UIC Great Cities Institute launches a participatory budget for the city of Chicago

The UIC Great Cities Institute organizes the participatory budget of the city of Chicago.

Through theDecidim tool , each ward (Chicago neighborhood) will have its own dedicated space for its participatory budget and residents will collectively be able to allocate a budget envelope of approximately $1.5M per ward for projects that meet their needs and interests and that strengthen resident engagement throughout the city.

This project is a collaboration between Open Source Politics 🇫🇷 and Digidem Lab 🇸🇪

Accompaniment

of Open Source Politics

For the past 5 months, we have been supporting the Great Cities Institute UIC of the city of Chicago in the implementation of their participatory budget.

This second case of use in the United States (after New York) again places a strong emphasis oninclusion with a mobilization strategy unique to each ward.

In collaboration with Digidem Lab, we are setting up workshops and training sessions with the UIC team for a better management of the different stages of the participation budget, think about the mobilization mechanism, and configure the whole project through the participation function provided by the Decidim tool.

This first project is part of a series of participatory budgets and an overall participatory approach by the City of Chicago. Thanks to the work of the group of partners and despite a health context that forces the adaptation of traditional participatory processes, this series of workshops will lead to a launch of the platform this summer . Go to this page to find the link to the platform when it is completed. We are delighted to welcome the city of Chicago to the Decidim community.

We have acquired an efficient structure and method from our accumulated experience in organizingabout ten participatory budgets using Decidim tools. This project with UIC allowed us to renew inclusion practices and to adapt Decidim to a new context .

The structure of the site and the contents have been thought out and adapted for the 10 wards that will be active for the first phase. The result: each ward will have a space dedicated to its participatory budget with processes that differ in their stages, methods of participation, audiences and timeframe.