Category: Public Engagement Reports & Resources

This report serves as an aggregate analysis of all U.S. and Canadian PB processes from the 2015–16 cycle. This report breaks new ground by making comparisons across key metrics collected from one cycle to the next on all U.S. and Canadian PB processes. By bringing together data from all U.S. and Canadian PB processes and over time, we seek to inform ongoing debates about PB and to advance the practice of PB.

Evidence from Brazil suggests PB has helped alleviate poverty, expand access to public services, reduce corruption, raise tax compliance, increase the number of civil society organizations and improve the social well-being of a wide range of citizens. Can these outcomes be replicated? This report delves into these questions and examines the potential of PB to address economic and political inequalities in the U.S. and Canada.

The report, “Why Let the People Decide? Elected Officials on Participatory Budgeting,” is based on confidential interviews with 43 local elected officials from across the country regarding their views of and experiences with PB. Elected officials across the country report that participatory budgeting helped them be more responsive to community needs, improved their political prospects and engaged their constituents more in political life. The biggest challenge officials say they faced was not having enough time, staff and resources to undertake PB effectively.

Around the world, people are asking how we can make democracy work in new and better ways. We are frustrated by political systems in which voting is the only legitimate political act. We are concerned that many republics don’t have the strength or appeal to withstand authoritarian figures. And we are disillusioned by the inability … Read more