15 Key Metrics for Evaluating Participatory Budgeting: A Toolkit for Evaluators and Implementers

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

The 29-page toolkit, 15 Key Metrics for Evaluating Participatory Budgeting: A Toolkit for Evaluators and Implementers, was created in collaboration with Public Agenda (PA), the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP), and the North American Research Board. The toolkit includes 15 metrics to capture major elements of a PB process, to support the evaluation of a specific PB site and use the data to inform the larger PB movement.

Below is an excerpt from the toolkit, which you can find in full PDF, both in English and in Spanish on Public Agenda’s site here.

From Public Agenda…

Evaluation is a critical component of any PB effort. Systematic and formal evaluation can help people who introduce, implement, participate in or otherwise have a stake in PB understand how participatory budgeting is growing, what its reach is, and how it’s impacting the community and beyond.

We developed the 15 Key Metrics for Evaluating Participatory Budgeting toolkit for people interested in evaluating PB efforts in their communities. It is meant to encourage and support some common research goals across PB sites and meaningfully inform local and national discussions about PB in the U.S. and Canada. It is the first iteration of such a toolkit and especially focused on providing practical and realistic guidance for the evaluation of new and relatively new PB processes.

Anyone involved in public engagement or participation efforts other than participatory budgeting may also be interested in reviewing the toolkit for research and evaluation ideas.

To develop the 15 PB metrics, the North American Research Board, Public Agenda (PA) and the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) drew on previous evaluations of PB in the U.S. and around the world, the academic literature on PB as a democratic innovation and the experience of local evaluators in the U.S. and Canada. To create the research instruments, Public Agenda and PBP adapted surveys originally developed and used by local evaluators in various PB sites across North America.

The toolkit includes:
-15 Key Metrics for Evaluating Participatory Budgeting: 15 indicators (“metrics”) that capture important elements of each community-based PB process and the PB movement in North America overall
-Key PB Metrics Research Instruments: A set of Research Instruments (all customizable) to support local evaluation and facilitate the collection of data that address the key PB metrics: Idea Collection Participant Survey Template, Voter Survey Template, and Questionnaire for Evaluators and Implementers
-Introduction to the Instruments and Evaluation Timeline: An introduction to the above instruments, which also includes a timeline for how evaluation can fit into PB roll-out

15 Key Metrics for Evaluating Participatory Budgeting

Measuring PB’s Impact on Civic and Political Life:

To what extent does PB engage a significant and growing number of residents, including those who cannot or do not participate in mainstream political life?

1. Number of PB participants and percentage of eligible residents who participate. Indicates PB’s reach and ability to engage the targeted population.
2. Number and percentage of PB voters who are eligible to vote but did not vote in the most recent local election. Indicates PB’s potential to engage residents who don’t participate in the mainstream political process.
3. Number and percentage of PB voters who are ineligible to vote in local elections. Indicates PB’s potential to engage people who are excluded from standard forms of political participation owing to age, immigration status or other reasons.
4. Number and percentage of participants who report prior civic engagement or participation. Indicates PB’s potential to attract otherwise less civically engaged residents.
5. Number and percentage of participants who report being new or returning to PB. Indicates both growth and retention of PB participants and various patterns of participation over time.

To what extent does PB foster collaboration between civil society organizations and government?

6. Number of nongovernmental and community-based organizations involved in PB. Indicates the extent to which PB engages civil society. Also an indicator of variation in how processes are implemented.

Is PB associated with elected officials’ political careers?

7. Number and percentage of elected officials re-elected. Helps to assess over time PB’s association with officials’ political careers.

Impact on Inclusion and Equity:

Is PB engaging traditionally marginalized communities?

8. Number and percentage of participants who are of low socioeconomic status (SES) and/or people of color; and relative to demographics in the jurisdiction and in the most recent local election. Indicates PB’s potential to engage communities that are marginalized in the traditional political process.

Through what means does PB facilitate participation?

9. Accessibility indicators for idea collection phase, project development phase and voting. Captures aspects of the process implementation that increase access during the idea collection phase, the project development phase and the voting phase.

Is PB fostering equitable distribution of resources?

10. Allocation of PB funds by project type (to be compared with the allocation of comparable funds prior to PB). Describes how PB funds get allocated across types of projects. Informs study of differences in allocation and of equity in the distribution of PB funds.

Impact on Government:

How are the number of PB processes and dollar amounts allocated to PB changing from year to year?

11. Number of new, continued and discontinued PB processes from year to year. Tracks growth and sustainability in PB processes over time.
12. Amount and percentage of funds allocated to PB projects. Tracks the money allocated to PB projects in any one year.

What is the implementation rate of winning PB projects?

13. Project completion rates and final project costs. Highlights the # and % of winning ballot projects that are completed and how much money was spent on them (compared with how much was allocated).

Are additional resources being allocated to projects or needs identified through PB?

14. Amount of additional money allocated to projects and needs identified through PB. Indicates PB’s potential to bring additional funds to communities and/or to allocate funds differently by raising the importance of an issue.

What is the cost to government of implementing PB?

15. Dollar amount spent on PB implementation. Makes transparent how much money is spent on implementation and how that compares with the funds allocated to projects, with quality indicators of the process and with outcomes.

Above is an excerpt of the toolkit. It can be found in full PDF form on Public Agenda’s site here.

About the Participatory Budgeting Project
The Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) is a non-profit organization that helps communities decide how to spend public money, primarily in the US and Canada. Their mission is to empower community members to make informed, democratic, and fair decisions about public spending and revenue.

Follow on Twitter @PBProject

About Public Agenda
Public Agenda is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that helps diverse leaders and citizens navigate divisive, complex issues and work together to find solutions.

Follow on Twitter @PublicAgenda

Resource Link: www.publicagenda.org/pages/research-and-evaluation-of-participatory-budgeting-in-the-us-and-canada

Mathews Center for Civic Life Seeks Summer Interns

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Roshan Bliss

We encourage our younger and student members to take note of the announcement below from the David Mathews Center for Civic Life – one of our NCDD member organizations. The internships they are offering this summer are great opportunities to gain experience in deliberation, and we encourage you to apply today! Learn more in their announcement below.

Looking for Interns

Our Jean O’Connor-Snyder Internship Program (JOIP) provides experiential civic learning opportunities for college students across multiple disciplines. Students research deliberative practices and asset-based approaches to working alongside Alabama communities in capacity-building projects. We at the DMC administer the JOIP program and collaborate with faculty mentors across the state.

Participating students build civic and professional skills while implementing asset-based, capacity-building projects in Alabama communities. JOIP interns apply their immersive civic learning experiences to their future studies and careers. Through JOIP, we hope to build upon the millennial spirit of civic engagement in Alabama.

For information about eligibility, project guidelines, proposal requirements, and other details, contact Rebecca Cleveland at rcleveland@mathewscenter.org.

We originally found this announcement on the NIF website at www.nifi.org/en/david-mathews-center-looking-interns.

Kettering Shares Lessons Learned on Economic Prosperity & Health Care

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Roshan Bliss

At their recent event, A Public Voice, NCDD member organization the Kettering Foundation released the interim report on what they have learned from the many deliberative forums they’ve hosted on the topics of health care and economic opportunity in the last year. We encourage you to learn more in the Kettering announcement below, or find the original version on their blog by clicking here.

On May 5, the Kettering Foundation released an interim report on two series of deliberative forums that used materials prepared by Kettering researchers for the National Issues Forums. The report details the results of forums held in 2015-2016 using the Health Care: How Can We Reduce Costs and Still Get the Care We Need? issue guide and forums held in 2016 using the Making Ends Meet: How Should We Spread Prosperity and Improve Opportunity? issue guide. Forums on both issues will continue through 2016.

At A Public Voice 2016, representatives of NIF and other deliberative democracy groups discussed the concerns that have emerged from forums on heath-care and economic security issues. A panel of elected officials and policymakers responded to that discussion.

The interim report is drawn from the work of NIF members and forum participants. To compile the report, researchers from Kettering and Public Agenda attended forums, talked with forum moderators, reviewed questionnaires filled out by forum participants, and analyzed transcripts of forums.

The interim report can be downloaded here.

You can find the original version of this Kettering Foundation post by visiting www.kettering.org/blogs/apv-2016-interim-report.

New Civic Tech Developments for Public Engagement

Posted on May 5, 2016 by Roshan Bliss

If you are interested in civic technology, we highly recommend that you take a good look at the article below from NCDD member Tiago Peixoto‘s blog, DemocracySpot. Tiago lays out some high-tech new engagement and evaluation tools that are in the works or have just recently been release, and it’s exciting to see the progress being made. You can read his piece below or find the original version here.

Catching Up on DemocracySpot

It’s been a while, so here’s a miscellaneous post with things I would normally share on DemocracySpot.

Yesterday the beta version of the Open Government Research Exchange (OGRX) was launched. Intended as a hub for research on innovations in governance, the OGRX is a joint initiative by NYU’s GovLab, MySociety and the World Bank’s Digital Engagement Evaluation Team (DEET) (which, full disclosure, I lead). As the “beta” suggests, this is an evolving project, and we look forward to receiving feedback from those who either work with or benefit from research in open government and related fields. You can read more about it here.

Today we also launched the Open Government Research mapping. Same story, just “alpha” version. There is a report and a mapping tool that situates different types of research across the opengov landscape. Feedback on how we can improve the mapping tool – or tips on research that we should include – is extremely welcome. More background about this effort, which brings together Global Integrity, Results for Development, GovLAB, Results for Development and the World Bank, can be found here.

Also, for those who have not seen it yet, the DEET team also published the Evaluation Guide for Digital Citizen Engagement a couple of months ago. Commissioned and overseen by DEET, the guide was developed and written by CaptureDEETguide Matt Haikin (lead author), Savita Bailur, Evangelia Berdou, Jonathan Dudding, Cláudia Abreu Lopes, and Martin Belcher.

And here is a quick roundup of things I would have liked to have written about since my last post had I been a more disciplined blogger:

A field experiment in Rural Kenya finds that “elite control over planning institutions can adapt to increased mobilization and participation.” I tend to disagree a little with the author’s conclusion that emphasizes the role of “power dynamics that allow elites to capture such institutions” to explain his findings (some of the issues seem to be a matter of institutional design). In any case, it is a great study and I strongly recommend the reading.
A study examining a community-driven development program in Afghanistan finds a positive effect on access to drinking water and electricity, acceptance of democratic processes, perceptions of economic wellbeing, and attitudes toward women. However, effects on perceptions of government performance were limited or short-lived.
A great paper by Paolo de Renzio and Joachim Wehner reviews the literature on “The Impacts of Fiscal Openness”. It is a must-read for transparency researchers, practitioners and advocates. I just wish the authors had included some research on the effects of citizen participation on tax morale.
Also related to tax, “Consumers as Tax Auditors” is a fascinating paper on how citizens can take part in efforts to reduce tax evasion while participating in a lottery.
Here is a great book about e-Voting and other technology developments in Estonia. Everybody working in the field of technology and governance knows Estonia does an amazing job, but information about it is often scattered and, sometimes, of low quality. This book, co-authored by my former colleague Kristjan Vassil, addresses this gap and is a must-read for anybody working with technology in the public sector.
Finally, I got my hands on the pictures of the budget infograffitis (or data murals) in Cameroon, an idea that emerged a few years ago when I was involved in a project supporting participatory budgeting in Yaoundé (which also did the Open Spending Cameroon). I do hope that this idea of bringing data visualizations to the offline world catches up. After all, that is valuable data in a citizen-readable format.

I guess that’s it for now.

You can find the original version of this DemocracySpot blog post at www.democracyspot.net/2016/04/29/catching-up-on-democracyspot.

Change for the Audacious: A Doer’s Guide

Posted on May 4, 2016 by NCDD Community

We are happy to share the announcement below about a new resource available at a 25% discount for D&D practitioners. NCDD Member Steve Waddell of NetworkingAction shared the announcement below via our great Submit-to-Blog Form. Do you have news you want to share with the NCDD network? Just click here to submit your news post for the NCDD Blog!

Those working for large systems change have a new resource with the book Change for the Audacious: a doer’s guide.

It presents “large systems change” as an emerging field of practice and knowledge united by the need to involve many, many people and organizations in transformational change in contrast to incremental change. It draws on the author’s more than 30 years experience and the experience of leading practitioners around the world from diverse traditions such as community development, environmental concerns, peace building, corporate social responsibility, and spirituality / psychology.

The heart of the book is five examples of large systems change work: a global network developing “human revolution”, the German electricity transformation, apartheid in South Africa, marriage equality in the US, and our global environmental epochal shift to the anthropocene.

The book aims to present a comprehensive view of the large systems change behind this cases by identifying four core strategies, organizing structures and processes, a typology of tools that integrates NCDD’s Streams framework, and personal guidance for practitioners.

NCDD members can get a 25% discount by using the code “NCDD” by June 1st when they order here: www.networkingaction.net/product/change-for-the-audacious.

Watch Kettering’s “A Public Voice” Event Live, May 5th

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Roshan Bliss

Next Thursday, the Kettering Foundation – one of our NCDD member organizations – will report the data from over 250 forums they’ve hosted on the economy and health care costs to DC policymakers during their annual gathering, A Public Voice, and you can participate via their live online video feed! We encourage you to read more about the gathering and how to participate in the Kettering announcement below, or find the original one here.

As of March 31, there have been more than 250 in-person and online forums on Making Ends Meet and Health Care Costs. Those numbers are, quite simply, amazing – proof that the NIF network is vibrant and ready to engage on timely issues!

These individual forums are impressive on their own, but we know that part of the impetus for participating in NIF is the chance to contribute to a larger national conversation. Kettering has been analyzing forum transcripts, moderator responses, participant questionnaires and online forum data as it’s come in, and we’re now ready to offer some early insights into the national thinking on these two issues.

We’ll be doing this reporting to policymakers in Washington DC at the National Press Club, Thursday, May 5 from 10 am – 12:30 pm EDT – and we’d like you to join us!

We’ll be livestreaming the entire event so you can hear us, and we want to hear from you! We’ll be live-Tweeting the entire meeting, and we want you to add to the conversation – to let us know if the themes we heard were present in your forum, if there was anything unique that needs to be added, and any questions you might have for elected officials!

So, how can you join in?

Host a viewing party
- Did you convene one of the 200+ forums we’ll be reporting on? This is a great way to reconnect with the participants and let them see how their voice is part of the larger conversation! Invite some people to watch together and let us know what you think via social media – we’ll be taking questions and comments from both Facebook and Twitter throughout and feeding them to the moderator.
- Viewing parties aren’t just for forum participants either! Are there local elected officials who might be interested in seeing the results of this nationwide conversation? Leaders from other local universities, civic groups, or nonprofits? Use the A Public Voice viewing party as a platform to start a conversation about sparking and listening to the public voice in your own community!
Share the livestreaming link with your networks!
- Can’t host a viewing party, but still want to give your forum participants the chance to see how their voice is making it to Washington? Share the livestreaming link with participants and encourage them to watch and give us their feedback May 5!

Here’s the link where the livestream will be live on May 5th: https://scontent.webcaster4.com/web/apv2016

You can find the original version of this Kettering Foundation post at www.kettering.org/blogs/apv-2016.

Everyday Democracy Hosts Conn. Civic Health Town Hall

Posted on April 4, 2016 by Roshan Bliss

The good people at Everyday Democracy – an NCDD member organization – recently shared an announcement about a great town hall event they are planning to host with the support a recent grant. The event will share the results of a recent study on Connecticut’s civic health and hopes to spark dialogue about making progress in the state’s public participation. We encourage you to read an excerpt of the announcement below or read the full original post here.

Connecticut Humanities Awards Public Presentation Grant to Everyday Democracy

Connecticut Humanities has awarded Everyday Democracy a public presentation grant in the amount of $13,500 in support of its humanities program “Connecticut’s Civic Health: A Humanities Perspective.”

The grant will fund a Town Hall Meeting event scheduled for Thursday, June 9, 2016, at Connecticut’s Old State House. At this event, community and civic leaders, public officials, and humanities scholars will engage in a conversation about civic health data and findings from the newly published 2016 Connecticut Civic Health Index report.

According to Martha McCoy, Executive Director of Everyday Democracy, “learning about civic health through the lens of the humanities helps us bring the past and present into perspective. As we reflect on the changing role of civic associations and participation and on what citizenship and the common good can mean, we can create a more vibrant and robust civic life in our state.”

The June 2016 event will feature the nationally renowned civic leader Eric Liu, co-author ofThe Gardens of Democracy, as keynote speaker; Ms. Martha McCoy of Everyday Democracy; and a distinguished panel that includes: The Honorable Secretary of the State Denise Merrill; Dr. Richard D. Brown, Professor Emeritus of History, UConn; Dr. Bilal D. Sekou, Professor of Political Science, University of Hartford; and Ms. Alma Maya, Latino community advocate and Former Bridgeport Town Clerk. The program will be moderated by award-winning journalist and producer Diane Smith and produced by The Connecticut Network (CT-N). It will be aired live-and live-streamed on CT-N and will accessible for viewing during the month of June through CT-N on demand.

The program will offer various humanities perspectives on the importance of civic health to the economic resiliency of Connecticut communities. It will also examine opportunities and barriers to civic participation and draw strategies and best practices from Mr. Liu’s talk and the panel discussion. Topics that will be addressed include the meaning of “great citizenship,” the importance of inclusive civic engagement and public participation, and the role of everyday people in finding solutions to local problems. The conversation will also highlight the essential voices of communities of color and young people in our state and will help concerned citizens and groups and associations from all sectors chart strategies and welcoming pathways for participation in public life.

The program draws from the underlying message of William D. Adams, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, that “the common good is central to democratic political theory and expresses both the right and the obligation of citizens to debate and determine the general welfare; it is the aspirational goal, the guiding ambition that anchors citizenship and participation in democratic politics.” Hence, the program will also create a space for learning on how the humanities can play a vital role in public life…

You can find the full version of this Everyday Democracy post at www.everyday-democracy.org/news/connecticut-humanities-awards-public-presentation-grant.

What You Missed from the NCDD Confab Call with PBP

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Roshan Bliss

Our NCDD Confab Call this week featuring the Participatory Budgeting Project was one of our best so far! Over 75 people participated in the call and learned tons about the work that PBP is doing to grow participatory budgeting across the country – you missed out if you weren’t on the call!

NCDD member and PBP’s Communications Director David Beasley told us about exciting developments coming down the line for PBP, including working closely with the City of New York to use PB inside their housing authority agency, the PB Squared initiative (PB^2) that employs PB to decide how PBP uses its money, and the upcoming Participatory Budgeting Conference.

We also heard from Allison Rizzolo of Public Agenda about some of the great evaluation work being coordinated by the North American PB Research Board, the ongoing research into PB processes, and the PB research and evaluation toolkit that Public Agenda made available here.

If you missed out on the call, don’t worry, we recorded the presentation and discussion, which you can see and hear by clicking here. We also had a lively discussion in the text-based chat that informed the call, so we’ve also made the transcript of that conversation available as a PDF here.

Confab bubble image Thanks again to David, Allison, and the PBP and Public Agenda teams for collaborating with us to make this Confab Call a great success!

To learn more about NCDD’s Confab Calls and hear recordings of others, visit www.ncdd.org/events/confabs.

Scholars and Scholarship with Ties to Communities (Connections 2015)

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

The four-page article, Scholars and Scholarship with Ties to Communities by Ellen Knutson and Ileana Marin was published Fall 2015 in Kettering Foundation‘s annual newsletter, “Connections 2015 – Our History: Journeys in KF Research”.

In 1998, Kettering Foundation and Joffre T. Whisenton and Associates, collaborated to create Whisenton Public Scholars program, for scholars to experiment with and provide research on facets of citizen-centered democracy. The two-year research exchange program encourages scholars, usually faculty and administration, who work with often under-served communities. Knutson and Marin give examples of the research projects that the fellows have worked on in the past and talk about the Whisenton Public Scholars Alumni Research Conference in 2015, which shares some of the outcomes of the whole program over the years. Read an excerpt of the article below and find Connections 2015 available for free PDF download on Kettering’s site here.

From the article…

The Whisenton Public Scholars program is a joint project between the Kettering Foundation and Joffre T. Whisenton and Associates. Participants have primarily included faculty and administrators from schools with a mission to serve minority communities (such as historically black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and tribal colleges). Many of these institutions have maintained close ties to their communities and focus on developing student engagement. The two-year program encourages scholars to experiment with elements of citizen-centered democracy, such as naming and framing issues and making choices together in the context of teaching, research, and service. Additionally, the research exchange provides space for conducting novel research addressing the fundamental problems of democracy. Since 1998, when the program was created, more than 70 faculty and administrators have participated; the newest cohort met for the first time in July 2015.

The program was designed to investigate ways that faculty from various disciplines at schools closely tied to their communities could institute public scholarship practices. During the first year of the research exchange, participants come together to discuss topics related to public life and democratic self-governance, the role of higher education in democracy, and approaches to research in their communities. They also focus on learning toname and frame issues for public deliberation, the ideas behind public scholarship, and the relationship between institutions of higher education and communities. In order to have a deeper understanding of the concepts introduced in the exchange, participants experiment with putting the ideas into practice through completing field work between face-to-face meetings. The second year of the program is directed by the research projects of the participants. Beginning with the 2010- 2012 cohort, the scholars also joined other research exchanges conducted at the foundation that matched their research interest during this second year.

Four Research Areas
Over the course of the program, the scholars have produced research around the following broad areas:
– Developing curricular or cocurricular activities around public practices and citizenship;
– Framing an issue for public deliberation that is important to their campus, community, or professional groups;
– (Re)discovering the democratic foundations of higher education professions; and
– Articulating public scholarship as it relates to disciplinary concerns.

Many scholars have worked to include deliberative practices in their courses. They represent a variety of disciplines, from teacher education to international business education. For some, this meant including a forum as a pedagogical tool for students to learn about a relevant topic related to the course, while others revamped their complete curriculum to include deliberative elements throughout the course. In Deliberation and the Work of Higher Education, Cristina Alfaro (2000- 2001 cohort) describes how she infused her teacher education courses with deliberation in her chapter, “Reinventing Teacher Education: The Role of Deliberative Pedagogy in the K-6 Classroom.”

Scholars have also worked with students and community members to name and frame issues for deliberation. Three examples of such framing efforts on campuses and in communities are from Nora Antoine (Sinte Gleska University), Xuan Santos (California State University San Marcos), and a trio of scholars from three campuses, Anna Green (Florida A&M University), Brian Anderson (Tougaloo College), and Kevin Rolle (South Carolina State University). Antoine (1998-2000 cohort) framed the issue of community development on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. Santos (2013-2015 cohort) is working with youth in his community to support them as they identify and frame issues that affect them. Green, Anderson, and Rolle (2005-2007 cohort) focused their issue guide on fraternities and sororities on HBCU campuses.

About Kettering Foundation and Connections
The Kettering Foundation is a nonprofit operating foundation rooted in the American tradition of cooperative research. Kettering’s primary research question is, what does it take to make democracy work as it should? Kettering’s research is distinctive because it is conducted from the perspective of citizens and focuses on what people can do collectively to address problems affecting their lives, their communities, and their nation.

Each issue of this annual newsletter focuses on a particular area of Kettering’s research. The 2015 issue, edited by Kettering program officer Melinda Gilmore and director of communications David Holwerk, focuses on our yearlong review of Kettering’s research over time.

Follow on Twitter: @KetteringFdn

Resource Link: www.kettering.org/sites/default/files/periodical-article/Knutsen-Marin_2015.pdf

Kettering’s Archives Hold a Quarter-Mile of History (Connections 2015)

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

The four page article, Kettering’s Archives Hold a Quarter-Mile of History, by Maura Casey was published Fall 2015 in Kettering Foundation‘s annual newsletter, “Connections 2015 – Our History: Journeys in KF Research”. Casey describes the treasure trove of information that can be found within the Kettering Foundation archives. The archives contain decades of documentation, dating as far back at the 1920s, which give detailed information on how citizens have interacted around a variety of issues. Read an excerpt of the article below and find Connections 2015 available for free PDF download on Kettering’s site here.

From the article…

The windowless, basement room that houses the archives of the Kettering Foundation is out of the way for most of the foundation’s visitors. But, in many ways, the records it holds serve as the silent sentinels of the organization. They tell a tale of where the foundation has been and hold clues as to the path ahead.

The room contains a little more than a quarter-mile of material nestled in towering, rolling shelves. There’s an estimated 1,250 feet of paper files, 25 feet of photographs, and more than 100 feet of audio-visual material. The foundation thrives on conversation and discussion, and the archives make certain that all those words, and the research supporting them, leave records behind.

…

“The breadth of information that we have traces the research and follows various ideas relating to citizen roles involving community, government, and education and how to make citizen ideas visible,” Kingseed said. “We do a lot of work by talking, but those conversations leave traces. This is the place that backs up the stories we tell.

McDonough agreed. “You can’t know where you are going, unless you know where you have been,” she said. “For example, if you want to do work in public education, it’s always a good idea to see what we learned 20 years ago. As much as people like to think that in 20 years America has changed a whole lot [concerning education], well, it really hasn’t. All you have to do is examine our NIF issue guides from the 1980s: the things they talked about we are still dealing with today. And if you don’t save it, you won’t have it in the future.” Are the archives in danger of getting filled? Not for awhile, said McDonough.

The archives room is only about half-full. The foundation began to scan reports in 2010, but digitizing records won’t necessarily mean more room, as the originals are retained. Publications, such as the Kettering Review, Higher Education Exchange, and Connections, will be scanned and become .pdf copies, searchable through the foundation’s computer network. Changing technology, however, presents challenges of its own. McDonough keeps a floppy disk drive reader handy for accessing old files and will keep a DVD drive to read compact discs that are already being replaced by newer technology.

According to McDonough, materials related to Kettering’s Citizens and Public Choice program area take up the most files in the archives, followed by materials related to public education and higher education. Kettering’s archives are primarily organized by program area. Some materials are organized by a single foundation staff member, such as with the multinational/international program area. “Hal Saunders had it so well organized, I just kept all the files the way he had it,” McDonough said. When staff members prepare for retirement, McDonough starts working with them months in advance of their final day to get their files organized for inclusion in the archives.