Generate political will and community support to deepen democracy.
Pilot innovative approaches for expanding participatory democracy
Give partners the tools they need to implement and scale participatory democracy practices
Policy-making
needs a
reboot
Participatory policy-making is a participatory democracy practice that focuses explicitly on ways that community members can inform and decide on policy. More specifically, it refers to the policy-making process that invites community members to identify, develop, and decide directly on policy proposals.
Building on the core principles of Democracy Beyond Elections – real decision-making power – we co-created a model of policy-making that is:
Interested in learning more about participatory policy-making?
The Model
This participatory policy-making model was designed to work in a variety of contexts like schools, municipalities, and organizations.
- Flexible enough to work in different policy contexts
- Grounded in real decision-making power
1. DESIGN THE PROCESS
Build internal support and convene a steering committee (including community members) to work together to make key decisions about the process, using the core criteria.
2. LAUNCH COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Kick off community engagement plan to ensure multiple opportunities for the full community to participate in the process.
3. CONVENE COMMUNITY POLICY TEAM
Convene the Community Policy Team to explain the process, including compensation, roles, responsibilities, and timeline; collect relevant evaluation data.
4. LEARN TOGETHER
Engage in deep learning about the policy issue to understand the problem, its impacts, and a variety of perspectives about possible solutions; collect relevant evaluation data.
5. DEVELOP POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
The Community Policy Team, with support from the convening body, creates one or more policies informed by community input as well as their own learning and experiences.
6. VOTE
A community vote is held. Convening body collects relevant evaluation data.
7. HONOR THE VOTE & IMPLEMENT
Announce the winning policies; convene elected(s) and staff to create the policy implementation plan.
8. ANALYZE DATA & SHARE RESULTS
Analyze and share relevant evaluation findings with participants and steering committee.
The Pilot
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is partnering with the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) for the 3rd year of the Safe Schools program. The Safe Schools program empowers students to directly decide on spending as well as policies to make their schools more supportive and safe.
For this program, students work together to identify key aspects of safe and supportive schools based on their own experiences and to use their shared understanding and experiences to inform idea collection and proposal development.
Through PB, students were able to:
- Switch to universal start and end times, ensuring that students from every co-located school on the shared campus has access to before and after school programming and events
- Create a School Safety Council for students, administrators, and school safety officers to regularly come together to discuss and improve school safety.
- Fund bathroom renovation, which they decided together should provide an updated, safe, and clean gender-neutral space
This year, we’re piloting participatory policy-making as part of the Safe Schools program in four co-located schools on Bushwick High School Campus by bringing learning sessions into the process to provide students with the opportunity to develop policy recommendations for their campus.
Through this pilot, high school students will brainstorm spending as well as policy ideas, turn them into proposals, and vote to decide which projects to fund and policies to implement.
Our role will be to coordinate, convene, and facilitate meetings related to the Safe School Program, but students will be decision-makers throughout the process.
What students will decide:
- Capital Funds: $250,000 per campus for physical improvements to the school building, from Borough President Eric Adams
- Expense Funds: $10,000 per campus for programs and activities, from the school administrations
- Policy Changes: New school rules or policies that school administrators are able to change
Pilot Process
The 8-week pilot ran from March 22, 2021 – May 14, 2021, as outlined below.
Students, their families, and staff voted on capital and expense projects as well as policy proposals. We created ballots and collected votes in three languages: English, Spanish, and Arabic! Winning projects were:
- Upgrades to the 1st Floor Gender Neutral Student Bathroom (Capital Project): Add new stalls, toilets, sanitary napkin disposal in stalls, sinks and soap dispensers, machines for sanitary napkins and pads, and tiles. Improve wheelchair accessibility.
- Campus-wide Field Trips (Expense Project): At least three times a year, all Bushwick Campus students have the opportunity to leave campus for a mix of educational (ie. museums) and recreational (ie. ice skating) activities. Field trips offer students a break from school, provide an opportunity for students to have fun and build relationships with classmates
- New Gym/Exercise Equipment (Expense Project): Purchase new treadmills, kettlebells, and yoga gear for the gym.
- Expand Restorative Justice Program (Policy): Establish a more robust restorative justice system on the campus by implementing a social justice campus team to resolve any building-wide issues that consists of students, staff, parents- majority over admin.
Convene community policy team
• Introduce the process and its principles to student policy team
• PBP collects evaluation data
• PBP collects evaluation data
Design the process
• Students design the process (i.e., create a plan for engaging the broader school community and decide who can submit policy and spending ideas and who can vote)
Launch community engagement
• Students promote the Safe Schools program to the broader community
• Students collect community input and data, including policy and spending ideas
• PBP documents policy and spending data for evaluation
• Students collect community input and data, including policy and spending ideas
• PBP documents policy and spending data for evaluation
Learn together
• Students share their thoughts on what makes a school safe and supportive
• Students hear from experts and impacted students
• Students learn about the value of data to their role in the process
• Students hear from experts and impacted students
• Students learn about the value of data to their role in the process
Develop policy recommendations
• Student policy team creates and shares policy recommendations with administrators based on community engagement data and shared learning sessions; administrators vet recommendations
• Students also develop capital and expense proposals for budgeting and send to School Construction Authority for feedback and eligibility vetting
• Students also develop capital and expense proposals for budgeting and send to School Construction Authority for feedback and eligibility vetting
Vote
• Planning: students plan the vote, prepare ballots and get out the vote materials
• Campus-wide student voting on policy and spending proposals
• Campus-wide student voting on policy and spending proposals
Honor the vote & implement
• Count votes and announce winning policies and projects
• Project timelines and next steps are identified
• Students celebrate the work and reflect on the process to identify improvement opportunities
• Evaluation data is collected
• Project timelines and next steps are identified
• Students celebrate the work and reflect on the process to identify improvement opportunities
• Evaluation data is collected
Analyze data and share results
• PBP works with DBE partner, Center for Popular Democracy, to analyze evaluation data and share results of the process
Convene community policy team
Introduce the process and its principles to student policy team - PBP collects evaluation data
Design the process
Students design the process (i.e., create a plan for engaging the broader school community and decide who can submit policy and spending ideas and who can vote)
Launch community engagement
Students promote the Safe Schools program to the broader community - Students collect community input and data, including policy and spending ideas - PBP documents policy and spending data for evaluation
Learn together
Students share their thoughts on what makes a school safe and supportive.
Students hear from experts and impacted students on the safe, supportive schools.
Students learn about the value of data to their role in the process
Develop policy recommendations
Student policy team creates and shares policy recommendations with administrators based on community engagement data and shared learning sessions; administrators vet recommendations - Students also develop capital and expense proposals for budgeting and send to School Construction Authority for feedback and eligibility vetting
Vote
Planning: students plan the vote, prepare ballots and get out the vote materials - Campus-wide student voting on policy and spending proposals
Honor the vote & implement
Count votes and announce winning policies and projects - Project timelines and next steps are identified - Students celebrate the work and reflect on the process to identify improvement opportunities - Evaluation data is collected
Analyze data and share results
PBP works with DBE partner, Center for Popular Democracy, to analyze evaluation data and share results of the process
The Working Group
The model above is built on the work of a participatory policy-making working group, which convened to discuss and brainstorm ways that policy-making processes could engage community members as decision-makers.
Members of the working group included The Participatory Budgeting Project, The Center for Popular Democracy, Coro Center, Demos, People’s Action, Generation Citizen, The Center for New Democratic Processes, Local Progress, PolicyLink, and State Innovation Exchange.
Objectives
Activities
The Participatory Policy-Making Working Group met virtually every two weeks for just over three months. The objective and activities that came out of that working group are outlined below.
Shared Learning & Research
Part of the working group’s time was spent learning about participatory practices and models like Citizen Assemblies and Participatory Budgeting, and exploring the topic of technology in community decision making. The working group spent its remaining time together collaboratively brainstorming and discussing the non-negotiable elements of the participatory policy-making that members would like to see in the world.
Model Development
Ultimately, the working group coupled learning and dialogue with members’ own experiences and expertise to build a participatory policy-making model that combines the best parts of participatory budgeting (broad community engagement and decision-making opportunities) and policy or citizens juries (a core group of representative members of the community working together to address a specific problem).
