Category Archives: open gov

CM Call on Digital Public Participation, Sept. 5

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CM_logo-200pxWe are pleased to invite NCDD members to join our partners at CommunityMatters for the next of their monthly capacity-building calls series. This month’s call is titled “Deepening Public Participation - Digitally”, and it will be taking place next Friday, September 5th from 2-3pm Eastern Time. 

We are excited to note that this month’s call features insights from Pete Peterson of the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership - NCDD organization member – as well as Alissa Black of the Omidyar Network. The folks at CM describe the upcoming call this way:

Your town is finally in the digital age with a website, online calendar, and Facebook page.  Now you can sit back and relax, right? Not exactly.

An array of online tools is available that can take your digital presence to the next level, promoting collaboration between government and citizens, engaging new audiences, and effectively complementing “analog” face-to-face engagement. It’s time for your town to get online and see what’s out there!

Join the next CommunityMatters® conference call and dig deeper into digital engagement with experts Alissa Black and Pete Peterson. You’ll learn about online public engagement and which digital tools are right for your town.

Make sure to register for the call today!

As always, we encourage you to check out the CommunityMatters blog to read Caitlyn Horose’s reflections on digital public participation as a way to prime your mental pump before the call. You can read the blog post below or find the original by clicking here.

Deepening Public Participation – Digitally

Commutes are too long. Schedules are too packed. Work is too demanding. With today’s busy schedules attending public meetings just isn’t a priority for many people. So how can local government get residents involved in tackling community problems?

The internet is one place that governments are turning for solutions. Digital tools for public engagement can effectively complement in-person meetings, and convenience is only one reason to invest in online participation. Here are several helpful resources to assist in ramping up engagement digitally.

Broadening Public Participation Using Online Engagement Tools outlines five benefits of online engagement: reaching more diverse residents, generating more informed participation, producing concrete data for reporting, and evaluation and setting the stage for sustained participation.

Despite the many benefits of online engagement, there are challenges. Using Online Tools to Engage the Public discusses the challenge of attracting participants and the need for targeted recruitment strategies. Also addressed is the uncertain legal landscape for digital engagement, as some public participation ordinances and policies predate current technology. The PlaceSpeak blog outlines additional issues in digital engagement—technical issues, “lurkers” and the lack of physical cues—with recommended strategies for overcoming them.

Knowing how to select appropriate online engagement tools is an added challenge. There are many considerations—project budget, desired outcomes and a community’s willingness to engage online.

Alissa Black presents a framework for categorizing and selecting digital engagement platforms in Public Pathways: A Guide to Online Engagement Tools for Local Governments. Modifying the IAP2 engagement spectrum, the guide divides the objectives of engagement into four categories: inform, consult, cooperate, empower. The progression of these categories represents a deepening in the level of public participation.

Golden Governance: Building Effective Public Engagement in California advocates for government to deepen engagement. With “deep participation,” citizens are empowered to work with government to make decisions and solve problems. While citizen empowerment shouldn’t be the goal of every public process, it needs to be a tool at the ready. When community members work together on solutions to local problems, there is greater buy-in, more can be done with less, and project stewardship is more likely.

Join Alissa Black and Pete Peterson on our next CommunityMatters conference call Friday, September 5 from 2-3 p.m. Eastern. Learn more about online public engagement and get advice on digging deeper with digital tools. There is no better way to spend your Friday afternoon, so register now!

You can find the original version of this post at www.communitymatters.org/blog/deepening-public-participation%E2%80%93digitally.

Can Pinterest Make Local Public Engagement More Effective?

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We were intrigued by this commsgodigital piece on the ways that Pinterest can be used by local government officials for public engagement, and we wanted to share it with the NCDD community. The article was penned by Andrew Coulson, a local community engagement officer, and you can read it below or find the original commsgodigital piece by clicking here.

Pintresting: 10 tips for using Pinterest in local government

At 4 years old Pinterest is still recognised as a young social media platform. It has survived the storm of its first steps in society and has been accepted as a survivor. As a tool for potential engagement, I love it.

We started using Pinterest at the City of Salisbury very early on when it was still in Beta and in some case studies have been recognised as one of the first councils in Australia if not the world to use it as a tool in Community Engagement.

Pinterest overview

Pinterest is a free platform that basically resembles those old scrapbooks you used to keep as kids but instead of keeping paper clippings, stamps and stickers you can pin pictures on boards that link back to a whole world of things you want to make, bake and fake.

For those of you not on Pinterest here’s a quick overview of how it works. You can use Pinterest to upload, save, sort, and manage images as well as videos, known as ‘pins’, into collections on ‘boards’ you have created.

Pinners can browse others pins on the main page as well as follow friends and search specific topics/pins opening up a whole world of lost time. If you see something you like you can then pin it to your board and by using an additional ‘Pin It’ button can even pin direct from most websites. Interaction can be increased by liking and commenting on others pins and if you’re feeling collaborative you can start a pin board others can contribute too.

But how does this fit in with local government and council services. Jokes often refer to Pinterest as an abyss of wedding preparation boards and cakes you’ll never even attempt to make. But with just under 400,000 people in Australia using it (and rising) Pinterest holds a different key to peoples online experience because of its heavy reliance on the visual.

My top 10 tips for using Pinterest

Here are my 10 tips why and how local government could look at harnessing this free communication and potential community engagement tool. Some basics on how to set up, use and have a play.

1) Pinterest is growing every day. In over 4 years it has amassed over 70 million users worldwide. Yes the stats in Australia are low and slow but with Aussie trends often following America its potential here is huge. Stats show 8 in 10 users are female so think about how your council could harness this when setting up boards, preparing images to share that are maybe more female friendly. I spoke with The South Australian Country Fire Service recently about how pictures of hot fireman (come on we all know sex sells) could drive amazing traffic to other more serious boards about Bush Fire Survival and Health and Safety.

2) Plan your boards. Boards can be pinned too randomly but if you’re setting up a specific board to highlight an event or service; planned in advance boards can also tell a story. Pics you pin will start at the bottom of a board and fill from the top. A great way to tell a story is to think about pinning your pins in order. So for example if telling the story of a 3 day conference then pin pics from day three first and finish with day one if you want the story to go in order down the board. This is probably our best planned board showing the story of the making of our council film. In this case the story starts at the bottom and finishing at the top with the finished product: Lights, Camera, Action!

3) Secret boards. To help with tip 2 and also 6, Pinterest gives you the opportunity to set up a board in secret. By setting a board to secret when setting up it means not only does the public not see it until its ready to be launched but it allows you to plan and pin appropriately. This is helpful when starting a new board as each board cover shows the last 5 pins you have pinned and I will never let a board go live without those 5 spaces being filled… for me that’s like leaving an egg as your user profile pic on your Twitter, it looks unprofessional.

4) Pinterest board layout. Once you have set up a number of boards you can edit their position on the page. This is helpful to highlight certain boards as with most websites people’s eyes are drawn to the middle of the page. If you put your most recent or popular board in the middle then engagement is likely to be higher. You can also change each board cover photo which is important as I have read that people are more likely to open a board if the cover image is inviting you in. For example a smiling person or cute animal. Check out our homepage layout.

5) A picture is worth 1000 words. A picture will tell a story. A picture can evoke memories. A picture can aid discussion. Pictures are accessible across cultures, religions and languages. Next time you take photos think about how you can use them on Pinterest as well as your community magazine or website. Need I say more?

6) URL secrets. If pinning from another person’s board be aware that the picture will more than likely have an embedded URL. To check before you pin just click through the picture and if it does have a web link embedded you will be directed to that website. Its better safe than sorry as you never know where the image originally came from (under each image it should also say the URL). If pinning direct from a website the picture will automatically embed the web site URL for you.

Use this to your advantage. If the URL is unsuitable for a council board or you are uploading a picture directly from your computer, under the edit tool you can actually change or add a URL. This is important as in turn it can drive traffic back to your website and who wouldn’t want people finding your website simply by you pinning a great image of what services you offer in council.

7) More URL secrets. Pinterest is still new enough that most customized URLs, how people find your collections, are still available. As a council image is important claiming your URL while you can is crucial. This will allow you to make it easier share your Pinterest elsewhere and for people to find you especially if you’re not the only council with that name in the world. I work for the City of Salisbury of which there at least 2 others in the US and UK.

8) Use to inform in advance. Pinning pictures before an event; for example of speakers with bios, visual workshop content and videos of past opportunities may help people decide whether the event is for them rather than a standard heavy text based flyer/email. You can then enhance ticket sales by embedding a URL that takes people direct to your ticket sales page. Then once the event is over you can use the board to pin pictures of what happened and close the loop, great for feedback. Here is one of our upcoming events, the 10th Salisbury Writers Festival.

9) Share your photos. Like data sharing Councils have access to content people want so why not share your photos. Local councils have collections of pictures people would love to see and share dating back many many moons. Often these pictures just sit in archives or on databases and would never see the light of day once taken. 20+ photos can get taken at a ribbon cutting for a new leisure centre but only one will actually be used in your council magazine… so why not share the others; they have value to the people in them, connected to them and to the history of your area.

10) Collaborative projects. On Pinterest when you set up a board you have the option to add other people, who have Pinterest accounts, to the board so they can contribute. Now this one does come with a little warning as you have no way of moderating another person’s contribution until it’s already live and this could be a risky tactic for local government. However imagine the possibilities.

Ask your community to pin ideas for budget spends, park renewal designs or nominating priority areas that need attention. The comments function can then be used to provide feedback on pictures collected. Of course you can always set up a board and ask people to share pictures in other ways (Email, Instagram, Twitter) which you then pin on their behalf with a named credit. This is something I did when collecting photos of a 30 year old iconic playground as pre-engagement before looking at renewing the site through a full consultation process.

So there we have it, 10 tips why and how Pinterest for Local Government is a Pinteresting concept. I’m sure there are many others reasons to so why not let us know by commenting below and please do share how you use Pinterest especially in local government.

Happy pinning.

Picture credits: Top – The Art of Pinterest by MKHMarketing
Other pictures – City of Salisbury Pinterest.

You can find the original version of this commsgodigital piece at www.commsgodigital.com.au/2014/08/using-pinterest-local-government-pinteresting-concept.

Participatory Budgeting Expands in NYC for ’14 – ’15

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We are excited to share the announcement from our friends with the Participatory Budgeting Project, and NCDD organizational member, that participatory budgeting is once again expanding in NYC to reach even more of its citizens. We encourage you to read PBP’s press release below about the expansion or find it on PBP’s website here.

22 districts will participate in next cycle to designate over $25 million

PBP-logoCity Hall— Today, Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and the New York City Council announced the expansion of participatory budgeting to 22 districts that will designate over $25 million toward locally-developed projects, proposals, and initiatives in the next budgetary cycle. The expansion more than doubles the number of participating districts and represents a nearly 80% increase in funding allocated for participatory budgeting from the previous fiscal year.

“Participatory budgeting is a gateway to greater civic participation and leadership in our communities, encouraging collaboration between residents and local elected officials to find creative solutions to neighborhood needs,” said Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. “As we work toward a more inclusive, transparent city government, I am excited for 22 Council districts to take part in the participatory budgeting—more than doubling our participation from the previous cycle. This expanded process will give thousands of New Yorkers a hands-on role in making taxpayer dollars work for our communities.”

Participatory budgeting is a grassroots process through which district residents vote directly to allocate at least $1 million in capital funding toward proposals developed by the community to meet local needs. Through a series public meetings, residents work with elected officials for a year to identify neighborhood concerns and craft proposals to address them. Residents then decide which proposals to fund through a public vote.

Good government groups hail participatory budgeting as a powerful tool to increase civic participation and community engagement. The only identification requirement is proof of residency in the district; voting in participatory budgeting is open to all residents 16 years of age and older, removing traditional obstacles to full civic participation such as youth, income status, English-language proficiency and citizenship status.

Learn more about Participatory Budgeting and how you can get involved at http://council.nyc.gov/html/action/pb.shtml.

For the 2014-2015 cycle, the following Council Members are conducting a participatory budgeting process in their districts:

“The expansion of Participatory Budgeting to 22 districts in the City is a testament to the Council’s commitment to empowering New Yorkers and giving them the ability to decide where their tax dollars are spent,” said New York City Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer. “For the first time in Western Queens we will give the residents of the 26th District the ability to fund projects that are meaningful to their communities. I am proud to be a part of this historic expansion of Participatory Budgeting. The growth of this inclusive process helps build a better informed, and empowered citizenry which will make our City’s democracy stronger. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the City Council and New Yorkers who will be participating in this process. Together, we will empower our communities and deliver the projects local residents vote to fund in their neighborhoods.”

“After last year’s incredibly successful Participatory Budgeting process in the 38th District, with the highest number of participants in the City, it is my pleasure to re-launch this program for the coming budget cycle!” said Council Member Carlos Menchaca. “I will again be allocating a full $2 million dollars to capital projects proposed, and voted on by community members that focus on the improvement of local schools, streets, parks, and libraries. This process is central to the civic engagement of our residents, and I am looking forward to my continued involvement with local stakeholders, and with my Council colleagues to secure the success of PB, and to expand this model in a meaningful way.”

“I am pleased to join my Council colleagues and have always planned on carrying out an effective and well organized participatory budgeting process that engages a wide range of residents of my district,” said Council Member Paul Vallone. “I look forward to engaging and working with my community in the coming months to have participatory budgeting that is successful and productive.”

“My constituents have loved the opportunity to vote on how their tax dollars are spent,” said Council Member Mark Weprin. “I am pleased that so many of my colleagues in the City Council have embraced the participatory budgeting process, as it allows residents to play an active role in their government.”

“Participatory Budgeting has put budgetary decisions directly into the hands of the people and I am excited to see it expand throughout New York City,” said Council Member Stephen Levin. “I was proud to bring Participatory Budgeting to the 33rd District two years ago and I continue to hear from constituents about how much they enjoy being involved in determining which capital projects get funded in our District. We have all worked hard to make Participatory Budgeting a success and I look forward to seeing this transparent and democratic budgeting process continue to grow under the leadership of Speaker Mark-Viverito.”

“I was proud to be the first elected official from Queens to give my constituents a real say in how their money is being spent and I’m thrilled that my colleagues will be expanding participatory budgeting throughout the five boroughs,” said Council Member Eric Ulrich. “This will provide a real chance for anyone who wants to have a voice in the decision-making process or has an idea for a project that would benefit the community, to step up and get involved. As I have always said, this isn’t my money, it is the taxpayers’ money and they should be allowed a say in how it’s spent.”

“Participatory budgeting is an exciting tool of empowerment the East Flatbush community has engaged in for the past three years,” said Council Member Jumaane D. Williams. “It brings government closer to the people, and provides an open form of democracy that continues to gain momentum. I look forward to it expanding throughout the city, so that more New Yorkers can get engaged in the design and selection of capital projects that better their district.”

“I am proud to be bringing participatory budgeting to constituents in the Central Bronx. Local residents know what their community needs and should be directly involved in decisions around how their tax dollars are spent.” said Council Member Ritchie Torres. “It’s also through processes like participatory budgeting that we deepen the engagement of residents in our districts and cultivate effective civic leaders.”

“A new form of democracy is sweeping New York City, and I am proud that the City Council is taking the lead in growing this process,” said Council Member Donovan Richards. “I’m beyond excited to bring Participatory Budgeting back to my district this year. There is nothing like allowing the public to make decisions on how their community schools, parks, etc., should be improved.”

“When thousands of people get involved through participatory budgeting in making hands-on decisions about what our neighborhoods need, it models government as shared stewardship, in which we work together to tend the common good,” said Council Member Brad Lander. “I am very proud that the process has grown from just four participating Councilmembers to 22 – not bad for an idea that people dismissed as crazy just a short time ago. Participatory budgeting is a growing movement that is changing the way New Yorkers engage with their government: improving transparency, increasing voters’ say in how their money is spent and bringing neighbors together to be stewards of the public realm.”

“I congratulate Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and many of my colleagues for prioritizing the expansion of participatory budgeting in the FY16 budget, continuing successful efforts to get the program off the ground in NYC,” said Council Member Mark Levine. “Participatory budgeting gives people real decision-making power and empowers communities through the democratic process. I’m proud to join this growing movement by bringing participatory budgeting to Council District 7 this year, where we’ve already seen a huge outpouring of interest and ideas for projects to better our neighborhoods.”

“I am proud to join a growing list of my council colleagues who have made the commitment to participate in a progressive way of allocating fund,” said Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez. Participatory budgeting gives a direct voice to the residents of our districts and it is our job as their representatives to honor that voice. I look forward to a productive and engaging conversation with my constituents during this process of community empowerment.”

“This is a historic chance for residents across New York City to have a key role in deciding how their tax dollars are reinvested in their community,” said Council Member Mark Treyger. “I am proud to provide this great opportunity for community involvement in my district for the first time ever and to make sure that residents finally have a real voice in the budgeting process. I have no doubt that my constituents will use this unique chance to improve the quality of life throughout Bensonhurst, Gravesend, Coney Island and Sea Gate for years to come.”

“I am excited to bring PB to the 34th District this year,” said Council Member Antonio Reynoso. “My community is very creative, and I’ve heard lots of great ideas from my constituents already. I am looking forward to seeing how they decide to spend a million dollars.”

“I am thrilled to be partaking in Participatory Budgeting for the 2015-2016 budget cycle,” said Council Member Andrew Cohen. “This innovative process will give my neighbors a direct voice in how their tax dollars are spent on projects that will address community needs. It is my hope that through this process, we will be able to give City residents more confidence in government and increase civic engagement. The more participation and higher turnout we have will ensure that our communities will benefit in the long run. I am looking forward to further implementing this practice and hearing all of the terrific ideas that my neighbors will propose.”

“Participatory Budgeting and Upper West Side involvement go hand-in-hand,” said Council Member Helen Rosenthal. “The community is hungry to participate in this democratic process to identify and select projects for funding.”

“There is no greater vehicle galvanizing communities today than participatory budgeting,” said Council Member I. Daneek Miller. “It enables individuals to work together for common causes that will have a lasting impact on community needs. We have seen it in action already, members from across neighborhoods working side by side in harmony. I am proud to have begun the participatory budgeting process in my district this year and thank the Speaker for her assistance in getting this expansion off the ground.”

“The expansion of participatory budgeting (PB) to 22 council districts, and the institutionalization of the process in the City Council as a new way to govern, is truly exciting and a tribute to the success of the early cycles,” said Sondra Youdelman, Executive Director, Community Voices Heard. “Community Voices Heard is proud to have helped spearhead this process with Council Members, community organizations, and local residents. Looking forward, PB has the potential to engage new and diverse groups of people – including those typically most disenfranchised – more deeply in their communities and in the practice of governing. We’re anxious to see more people involved in the process and community power grow to influence more pots of money over time.”

“Participatory Budgeting in New York City is the largest and fastest growing such program in the country,” said Josh Lerner, Executive Director of Participatory Budgeting Project. “It has become an international model for real grassroots democracy, and for making city government more responsive to the people. We look forward to continuing to work with the Speaker and other city officials to take participatory budgeting to the next level.”

“The data that we have collected over the past three years shows that participatory budgeting is a gateway to civic engagement for New Yorkers that are often left out of politics and government such as youth, immigrants, and low-income people,” said Alexa Kasdan, Director of Research and Policy at the Community Development Project at the Urban Justice Center. “With the expansion of PB in 2014-15, the Speaker and the NYC Council are creating even more opportunities for civic participation for the most disenfranchised New Yorkers.”

You can find the original version of this post at www.participatorybudgeting.org/blog/6049.

Six Simple Changes for Better Public Engagement

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NCDD supporting member Jennifer Wilding of Consensus and her team have been working to increase civility in Kansas City, and we love their infographic on what KC residents told them officials can do to improve public engagement. Learn more about Consensus’ Civility Project at www.consensuskc.org/civilityproject/ and in Jennifer’s write-up below the image.

SixChangesForOfficials-infographic

Old Habits for Engaging the Public Make it Harder to Be Civil

Americans have talked a lot about civility the last few years. Along with exploring the way individuals behave, it’s important to pay attention to the processes that are used to engage the public. Outmoded habits are ineffective with a population that increasingly expects to be consulted, and can be disastrous in situations where values are in conflict.

It’s possible to change these habits, though. Specific, relatively simple changes can move people’s behavior from angry to productive. The Civility Project helps inform and advocate for building new habits that increase civility.

Consensus, a Kansas City-based nonprofit that focuses on public engagement, launched The Civility Project out of frustration with the way the 2009 health-care town hall meetings were conducted. Using the public hearing model meant that meetings intended to give people a voice ended up driving them further apart.

The project so far includes awards for people who bring civility to life and a one-day class on building civility into public engagement based on findings from 20 focus groups with local citizens. In addition, Consensus has held public forums co-sponsored by KCPT Public Television, the Congressional Civility Caucus and the Dole Institute.

Consensus held 20 focus groups across metro Kansas City and in Lawrence to talk about civility in public life and how it affects our ability to solve problems. The groups represented the entire political spectrum, but were in perfect harmony when they described what concerns them about our public processes and what would make things better.

Detailed findings are available at www.consensuskc.org/civilityproject, and we have distilled what people want into six simple changes elected officials can make to engage their constituents more productively.

For more information: Jennifer Wilding, jenwilding@consensuskc.org.

 

Featured D&D Story: Putting People at the Center in Public Health

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Today we are happy to feature another great example of dialogue and deliberation in action. This mini case study was submitted by NCDD student member Megan Powers of Grassroots Solutions via NCDD’s Dialogue Storytelling Tool. Do you have a dialogue story that our network could learn from? Add YOUR dialogue story today! 

ShareYourStory-sidebarimageTitle of Project:

Putting People at the Center: A Fundamental Shift in Public Health Campaigns

Description

One of the most pivotal developments in public health practice over the past 20 years is the attention that is now being paid to the wide range of factors that influence health, such as social connectedness, the built environment, and the characteristics of the places where people live, work, and play. As a result, the public health field not only educates people about individual behavioral changes people can make to improve their health, but also works to change the policies, systems, and environments that shape our world and our ability to make healthy choices.

We’ve seen this impact firsthand. Grassroots Solutions works extensively with public health entities at the local, state, and national levels to reduce tobacco use, mitigate obesity, and address other critical public health concerns.

This work has taught us that while facts and data are, of course, powerful tools, the most successful public health campaigns put people at the center. When you combine data and facts with real people’s passion, commitment,
and involvement, communities embrace changes that have a significant impact on the health of residents.

Our whitepaper draws on our 12 years of on-the-ground experience to illustrate how putting people at the center of public health campaigns results in better and more sustainable health outcomes, and why we believe that people-centric campaigns should serve as the gold standard for population health management.

Which dialogue and deliberation approaches did you use or borrow heavily from?

  • Sustained Dialogue
  • Charrettes

What was your role in the project?

Grassroots Solutions served as the project manager and hired grassroots organizers for a variety of these projects, executing engagement tactics and in some cases, facilitating participatory dialogue.

Who were your partners in the project, if any?

Blue Cross Blue Shield Center for Prevention, Cities of Bloomington, Edina, and Richfield (for the do.town initiative), Minnesota Dept of Health (for the CDC Communities Putting Prevention to Work technical assistance project).

What issues did the project primarily address?

  • Mental or physical health

Lessons Learned

  1. An important shift is to move from a campaign that is data-centered and people-supplemented to one that is people-centered, and data-supplemented. We’ve learned that this shift enables campaigns to create space for residents to shape their own neighborhoods with health in mind, and offers the opportunity to form both an intellectual and emotional attachment to their vision for a healthier community.
  2. Putting people at the center means that everything in the campaign is done with an eye towards how residents can be involved. Whether it’s prioritizing which issues to pursue, examining how a neighborhood could be made more walkable and bikeable, or exploring how a new development can support healthy behaviors, a people-centered campaign focuses on engaging residents. Everyday people are encouraged to chime in, talk with others in the community, participate in planning sessions, and make the case for changes to their friends and neighbors.
  3. The reason it is critical to put people at the center of health campaigns is that it results in better health outcomes. Communities that are built to support health will produce better health outcomes, such as bike paths, access to healthy food, walkable neighborhoods, and safe walking and bike routes for kids to get to school. Additionally, these kinds of community features also help shape how people connect with each other and with their neighborhood, town, or city. When it comes right down to it, healthy living is about people and relationships.
  4. Putting people at the center shifts a campaign from episodic, isolated opportunities to engage, to a more relationship-driven approach. This means that residents are invited to help set the campaign’s tone and direction from the very beginning, they are offered leadership opportunities, and become a part of the campaign’s infrastructure. When the campaign’s orientation is centered on people, engagement becomes grounded in relationships with residents who get involved in different ways over time. People’s participation becomes more authentic, like an ongoing conversation, rather than just a single event or action.

Where to learn more about the project:

http://healthy-communities.grassrootssolutions.com

Looking Closer at “Mixed Results” in Civic Participation

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One our ever-insightful NCDD members, Tiago Peixoto, shared a summary of some important civic participation research that shows that “mixed results” of participation efforts say more when we delineate between “tactical” or “strategic” interventions. We’ve shared Tiago’s piece from his DemocracySpot blog below, and you can find the original here.

Social Accountability: What Does the Evidence Really Say?

democracy spot logoSo what does the evidence about citizen engagement say? Particularly in the development world it is common to say that the evidence is “mixed”. It is the type of answer that, even if correct in extremely general terms, does not really help those who are actually designing and implementing citizen engagement reforms.

This is why a new (GPSA-funded) work by Jonathan Fox, “Social Accountability: What does the Evidence Really Say” is a welcome contribution for those working with open government in general and citizen engagement in particular. Rather than a paper, this work is intended as a presentation that summarizes (and disentangles) some of the issues related to citizen engagement.

Before briefly discussing it, some definitional clarification. I am equating “social accountability” with the idea of citizen engagement given Jonathan’s very definition of social accountability:

Social accountability strategies try to improve public sector performance by bolstering both citizen engagement and government responsiveness.

In short, according to this definition, social accountability is defined, broadly, as “citizen participation” followed by government responsiveness, which encompasses practices as distinct as Freedom Of Information law campaigns, participatory budgeting, and referenda.

But what is new about Jonathan’s work? A lot, but here are three points that I find particularly important, based on a very personal interpretation of his work.

First, Jonathan makes an important distinction between what he defines as “tactical” and “strategic” social accountability interventions. The first type of interventions, which could also be called “naïve” interventions, are for instance those bounded in their approach (one tool-based) and those that assume that mere access to information (or data) is enough. Conversely, strategic approaches aim to deploy multiple tools and articulate society-side efforts with governmental reforms that promote responsiveness.

This distinction is important because, when examining the impact evaluation evidence, one finds that while the evidence is indeed mixed for tactical approaches, it is much more promising for strategic approaches. A blunt lesson to take from this is that when looking at the evidence, one should avoid comparing lousy initiatives with more substantive reform processes. Otherwise, it is no wonder that “the evidence is mixed.”

Second, this work makes an important re-reading of some of the literature that has found “mixed effects”, reminding us that when it comes to citizen engagement, the devil is in the details. For instance, in a number of studies that seem to say that participation does not work, when you look closer you will not be surprised that they do not work. And many times the problem is precisely the fact that there is no participation whatsoever. False negatives, as eloquently put by Jonathan.

Third, Jonathan highlights the need to bring together the “demand” (society) and “supply” (government) sides of governance. Many accountability interventions seem to assume that it is enough to work on one side or the other, and that an invisible hand will bring them together. Unfortunately, when it comes to social accountability it seems that some degree of “interventionism” is necessary in order to bridge that gap.

Of course, there is much more in Jonathan’s work than that, and it is a must read for those interested in the subject. You can download it here [PDF].

You can find the original version of this piece on Tiago’s Democracy Spot blog at http://democracyspot.net/2014/05/13/social-accountability-what-does-the-evidence-really-say.

Interview on Games & Engagement

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As children run through sprinklers and enjoy fireworks (safely, we hope) over the holiday weekend, we thought it would be appropriate to share a post from the Davenport Institute’s Gov 2.0 Watch blog on games and engagement. As we know, civic participation can be fun, too! You can find it below or read the original here. Happy Independence Day, everyone!

DavenportInst-logoLast month, Project Information Literacy at the University of Washington Information School published an interview with Eric Gordon, a professor at Emerson College and Executive Director of Engagement Lab:

In his role as the Executive Director of the Engagement Lab, Eric leads play-based projects, spanning everything from community engagement in Detroit to disaster preparedness in Zambia. As he explains, the projects are “designed not just to facilitate official processes, education, and real-world action, but to natively be real-world actions themselves.

Through participatory action research in the United States, Europe, and Africa, Eric and his team are partnering with communities and organizations to understand how and where technology, play, and civic life intersect.

You can read the interview here.

Three Principles for Innovation in Governance

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Our partners at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation recently published a great piece on their Challenges to Democracy blog by Hollie Russon Gilman that we are re-posting here. Gilman’s insightful article about innovation in governance is the third in a series (first and second), and we hope you will read it below or find the post from the Ash Center here.

Ash logoIt isn’t easy to innovate in governance. Bureaucracy can be hidebound. The private sector’s lean startup model, with its “fail forward” ethos, is antithetical to government as we know it. Electorates are not tolerant of failure, and voter confidence in government is at an all time low. In a 2013, more people listed government dysfunction as the problem they believe is the country’s most serious challenge. Given these headwinds, it’s not surprising that many officials resist the experimentation and risk necessary to innovate.

However, partly in response to this same citizen disaffection, a new wave of participatory policy reforms is springing up across the United States. This includes New Urban Mechanics in Boston and Philadelphia piloting experiments to engage citizens with City Hall to Participatory Budgeting, a process to enlist citizens as decision makers on public budgets. While the civic experiments differ in form, they reflect common principles in action that offer lessons for policy makers considering their own civic innovations.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel. Instead of thinking about new laws, create innovation within existing institutional structures. For example, the U.S. already has a regulations comment and notice period. Instead of creating a new apparatus for citizen engagement, improve on existing structures such as Regulations.gov. This requires an investigatory, opportunistic approach to finding areas ripe for improvement and putting new tools to use.

When people apply the lens of innovation to existing structures, even small improvements can lead to more significant shifts by informing a new playbook that officials can replicate and scale.

Take a Hybrid Approach. Government cannot do it alone. Instead, find opportunities for non-government actors to contribute to governance. This can include public-private partnerships or leveraging the talent of universities. Citizens themselves are also a great, and often underutilized, repository of talent and local knowledge.

For example, Adopt a Hydrant is a Code for America project that enables citizens to take responsibility for shoveling out fire hydrants after heavy snowfall.

Collaboration Instead of Competition. The first mover advantage that is so critical in the private sector does not apply to the public sector. Innovation is most likely to spread when governments across localities work together to share lessons learned and best practices.

For example, Chicago is building an open source predictive analytics tool that other governments can use to translate open data to improve service delivery. This approach empowers citizens across geographic boundaries.

Government will never function like a Silicon Valley startup. But each of these observations – building on existing structures, enlisting the private sector, and sharing lessons—helps lower barriers.

What do these principles look like in practice?

Technology has transformed how the two major political parties compete for votes, from how campaigns receive donations to how they target voters. Yet we have not seen a commensurate civic-minded effort aimed at transforming voting processes and elections to empower citizens. Although voters often now tap a screen instead of punching a ballot, the act of voting otherwise remains relatively unchanged over the past several decades—even as technology remakes political campaigns.

As suggested above, governance innovations will be most successful when working within existing institutional structures. Elections, the wellspring of leaders’ and institutions’ democratic legitimacy, could also benefit from tapping into the energy and potential of technology and innovation.

One critical measure of successful elections is whether citizens feel equipped with information. This includes everything from where elected officials stand on key policy arenas to who is running and where to vote. Unfortunately, this information is scattered across many sources. A range of innovations, from open data API’s to new mobile apps are working to more effectively increase access to information.

One example is TurboVote. After signing up, a user will receive customized information on relevant voting rules, deadlines, and forms. All the voter has to do is drop them in the mail. This model suggests that providing easy access to information can reduce barriers to voting.

Even when citizens are empowered with information about elections, there is the further challenge of getting people to the polls. Nations handle this differently. Australia has compulsory voting. Some countries make Election Day a public holiday. Many countries host elections on Saturdays or Sundays. Thirty U.S. states, as well as the District of Columbia, now have the option for a mail in ballot.

Political scientists Donald Green and Alan Gerber have conducted experiments demonstrating that personalized messages are most effective in voter mobilization. Google launched a pledge website for India’s elections. Here people can take a personal pledge to vote and learn about their candidates. These examples suggest that creative and customized approaches can encourage people to get out to the polls.

Finally, the very process of voting can be filled with frustration. Long waiting times, obscure locations, and in some places, questions about the fidelity of vote counting processes can leave people disillusioned about the act of voting. Crowd sourcing mechanisms could empower citizens both during and after voting.

Political scientist Archon Fung launched MyFairElections a crowd sourced platform, based on the success of Ushahidi’s election monitoring, where people can “rate” their voting location. Voters can submit reviews of their polling place. This can capture everything from long voting lines to the number of voters turned away from the polls. The information is then publicly displayed and can create a transparency and accountability feedback mechanism. Further opportunities for feedback could lead to improvements in election processes. This could also enable voters to feel more agency in the basic procedures that determine their governance.

Technology is creating new expectations for how citizens engage with their world. Governments must adapt to keep pace or risk the dissatisfaction of those they represent. The problems are large and complex. Meanwhile, democracy requires free and fair elections to exist. Elections are its sacred rites. There is good reason to be cautious about changing them. Yet there is also a democratic imperative for elections to seize 21st century innovation opportunities.

Civic innovation—done right—can serve as an important part of the solution.

This story is copied from the Challenges to Democracy blog and can be found at www.challengestodemocracy.us/home/public-sector-principles-for-encouraging-and-supporting-innovation-in-democratic-participation/#sthash.6zyxhPYw.LlUFGWWa.dpuf.

Schooler Op-Ed on Cantor’s (Lack of) Engagement

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We recently read a great editorial in the Star-Telegram penned by NCDD supporting member Larry Schooler that was too good not to share. Larry reflects on House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s recent re-election loss amid claims that he was “out of touch” with is local constituency and what it says about public officials’ engagement practices. We encourage you to read Larry’s editorial below or to find the original here.

Elected Officials Must Always Be Engaged

Analysis of the surprising defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor included the notion, as one county GOP chair told The Washington Post, that voters “hadn’t seen him,” that Cantor had lost touch with his constituency after a long tenure in office and a greater focus on inside-the-Beltway politics than on his district.

Cantor would not be the first to face accusations of being “out of touch” with his electorate, and his defeat raises important questions about how elected officials at all levels should engage constituents after elections.

The “radio silence” that many officeholders adopt after taking office, particularly at the state and national levels, can leave many voters feeling unrepresented.

At the local level, mayors and public administrators in cities across America have begun to realize that those affected by a City Council’s decision should be able to affect those decisions.

Many cities have moved past the era in which people are asked to wait around for hours to speak for a mere three minutes on a topic of great concern to them, the fate of which was likely decided much earlier.

Many cities have taken innovative approaches to engaging the public in dialogue well before making any decisions about policy or budgeting. In cities like New York and Chicago, the public has been invited to “participatory budgeting” processes in which they propose and then vote on specific projects to receive city funding.

In cities like Austin and Fort Worth, citizens can attend a meeting in person or watch the same meeting on television or online. Afterward, they can interact with officials by phone, text message or social media, producing an audience of several thousand that represents a broader cross-section of the public than would otherwise be possible.

But few members of Congress deviate from the “town hall” medium of engagement: positioning themselves in front of a verbal firing squad at the front of an auditorium only to face a barrage of often hostile questions that leave them defensive and silence those who want to have a serious conversation.

Given Congress’s recess schedule and its use of social media, politically advantageous opportunities exist for more robust engagement between members and their constituents, both in person and online. Members of Congress could ask their constituents directly how to handle issues at hand.

Certainly, constituents could call or write, but in the absence of any invitation to provide input or personalized response, the exercise could seem futile.

In its “core values,” the International Association for Public Participation argues that governments should “provide participants with the information they need to participate in a meaningful way,” and “communicate to participants how their input affected the decision.”

Incumbents who don’t take heed could increasingly face a fate like Eric Cantor’s, tossed from office for being unengaged with voters.

You can find the original version of this Star-Examiner editorial at www.star-telegram.com/2014/06/12/5896487/elected-officials-must-always.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy.

PBP Co-Hosts Event at the White House

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We want to congratulate the Participatory Budgeting Project (an NCDD organizational member) on the advancement of their work with the White House to spread participatory budgeting in the US. PBP was officially included in the White House’s Open Government Action Plan, and they recently blogged about the day-long meeting they just had as part of their participation in the initiative.

PBP-logoOn Tuesday, May 13th, The White House and the Participatory Budgeting Project co-hosted a day-long meeting on participatory budgeting, as part of the White House’s efforts to advance PB. “Promoting Innovation in Civic Engagement: Exploring Community‐Led Participatory Budgeting in the United States” brought together over 60 city leaders, community organizers, residents, funders, researchers and technologists to share best practices and identify next steps for expanding and deepening PB.

Invited experts, including PBP Executive Director Josh Lerner and Associates Gianpaolo Baiocchi and Madeleine Pape, spoke about the latest developments in PB and about research efforts to measure PB’s impact. Our partner organizations Community Voices Heard and the Community Development Project shared their experiences from PBNYC, and we discussed key engagement, implementation, and research strategies in small break-out groups with dozens of partners from across the country, as well as representatives from the White House and federal agencies.

“Five years ago participatory budgeting was an obscure idea in the US,” concluded Josh Lerner. “Now, as the White House has recognized, it’s a best practice for civic engagement, used by over 40 cities, districts, universities, schools, and other institutions across the country.” Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this rapid transformation!

You can find the original version of the above post at www.participatorybudgeting.org/blog/the-white-house-pbp-host-national-convening.