The Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) has empowered more than 300,000 people by implementing participatory  budgeting (PB) to directly decide how to spend almost $240 million in public funds in 17 cities, across a number of different issues affecting local communities. One of these issues is transportation infrastructure. Conventional transportation planning leaves too many communities without…

Read More

On December 10th, PBP’s Co-Executive Director, Shari Davis was invited to join a number of problem solvers from across the country to speak at the The Philadelphia Citizen’s 2nd annual Ideas We Should Steal Festival. This festival is an annual full-day convening that brings together the most innovative urban thinkers and global thought leaders together…

Read More

Happy Holidays from all of us at PBP! After a busy 2019 launching exciting new projects like Democracy Beyond Elections and PBCan, and working with incredible communities like students in Merced and educators in NYC, we took some time in November, during our staff retreat, to look at the big picture. We want to extend a big thank you…

Read More

Our systemically undemocratic system of governance privileges the interests of the elite over the majority. In an age of constant feedback loops and distributed power – from smartphones to YouTube to #MeToo – access to democracy remains largely limited to occasionally electing a few leaders to decide for us. This structural inequality may work well…

Read More
Crowd of people with some raising their hands. Caption: How Participatory Budgeting is Improving Democracy, Shari Davis

Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) Co-Executive Director Shari Davis, recently joined Jonathan Arias on an episode of the Building A New America podcast, a show that reconsiders how laws that were created centuries ago, shape our lives today. In the episode titled, “How Participatory Budgeting is Improving Democracy with Obama Fellow Shari Davis,” Shari and Jonathan…

Read More

What comes to mind when you think of who leads our democracy? Too often, we don’t imagine people in positions of power who actually reflect the diverse communities they serve. This especially holds true for historically marginalized communities, including people of color, immigrants, low-income people, youth, people with disabilities, and formerly incarcerated individuals. In preparation…

Read More

Unleashing Student Power in Colleges and Universities By: Eric Billbrough Special thanks to Salvator Asaro, Alexander Kolokotronis, Jenni Innes, William Novello, Michael Menser, and Jacob Klipstein for sharing their experiences with PB and student government at their colleges and for their continued efforts to organize for more democratic campuses. As summer comes to a close,…

Read More

Every year PBP donors join together and do a PB process of our own – deciding together on how to spend a portion of the PBP budget for the year. It’s a PB process for PBP, PB2! Every year, PBP supporters from across the country vote online and in person by becoming donors on a…

Read More

We are celebrating 10 years of transforming democracy and are proud to share our incredible victories from 2018 and our first decade of work. We can’t wait for you to be part of our vision for the future of the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP). With your support, we can create a more just and equitable…

Read More

Celebrating 10 years of transforming democracy with you. For the past decade, the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) has been building a movement to transform our democracy. We have expanded and deepened democratic participation in government, especially by communities with the greatest needs. To celebrate, we’re hosting a 10th Anniversary Benefit at Prime Produce in New…

Read More