The People’s Fellowship is designed to harness and develop the expertise of young leaders to work with agencies and organizations to transform democracy. Fellows explore participatory democracy (PD) and community engagement practices by piloting innovations that will help bring active PB & PD processes closer to the people.
What do Fellows do?
Fellows partner with local agencies to design and test youth-led outreach & engagement strategies, facilitate conversations with other youth & community members, support neighborhood research, and help manage digital participatory spaces.
Each cohort of Youth Fellows is carefully selected and trained on principles of community-led decision-making. After training, fellows are paid to advise partner agencies for 8-10 months in the design and implementation of more accessible PB processes. Fellowship staff & agencies apply the fellow’s learnings to their engagement work the following year.
See the fellows in action!
What's In a Name?
The People’s Fellowship was developed in deep collaboration with the Civic Engagement Commision when it partnered with PBP & Pipeline to Power to run the first People’s Fellowship cohort to support the CEC’s PB process- The People’s Money.
Our program name is an example of successful community power building- The People’s Fellowship, along with The CEC’s The People’s Money and The People’s Bus, was used to highlight resources and youth leadership to imagine a future where all New Yorkers take care of each other. PBP continues to call this program the People’s Fellowship in honor of the legacy that began in New York and is spreading to other cities!
Programs & Initiatives
PB Youth Fellowship in Seattle:
In 2022-23, PBP collaborated with the city of Seattle’s participatory budgeting process, The People’s Budget, to bring together a cohort of youth fellows to lead youth engagement and innovation for one of the largest PB processes ever in the US.
Bring The People’s Fellowship to Your City!
Interested in bringing The People’s Fellowship to your city?
