SEPT 2014 Newsletter: New Faces, New Projects, #PBConf, PB Talks in the Southwest

Participatory budgeting doubles in size in New York City

This summer, New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito announced that participatory budgeting is expanding to 23 city districts, empowering residents to designate over $25 million dollars to locally developed projects. PBP has been busy training district staff, facilitators, and volunteers to scale up this model PB process – the largest in the US. Public assemblies are already starting around the city. See if your district is participating here, and join us at an assembly to learn more and get involved!

New Faces at PBP

Interest in PB has been exploding in recent years, and PBP is growing rapidly to turn this political opening into a powerful movement to transform democracy. This fall we are adding six new staff thanks to generous support from individual donors and foundations, especially a new grant from the Democracy Fund. Please welcome on board:

Jennifer Godzeno, Deputy Director (New York)
Jennifer is responsible for the strategic development and management of PBP’s programs, including our technical assistance for local PB processes and our work to build the national and international infrastructure necessary to expand and deepen PB.
David Beasley, Communications Director (New York)
David is responsible for the strategic development and management of PBP’s communications, including our communications support for local PB processes and our broader efforts to build powerful messaging that enables PB to grow dramatically.
Isabel Luciano, Program Assistant (New York)
Isabel supports our East Coast projects and other programmatic work.
Solaire Spellen, Program Assistant (Oakland)
Solaire supports our West Coast projects, operations at our Oakland office, and other programmatic work.
Tracy Anderson, Movement Building Associate, part-time (Oakland)
Tracy supports our individual giving and volunteer engagement work, to help the PB movement grow.
Jessica Medina, Organizer, part-time (Long Beach, CA)
Jessica supports community outreach and organizing for PB in Long Beach.

Read more about our new staff here, and apply for a spring internship or volunteer position to join our team!

3rd International Conference on Participatory Budgeting

On September 25-27, over 200 organizers, officials, planners, and researchers will be convening at our PB Conference in California. Speakers from Spain, Portugal, Italy, Senegal, Australia, Canada, and across the United States will share a wide breadth of research and experience, and engage participants in workshops and discussion.

If you’re planning to join us, make sure to register by Friday to reserve your spot – space is limited! If you can’t join us in Oakland and Vallejo, join the conversation on Twitter using #PBConf and by following @PBProject. Or make a donation to sponsor a low-income or youth participant, to help make the conference more accessible!

For information about the schedule and more, visit www.pbconference.org.

Charting a New Path for PB in Buffalo

PBP is supporting the Buffalo Common Council and the Clean Air Coalition of WNY in piloting a new approach for starting PB. This July, Buffalo’s Common Council voted unanimously to establish a PB Committee, tasked with developing a proposal for implementing PB. After years of building support for PB with local community groups and officials, we visited Buffalo this month to launch the new PB Committee. Already, the committee has identified 24 potential pots of money for PB. We’ll continue supporting the committee as it develops its report for Council, due by March 2015.

Upcoming Events

3rd International PB Conference (Bay Area, California): September 25-28

Talks and Trainings by PBP Staff:

International Association for Public Participation Conference (Winnipeg, MB): September 28-30

Making Democracy Fun Book Talk (Tempe, AZ): October 6
Participatory Budgeting Forum (Phoenix, AZ): October 7
Making Democracy Fun book talk (Albuquerque, NM): October 8
Participatory Budgeting Forum (Albuquerque, NM): October 9
League of Kansas Municipalities Annual Conference (Wichita, KS): October 11-13
National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation Conference (Reston, VA): October 17-19
Making Democracy Fun book talk (State College, PA): October 23
Penn State Democracy Medal Talk (State College, PA): October 24
Making Democracy Fun book talk (University of Toronto, Canada ): November 4
National League of Cities (Austin, TX) – Training (Austin, TX): November 19

Let us know if you want us to come to your city!

Get Involved with PBP and help the movement that is making an impact on communities around the world!

1. Spread the Word
We’re tweeting! Follow us @PBProject!
Like us and get access to news and resources.

2. Donate
Invest in participatory democracy by making a tax-deductible donation.

3. Volunteer
Can you contribute a few hours a month to help PB grow? Do you have experience with outreach, facilitation, fundraising, communications, or design? Sign up to volunteer.

4. Organize
Want to start a PB process in your city, school or neighborhood? Get started here.

Featured Book

Executive Director, Josh Lerner, recently published Making Democracy Fun, on MIT Press. The book explores how good game design can animate community meetings and democratic processes, through competition, collaboration, clear rules, engaging sounds and visuals, and other game mechanics. He writes from over a decade of practice and research, to show how local governments and organizations can make democracy work by making it fun.