PBP Announces Our Co-Executive Directors
The Participatory Budgeting Project is excited to announce our Co-Executive Directors: Kristania De Leon, Kristina Banks, and Shari Davis!
Throughout 2020, a year of incredible transition inside and outside of our organization, the team at the Participatory Budgeting Project dove deep and took time to examine how we live into our values of equity, transparency, and shared decision-making power. Following our 10-year anniversary, we worked collaboratively to gain alignment on our shared vision for PBP’s structure and culture. We tapped into our experiences and practice of participatory budgeting and led with the strongly held belief that we can do more, get further, and build stronger relationships when we work together.
And together, we have determined a bold direction for the years to come.
The whole PBP team is pleased to announce our new organizational structure and our Co-Executive Directors — three visionary leaders who bring their passion, immense gifts, and experience to forge a path forward.
Meet Our Co-Executive Directors
Kristania De Leon brings years of experience in deepening community leadership in public policy and systems change with an emphasis on social determinants of health and justice. Since joining PBP in 2019, she has overseen the growth of PBP’s network and advocacy strategies, including our justice programming. In this new role, she will focus on supporting PBP program team members and work areas. Kristania is excited to work with the PBP program staff to deepen our current practices, incorporate more just approaches, and create more opportunities for internal and external learning and collaboration.
Kristina Banks brings years of experience in nonprofit management and administration to PBP, ensuring that the needs of the team are a priority. She joined the team in 2018 and has since updated and improved internal systems to grow organizational capacity and reach. Kristina’s focus in this new leadership role will be on continuous improvement of PBP’s infrastructure that supports the growth and development of the team and organization as a whole. Kristina is excited to continue this work with all PBP staff to build and refine organizational structures that deeply reflect our values.
Shari Davis brings years of government, youth engagement and public health experience to leadership focused on authentic engagement and building support around community- led processes. Their leadership will include supporting the team around engagements, fundraising and communications. Shari is passionate about building spaces for leaders of all backgrounds to lead with real community power.
For over 10 years, PBP has been an organization committed to equity, systems change and growing community- led decision-making to build community power. We are proud of the work we have done to reimagine our organizational structure, including elements of the sociocratic model.
And this work doesn't stop here.
As we continue to grow, evolve, and learn together, we encourage and welcome our partners to join us on this journey into the next phase of PBP. You can continue to support our work by making a gift today, following us on Twitter and Facebook, and making sure you're signed up on our mailing list to stay up-to date.