740,000 people to directly decide how to spend $400 million in public funds. We have supported 85% of PB processes nationwide. 

We recognize that the transformative impact of community members having a say on the issues that impact their lives doesn’t end with budgets—that’s why we have expanded our focus to strengthening participatory democracy, by building more demand and capacity for community-led decision-making.

Our commitment to advocating for and supporting community-led decision-making rooted in equity, accessibility, and significance, is embodied in our Democracy Beyond Elections coalition and campaign, an initiative that we anchor and manage.

Strategic Framework

This is the strategic decision-making framework that will guide PBP’s future, outlining our vision and the mission / goals we have determined will best help us fulfill our vision. At the foundation of this diagram are the concrete strategies and tactics—the PBP tools—we use to achieve these goals. At the heart of every project we undertake is centering equity in participatory democracy & participatory budgeting implementation. All of our programs use these strategies and tactics, and we use this framework to measure current, and future programs against, to ensure we’re working toward forwarding our mission & vision. 

Vision

PBP collaboratively transforms democracy to center community power.

VALUES
Equity & Racial Equity
Transparency & Accessibility
Support & Experimentation

Mission/ Goals

Build capacity to implement participatory democratic processes

Convene communities of practice & learning

Strategies

Build capacity to implement participatory democratic processes

Convene communities of practice & learning

Design & share research & evaluation

Tactics

Provide technical assistance

Create resources & tools

Convene communities of practice & learning

Design & share research & evaluation

Model participatory operations

Shift narrative to center “good PD”

Vision

PBP collaboratively transforms democracy to center community power.

VALUES
Equity & Racial Equity
Transparency & Accessibility
Support & Experimentation

Mission/ Goals

Build capacity to implement participatory democratic processes

Convene communities of practice & learning

Strategies

Build capacity to implement participatory democratic processes

Convene communities of practice & learning

Design & share research & evaluation

Tactics

Provide technical assistance

Create resources & tools

Convene communities of practice & learning

Design & share research & evaluation

Model participatory operations

Shift narrative to center “good PD”

Annual Reports

Since 2009, PBP has been working with communities across the U.S. and Canada to expand democracy, shift power, and engage in participatory democracy. Explore our annual reports to see where we’ve been and how far we’ve come, and to get geared up for what’s to come!

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