Lucas Cioffi Interview from NCDD Seattle

Posted on November 22, 2013 by Andy Fluke

At the 2012 NCDD national conference in Seattle, NCDD member and filmmaker Jeffrey Abelson sat down with over a dozen leaders in our community to ask them about their work and their hopes and concerns for our field and for democratic governance in our country.

Today we’re featuring the interview with Lucas Cioffi, founder of Athena Bridge and currently a member of the NCDD board of directors…

See the “NCDD 2012” tag for more videos from NCDD Seattle, which brought together 400 leaders and innovators in our field. You can also check out Jeffrey Abelson’s Song of a Citizen YouTube channel and our NCDD 2012 Seattle playlist on YouTube.

“Are We There Yet?” Residents of Central Arkansas use online game to create roadmap for the future

Posted on November 22, 2013 by EngagingCities

This article first appeared on EngagingCities but we’d like to share it here with the NCDD community.

How do you get citizens to give feedback about their ideas for the community, while also educating them on the inherent repercussions of their preferences? How do you involve the public in your 30-year plan, while instilling an appreciation for how every decision affects the overall timeline and outcome?

You get them to play a game.

Playing a game – planning a future

The residents of Central Arkansas have been helping to shape their region’s future through a FlipSides game – an online interactive activity – that allows them to give feedback on topics such as transportation infrastructure, emerging trends, walkability, and funding decisions. Responsive infographics help players envision the effects their ideas would have on the completion timeline for each topic. Appropriately named “Are we there yet?”, this playful tool has provided valuable feedback to the decision-makers for the region’s planning effort, Imagine Central Arkansas.

Since it’s mid-June launch, hundreds of Arkansas residents have played “Are we there yet?”, both online and at events throughout the area. People were encouraged to access the game to let their voice be heard while learning more about the factors that influence the final plan. As an extra incentive, each player was registered in an iPad mini giveaway. The iPad was won by a Searcy resident, but the whole community will benefit from increased understanding of the give-and-take type of decision-making that is native to complex projects.

Real-time results

One of the most valuable features of the game is the immediate visual feedback players receive as they answer questions and define priorities. Not only do citizens get to choose how to achieve the regional vision, they get to experience in real-time the trade-offs that come with any decision or development.

As you proceed through the steps of the game, you move a slider or checkbox to indicate your opinion about a specific topic – for example, your level of support for policies that accommodate pedestrians and cyclists. If you indicate strong support, the timelines on the right will immediately show that based on your response, the completion of “Local Transit Goals” would be accomplished by the year 2046. If you had not supported the pedestrian policies, but instead supported investing in current transportation systems before creating new ones, the “Local Transit Goals” would not be accomplished until 2050. Each step of the game contains multiple options and layers of effects, all depending on one another, that demonstrate the complicated nature of a regional plan.

Distinguishing it from other popular engagement methods, the game’s focus goes beyond mere opinion-gathering. It requires players to think through the “flip sides” of each decision and to realize that every action will have impact on all other parts of the project. It puts the citizen briefly in the driver’s seat, making the decisions that planners must deal with every day. In short, “Are we there yet?” is more about HOW we get there than WHERE we are trying to go.

The next 30 years

Imagine Central Arkansas has provided “Are We There Yet?” as one of the last phases in their outreach strategy before drafting the final plan for the region. This means the choices and information in the game are more refined than during previous engagement efforts. Prior campaigns have included “Treasured Places”, where residents were encouraged to photograph, map, and digitally explore their favorite local places; and “Choose Your Future”, another digital activity that allowed people to prioritize about everything in their future, from parks to mobility to economy and beyond. In this latest outreach, residents are finally asked to try to balance their opinions with realities and challenges.

“Are we there yet?” is powered by FlipSides, an online platform that allows decision-makers to engage the public about specific trade-offs inherent to planning projects. While Imagine Central Arkansas has used the platform to focus on goals and timelines, FlipSides can be tailored to fit any project and provides planners with valuable feedback about public opinion and priorities.

As urban planners look for more relevant ways to engage their audience, many are turning to online tools, and games in particular. Arkansas has joined other cities in the experiment of playful public outreach, and the results have been positive. Perhaps the greatest benefit will be to the citizens who, in taking a moment to stop and think about the future of their community, will leave with a greater appreciation for the complexities of public planning.

Developing “Text, Talk, and Act”: A new strategy for combining ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ engagement

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Matt Leighninger

NCDD members may be interested in contributing to the development of a new public engagement process that will roll out in December as part of the National Dialogue on Mental Health. “Text, Talk, and Act” has been developed by Matt Leighninger of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium (DDC), the other members of the National Dialogue’s Creating Community Solutions partnership, and the directors of two civic technology nonprofits: Michelle Lee of Textizen and Michael Smith of United Americans. Sandy Heierbacher of NCDD, Raquel Goodrich of the National Institute for Civil Discourse, and Mary Jacksteit and Sue McCormack of CCS have been instrumental in making this happen.

We developed this process because we were looking for a way to involve more young people, with the technology they use most, in a way that captures national excitement and produces meaningful small-group dialogue.

Essentially, what we are doing is combining the strengths of ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ engagement. Thick engagement has been a key element of public participation for a long time, though it has proliferated dramatically in the last twenty years; it happens mainly in groups, either face-to-face, online, or both, and features various forms of dialogue, deliberation, action planning, and policy choicework. Thin engagement has developed more recently; it happens mainly online, and is easier, faster, and potentially more viral – it is done by individuals, who are often motivated by feeling a part of some larger movement or cause.

Both thin and thick engagement have their merits – and their limitations. We wanted to find better ways to weave together these two strands, thickening the thin forms and thinning out the thick. “Text, Talk, and Act” resulted directly from this conversation.

Like most kinds of thin engagement, “Text, Talk, and Act” is easy to organize. You don’t need moderators, discussion materials, computers, or screens: just participants with text-capable cellphones. (If not everyone has a cellphone, you need only ensure that there is one cellphone per small group.)

Participants form into groups of 4-6 people, then start the 60-minute process by texting ‘START’ to 89800.
They receive a welcome text, followed quickly by a few polling questions about mental health, such as “1 in 5 people experience mental illness each year. Take a guess: Half of all mental health problems begin at age: A) 14, B) 24, C) 30”
Each time the participant texts in a response, they receive a text with the next question.
Aggregated results of the polling can be viewed online in real time.
Participants are asked to accept some guidelines: “Let’s talk guidelines: 1. Listen w/ respect, 2. It’s OK to disagree but don’t make it personal, 3. What’s said here stays here. Is this OK?”
The participants then receive the first of several dialogue questions, including: “Without naming names, talk about how mental health issues have affected you or people you know (Take 15 mins to discuss in groups & reply NEXT to go on.)”
Responses to these dialogue questions are not recorded. (And phone numbers are not kept in the system after the process has ended.)
Next in the sequence are polling and dialogue questions on the best ways to “make a difference” on mental health issues.
One of the final questions asks participants to “commit to 1 action to help make a difference” – participants can text in their ideas, which can then be viewed online along with other ideas from their school, university, or community.

The process is designed to last one hour, but the technology allows people to start any time they like (on December 5th), and take as long as they like. Participants will also be able to organize a “Text, Talk, and Act” event after the 5th.

We used the Textizen platform for the high school pilot of “Text, Talk, and Act,” held at Rex Putnam High School in Milwaukie, Oregon. “This exercise has created a more trusting environment in our class,” one student said. “We understand each other better now.” Our college pilot, at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island, used the United Americans platform. Please contact either Textizen or United Americans if you are interested in using this process.

Meanwhile, please join us on December 5th in trying out this new process! There are three easy steps:

Bring some people together on the 5th
Have them form into groups of 4-5, with at least one cellphone per group
Ask them to text “START” to 89800

Learn more and sign up for updates at www.creatingcommunitysolutions.org/texttalkact, and see Sandy’s previous post about the project at www.ncdd.org/13369 (including the infographic NCDD’s Andy Fluke created for the project!).

putting action in the state standards

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Peter

I am in St. Louis for the big annual gathering of social studies teachers, the National Council for the Social Studies conference. Last fall, the NCSS released a new voluntary framework for state standards entitled College, Career, and Civic Life (C3). For full disclosure, I helped write it. One part that seems especially important to me is the section near the end about “taking informed action” (shown below). I will be discussing why this is important and what it means in classrooms.

At each level, we ask students to analyze a problem, then consider options for addressing the problem, and then make deliberative decisions about what they will do. The scope of action expands from the classroom in grades k-2 to beyond the school by 12th grade.

These standards were written by a large group, but they are consistent with my personal view that good citizens deliberate. By talking and listening to people who are different from ourselves, we learn and enlarge our understanding. We check our values, strategies, and facts with other people. We form ideas about topics that we didn’t even consider before we talked and listened. We also make ourselves accountable to our fellow citizens.

But (I argue) deliberation is not enough. Talking without ever acting is pretty empty. You can say most anything without learning from the results or affecting the world. Deliberation is most valuable when it is connected to work or action. At least sometimes, we should be part of groups that talk about what we should do, then actually do what we have talked about doing, and then reflect on the experience, holding themselves ourselves for the results. This is both the best way to improve the world and the best way to learn to be a good citizen.

Concretely, “taking action” can mean many things: not just community service, and definitely not just political activism (which is hard for a public school to recognize), but also managing and leading student groups, organizing public events, and creating and sharing knowledge.

As Meira Levinson and I argue in the new issue of the NCSS journal, taking action is nothing new.* There is a great old tradition of American students being asked to deliberate and then act as part of their social studies classes. If anything, I suspect the prevalence of action has declined because high schools now mimic colleges (which makes social studies into History or Poli Sci 101 for teenagers) and because conventional standardized tests cannot measure students’ facility at deliberation and action. The new framework, if taken seriously, would require a whole new approach to assessing students’ work.

*Meira Levinson and Peter Levine, “Taking Informed Action to Engage Students in Civic Life,” Social Education, vol. 77, no. 6 (Nov/Dec, 2013) pp. 337-9

The post putting action in the state standards appeared first on Peter Levine.

Collaborate in IAP2′s Write-A-Thon on Friday

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Roshan Bliss

Do you have some free time this Friday, November 22nd? If you do, we hope you consider helping out our partners at IAP2 USA (an NCDD organizational member) with their “write-a-thon” event, a collaborative work day to improve its website and tidy up after IAP2 USA’s great 2013 conference. Whether you have 15 minutes or the whole afternoon, there’s something you can do to help!

You can sign up to help and find out more about the day on this Google Doc. Here’s how it will work:

The Communications Team will do some basic prep work, such as setting up an environment for collaborative writing, listing the areas that need work and providing the necessary instructions.

The day of the write-a-thon, November 22, we’ll start with a kick-off conference call in the morning. We’ll also schedule brief check-ins throughout the day (like every other hour or so) to make it easy for people who join late catch up quickly. These calls would also help us coordinate tasks among our distributed team and resolve any critical questions or issues.

While the main event will take place over the course of just one day, we will probably have everything ready a couple days prior so volunteers can get a head start if they want. And we’d probably leave it open for contributions over the weekend.

Updating the navigation structure of our website and swapping out content won’t actually take that long. Who knows, the new and improved website might launch before Thanksgiving.

A write-a-thon is a participatory method that has application for public participation work. This is a chance for you to experience this innovative format hands-on while also helping IAP2 USA. Win/win!

The whole day will kick off with a conference call briefing at 12pm Eastern/9am Pacific (Dial-in info: 1-213-342-3000 / 268555#). This is what you can expect:

We’ll be using Google Docs as our collaboration environment. The main document is now up and running and has more details, incl. dial-in information for our kick-off call and several other check-ins throughout the day and a first list of content areas we plan to tackle.

If you’d like to get involved, here’s what you do:

Head to the Google Doc and add your name to the list of participants.

Join us for our 10-minute kick-off call at 9am Pacific (12pm Eastern) on Friday or for any of the other check-ins

If you have further questions, just get in touch (leave a comment below, contact the office or complete our volunteer sign-up form to join the communications team)

Remember, every small contribution is welcome! Whether you have 20 minutes to spare in between meetings, an hour at the airport or an entire afternoon — there will be plenty of opportunities to help out.

You can find more info about the event and how you can help below, or you can visit their blog to see the full original post or the final update. Thanks in advance to everyone who chips into this great collaborative process!

Audio from November’s Confab Call on Rockefeller’s GATHER

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Sandy Heierbacher

Confab bubble image Yesterday’s confab call (Nov 20th) on the Rockefeller Foundation’s new publication on convening was a great one! About 80 people participated, and our speakers and facilitator did a fabulous job.

If you missed it, you can listen to the audio archive here, and be sure to check out the dynamic Hackpad doc where many participants were taking notes, asking and answering questions, and introducing themselves.

Our confab speakers yesterday were instrumental in the Rockefeller publication GATHER: The Art & Science of Effective Convening:

Rob Garris, Managing Director at Rockefeller Foundation. Rob oversees their Bellagio conference center, and oversaw the creation of GATHER
Noah Rimland Flower, Monitor Institute. Noah is one of GATHER’s two co-authors and led the content creation

GATHER is a free hands-on guidebook for all convening designers and social change leaders who want to tap into a group’s collective intelligence and make substantial progress on a shared challenge. (Download or purchase it at www.monitorinstitute.com/what-we-think/gather.)

The gorgeous publication provides simple frameworks for the questions that are often ignored: whether convening is the right tool to use to advance a strategic agenda, and how a convening can be used to achieve a specific purpose. It helps you understand how to customize the design to fit that purpose, laying out a clear series of steps for what is a naturally chaotic workflow. It then offers principles to use for each of the many tactical choices involved. GATHER and its accompanying workshop materials are designed for you to use in your own work, with a team, and with larger groups both inside and outside an organization.

On yesterday’s confab, we discussed:

How convening is increasingly being used as a strategic tool for foundations
Mis-steps many convening designers make, and how to avoid them
Examples of how convening can be used for societal problem-solving
How the presence of funders can influence a convening
How do you know when you’re addressing the right problem and involving the right people
How to determine the best size (number of participants) for your convening
And much more!

And here are links to some great resources that were brought up on yesterday’s call…

Monitor Institute’s new publication Harnessing Collaborative Technologies, on the emerging tech tools that can be used to help funders work together
In addition to the gorgeous 43-page report, a super-useful interactive tool has been developed by GrantCraft at http://collaboration.grantcraft.org to help people identify tools to facilitate collaboration.
From the Kids’ Table to the Adults’ Table: Taking Relationships Seriously in a World of Networks, by John Esterle (Whitman Institute), Malka Kopell and Palma Strand.
New report by Special D Events prepared for the Kellogg Foundation, Convenings 2.0: Connecting adult learning, communication strategies and event logistics to build stronger relationships

To stay updated on NCDD’s future confab calls and all of our activities, be sure to join NCDD! Note that all confab audio recordings (and archives of the collaborative docs created during them) can be found in the NCDD Confab Archives tag.

Corporate Spying Against Citizen Activists

Posted on November 21, 2013 by David Bollier

There are the official stories that we tell ourselves about constitutional democracy and citizen rights -- and then there are the ugly political realities of the struggle against unaccountable power. Gary Ruskin, a veteran activist (most recently in the California voter initiative for GMO labeling), shines a bright light on the latter in a new report, Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations (pdf file), just published by Essential Information.

Ruskin’s report exposes a world about which we have only fragmentary, accidental knowledge. But enough IS known to confirm that large corporations carry out a broad range of corporate espionage activities against citizen activists for exercising their constitutional rights (to petition their government for change and to publicly speak out on public policies).

“The corporate capacity for espionage has skyrocketed in recent years,” writes Ruskin. “Most major companies now have a chief corporate security officer tasked with assessing and mitigating ‘threats’ of all sorts – including from nonprofit organizations. And there is now a surfeit of private investigations firms willing and able to conduct sophisticated spying operations against nonprofits.” Many of these “security” personnel are former intelligence, military and law enforcement officers who once worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), US military, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Secret Service and local police departments.

None of this should be entirely surprising. The early labor movement in the US was often illegally attacked and infiltrated by Pinkerton thugs. In 1965, General Motors notoriously hired private detectives to investigate Ralph Nader’s private life and try to dig up incriminating information about him. Nader, then a 31-year-old unknown, had just published a book, Unsafe at Any Speed, which exposed the designed-in dangers of automobiles. The revelation of GM’s tactics and its awareness of its cars’ defects unleashed a ferocious backlash, enough to make Nader a famous crusader and to spur enactment of a new federal agency to regulate auto safety. More recently, police and corporate infiltration of the Occupy movement has occurred. (David Graeber’s recent book, The Democracy Project, has some good accounts of this. See also The Progressive magazine.)

While Ruskin concedes that his accounts represent only “a few snapshots, taken mostly at random arising from brilliant strokes of luck,” his report documents an alarming range of acts of corporate espionage or planned espionage. Among the highly unethical and/or illegal acts committed: surveillance, infiltration, manipulation and dirty tricks.

Learning from NYC’s Engagement

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Roshan Bliss

In the last month, Dr. Will Friedman of Public Agenda, an NCDD organizational member, has written two great pieces sharing his reflections on public problem-solving in his native New York City that were too good not to share wanted to share.

In his first piece on civic inclusion, Will shared a number of inspiring examples of ways that New Yorkers from traditionally marginalized groups and backgrounds have engaged in addressing the issues in their communities. And his second piece on post-Hurricane Sandy engagement in NYC, he shares reflections on the need for public, collaborative problem solving as the city grapples with the changes it needs to make to become more resilient after such disasters, and it included some choice nuggets of insight, not only for New Yorkers, but for all of us working in public engagement.

On grappling with the challenges posed to communities by major climate events, he writes:

The challenges we face are unprecedented and involve not only rebuilding and renewing, but adapting and reinventing. We have options to choose from, including constructing a flood barrier, changing building codes, or limiting waterfront development.

These are only a few of our options, and none of them are easy. Choosing the fairest and most effective approach will take creativity and collaboration, and a high-functioning democratic process that builds authentic public will and support for bold action…

The task will require more than just smart designers, power brokers and public officials influencing and making calls on policy. A challenge at this level will take thousands of small efforts on the parts of individuals and communities. It will take a number of big ideas, things that people can’t do by themselves, and things that the government can’t do without the support of the citizenry. Above all, it will require real collaboration, not only among national, state and local authorities, but also among leaders and citizens.

Importantly, he notes that what will not work is if “business-as-usual” continues, but also acknowledges that we also aren’t ready to engage publics at the scale and depth that is needed:

The age of backroom powerbrokers making the big decisions for the little people is over. At the same time, the mechanisms for engaging citizens in productive consideration of, and participation in, solutions are not in place.

The solutions we need do, in fact, lie in building the “high-functioning” democratic processes that Will points to. And building such process, ones that are suited to the urgent but complex decisions facing our society, is a challenge that fields like ours must be taking on.

But how do we get there? Will has some suggestions:

We do, though, know some of the principles and practices that can make a real difference in helping leaders and citizens collaborate to overcome arguments and move toward sustainable solutions. These include:

Knowing when to include the public. The public feels more strongly about having a voice in some decisions more than others. Taking the time to understand which is which saves time and energy.

Presenting the practical choices. Residents need to understand the realistic choices the city faces in ways they can understand and relate to. In particular, they need to understand the practical pros, cons and tradeoffs of different solutions. It’s not enough to explain what these options are to citizens, they need to know what they mean for their own lives and for the life of their city. In practical terms that all residents can understand, what are the benefits, downsides, costs and unknowns?

Providing the time and space for stable judgment. People need opportunities to not only consider the choices, but to talk to people about them, to hear others talking about them, and to let them sink in and percolate with their values, concerns and interests. Well-designed community dialogues, online discussion groups and thoughtful television and radio discussions are some of the ways in which raw public opinion becomes more stable and responsible.

We can’t afford for the current fruitful conversations to bog down in wishful thinking or petty bickering. To move forward, we must face our choices, weigh their tradeoffs, and work together to shape a vision for New York’s future.

If we succeed, we’ll not only do great things for a great city, we can also become an example of working through disagreements to make progress on a tough public problem together.

He may be right that the lessons that come from New York City’s attempts to work through its public problems can be instructive for the rest of the country, and indeed, the world. Certainly, the Big Apple has its own quirks and nuances, but if residents and communities in a city as large and diverse as NYC can build effective, equitable, and creative processes that genuinely engage the public in solving shared problems, it bodes well for the rest of us and the futures of our communities.

New York has enormous challenges ahead of it. But with collaboration-minded leaders like Will and many other NCDDers hard at work, it is absolutely possible that the city’s experiments in big, new forms of deliberation and engagement will provide a model that folks in our field can build on and adapt successfully to our own local realities.

We will be pulling for them.

You can read Will’s full articles at PublicAgenda.org. Find his civic inclusion piece here, and his post-Sandy piece here.

the new information technologies empower whom?

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Peter

(Frederick, MD) Within the past week, I have read two good manuscript chapters about the Dreamers and how they have used social media to change the public debate about naturalization and citizenship rights–even though they are young, not rich, and not even legally citizens. That kind of example suggests that the Internet strengthens the disadvantaged.

On the other hand, we have all read about the NSA’s monitoring of electronic communications, domestic and foreign. One of the most telling episodes in that story was Google’s outraged discovery that the NSA taps its data. Google has–and the NSA wants–a detailed profile of almost every Internet user in the world, valuable for marketers and spooks. This kind of example suggests that the Internet strengthens the strong.

It could do both, depending on context; and the balance may shift over time. To what extent various parties are empowered is an ongoing empirical question. But I would suggest a conceptual distinction to help guide the inquiry.

Part of politics is authoritative decision-making about rules or goods. That makes it substantially zero-sum. For instance, a win for the pro-choice side is a loss for the pro-life side. (However, everyone may gain from having a peaceful and efficient process for deciding contentious issues.) Insofar as politics is zero-sum, all parties will use the new technologies to try to win. It is an open question who will gain, relative to the others. Those who increase their share of power could be the traditionally weak, the traditionally strong, or both at the expense of the middle.

Some authoritative decision-making is not zero-sum. For example, the passage of same-sex marriage legislation is a loss for its opponents, but not if they decide that they like same-sex marriage (as millions have done). A shift in actual beliefs can enable a win-win outcome. The new electronic media are certainly changing the ways that public opinions shift. Again, it is an open empirical question whether this is a good thing. We have recently seen a rapid change in opinion favorable to gay rights but also a substantial erosion of belief in climate change.

Some politics is win-win or constructive interaction. For instance, when people collectively create Wikipedia, they are producing a public asset, and that is a political outcome. Yet, leaving aside some very hot struggles about particular Wikipedia pages, this effort is not adversarial.

When politics is collaborative, some may gain more than others. For instance, Wikipedia doesn’t do you much good if you can’t read. But it needn’t actually hurt anyone, and it may confer its benefits broadly. It enriches the commonwealth.

The Internet clearly has constructive outcomes like this. On the other hand, even Wikipedia uses carbon to run. That is a negative externality, and it is only an example of such. If Craigslist killed the daily newspaper, that was another casualty.

I have deliberately reached no conclusions here but have simply suggested that if we want to think about who is empowered by the new electronic media, it is worth dividing the topic into three parts: rivalrous politics, persuasive politics, and collaborative politics.

The post the new information technologies empower whom? appeared first on Peter Levine.

First Youth Participatory Budgeting Process in the US

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Roshan Bliss

The Participatory Budgeting Project, an NCDD organizational member, recently shared a press release announcing an exciting new initiative they are part of in Boston. You can read the statement below, or find the original post on the PBP blog by clicking here. It also mentions that PBP is seeking a youth organizer for this project, so if you know people who can be positive allies to the young people of this initiative, please share the job announcement with them.

For me, it is crucial for our society that youth have chances to engage in real, consequential democratic processes early and often. Like Takoma Park, MD’s recent decision to decrease the voting age to 16, this initiative represents a step toward more meaningful youth engagement in our government. I’m encouraged.

Boston’s Youth to Decide How to Allocate $1 Million of City’s FY14 Budget

City Announces Partnership with The Participatory Budgeting Project, Search for Youth Organizer Underway

Mayor Thomas M. Menino today announced the City of Boston is partnering with non-profit organization The Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) on the pilot year of the City’s youth participatory budgeting process. For the first time, the City of Boston has set aside $1 million for youth to allocate through a year-long budgeting process. Through participatory budgeting, young Bostonians will identify projects to improve their communities, vet those projects, consider trade-offs, and vote on how to spend the $1 million. The process will be a collaboration between PBP, the Mayor’s Youth Council and Boston Centers for Youth and Families.

“Our most important collection of talent lies in our young people,” Mayor Menino said. “It is so important to have our young people engaged in government, and to make sure their voices are heard when it comes to improving their neighborhoods. This process puts the power in their hands, and will show them what kind of impact they can make on our city.”

A search is underway for a youth organizer who will be responsible for engaging young Bostonians in the process and working closely with both PBP and City of Boston staff. Those interested in learning more about the Youth Organizer position should visit: www.idealist.org/view/job/DgD2ZBfCFz5P/.

Young residents, community-based organizations and youth advocates will come together in a Steering Committee to begin to discuss the design and execution of the process. The Mayor’s Youth Council has invited high school teens and youth advocates from across the city to an info session on December 10 at 5:45 p.m. in City Hall. Those who would like to RSVP for the session should email: YouthCouncil@boston.gov.

“Participatory budgeting is a real school of democracy. Young people across Boston will learn democracy by doing – and decide how to spend $1 million on concrete improvements to their communities. I’m excited to work with the City and other community partners to build this groundbreaking new model for youth engagement and empowerment,” said Josh Lerner, Executive Director of The Participatory Budgeting Project.

There is already a buzz in Boston about the “1 Million Dollar Question.” Mayor’s Youth Council representatives and allies from neighborhoods across the city have begun asking their peers how $1 million could be spent to make Boston an even better city for youth. “We are going to get a chance to identify items that are important to us, to have our voices heard, and to see projects that will benefit the city for a long time to come,” said Kayla Knight, a Roxbury Representative on the Mayor’s Youth Council.

In April, Mayor Menino presented his $2.6 billion Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2014 and five year $1.8 billion Capital Plan, including $196 million in new FY 2014 project authorizations. The FY 2014 budget includes initiatives that keep Boston at the forefront of reinvention: changes at Boston Public Schools to increase access to quality, new housing to meet the needs of young professionals and middle-class families, and online learning for Boston’s neighborhoods. At the core of the budget is a desire to continue to build neighborhoods, provide residents an unparalleled quality of life, and support neighbors as they help one another.

Participatory budgeting originated in Brazil in 1989 and has been successful in U.S. cities including New York, Vallejo (CA), and Chicago. There are now more than 1,500 participatory budgets around the world, most at the city level. Participatory budgeting has also been used for counties, states, housing authorities, schools and school systems, universities, coalitions, and other public agencies. For more information on participatory budgeting, visit: www.participatorybudgeting.org.

More Responses to the launch of PB Boston:

“I am thrilled that the City of Boston has embraced a “PB” process for its youth. What better way to teach young people the value and importance of civic engagement than to give them real power over real money. Kudos to Boston for making PB a part of its budgetary process and putting its young people front and center in its implementation.” — Chicago Alderman Joe Moore, who launched the first participatory budgeting process in the US in 2009.

“It is great to have the City of Boston joining the Participatory Budgeting family. At its best, government is what we do together to strengthen our communities. We have seen young people in New York take this charge and embrace their citizenship through Participatory Budgeting.” — New York City Council Member Brad Lander, who worked with colleagues in Council to launch PB in NYC in 2011.

“Bringing participatory budgeting to Boston is in line with our city’s progressive history as hub for democratic innovation. It’s a new form of civic engagement that Mayor Menino has rightfully placed in the hands of our city’s young people to pilot. We look forward to working with Mayor-Elect Walsh to incorporate this effort into his broader vision for a more inclusive and engaged city.” — Aaron Tanaka, director of the Center for Economic Democracy and former executive director of the Boston Workers Alliance

“As governments everywhere devise new innovations to re-engage citizens, Boston’s Youth Participatory Budgeting initiative is an exciting innovation in participation and civic education that focuses on a set of people usually left out politics and government: young people. It will be exciting to see the proposals and projects that they develop over the coming year.” — Archon Fung, Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Civic Studies

An intellectual community of researchers and practitioners dedicated to building the emerging field of civic studies

Monthly Archives: November 2013