NYC and youth participatory budgeting 

NYC and youth participatory budgeting 

Young people in New York now have their own participatory budget

The Civic Engagement Commission
(Commission on Civic Engagement: CEC) of the City of New York organizes a participatory budget dedicated to young people. Using theDecidim tool, they will be able to collectively decide how to allocate $100,000 to projects that meet their needs and interests and strengthen youth engagement across the city.

The project is a collaboration between Open Source Politics 🇫🇷, Digidem Lab 🇸🇪 , Coro 🇺🇸, specialists in engaging youth audiences in New York, and Spruce Technology 🇺🇸.

BP Platform New York
New York x OSP

Where OSP comes in

For 8 months, we accompanied the Commission dedicated to Citizen Engagement (CEC) of the city of New York in the implementation of the participatory budget for young people.

In the midst of a pandemic, this first case of use in the United States has allowed us to understand and adapt to the culture of New York citizen participation inspired by community organizing . A strong emphasis is placed oninclusion by multiplying the modalities of participation, partnerships with local organizations to target marginalized audiences, systematic multilingualism etc.

In partnership with Digidem Lab, we organised a series of workshops and training sessions with the CEC team to frame each step of the participatory budget in the best possible way, to think about mobilisation mechanisms and to articulate the global project with the participation functionalities offered by the Decidim tool. This first project is part of a series of participatory budgets and a global approach to participation in New York City.

Thanks to the work of the consortium of partners and despite a pandemic context that questions traditional participatory processes, the participatory budget was successfully launched on 19 November 2020. We are delighted to welcome New York City to the Decidim community.

After organizing more than 10 participatory budgets on the Decidim tool, we have a proven structure and methodology. This first project with CEC allowed us to discover a different and innovative approach.

  • The structure of the site and the contents have been thought out and adapted for a young audience. The result: the statements are short and easy to understand, the navigation is uncluttered, the colours and visuals show the dynamism of the approach;
  • Several tools and participation channels are implemented to accommodate different audiences. SMS, video-conferencing, written proposals, short questionnaires... everything is done to ensure that everyone finds what they are looking for and that participation is pleasant and progressive;
  • Special emphasis is placed on mobilizing youth associations and collectives: participation spaces are dedicated to them, they can plan video-conferences with the organizers;
  • The young people will carry out the winning projects themselves.
Decidim by OSP

How we have
deployed Decidim

We have adapted the Decidim tool to these issues:

  • The process steps ensure transparency of the process between the inhabitants and the city;
  • Documentation areas provide equal access to information ;
  • The graphic charter created by a New York graphic designer has been declined on the site;
  • The New York City Digital Identity (NYC.ID) has been implemented to facilitate connections ;
  • The platform is available in dozens of languages to enable the participation of cosmopolitan New York youth;

This project will also be an opportunity for us to test the integration with the Pol.is tool we have developed. Pol.is allows us to collect and analyse contributions in real time thanks to advanced statistics and machine learning.

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RCS Paris 820 412 161
32 rue des Cascades
75020 Paris (France)

contact@opensourcepolitics.eu

Angers listens to its citizens.

Angers listens to its citizens.

Angers: a participatory budget model

Angers logo

The city of Angers has become a reference for the implementation of itsparticipatory budgets on Decidim. With 3 consecutive years of operation, the city has managed to gather more than 10% of its population around this ambitious participatory process.

In 2018, the city of Angers won the Cap'Com Grand Prix for the success of its participatory budget.

The support of Open Source Politics

Angers is one of the first institutions supported by OSP. It has distinguished itself by the great success of its participatory budget.

OSP contributed to the launching of the project by its tailor-made technical support, but also through advice in terms of community animation.

Today, OSP regularly assists Angers in the framing of consultation processes and the search for the best possible platform configuration so that it serves the context of the approach for which it is mobilized. Thanks to a work around the statistics of the participation, OSP allowed the city of Angers, and more particularly the team in charge of the participation, to better define the implications of its mobilization work on the traffic collected by the platform .Over time, OSP and Angers have established a real relationship of trust.

Beyond this support, OSP also contributed to the success of the participatory budget, through the elaboration of a communication strategy as close as possible to the Angevins and Angevines, encouraging them to participate online.

How we deployed Decidim

  • Show all the stages of the participatory budget from beginning to end to establish transparency between the inhabitants and the City. This is how the city and its inhabitants keep to the calendar and the stages.
  • Organize a participatory budget easily and gather in one place all the proposals, ideas and votes of citizens.
  • Provide detailed follow-up on the consultation to the directors.ice.s
  • To make visible to all the progress of the inhabitants' projects over time.
  • Thanks to the flexibility of the platform, citizens could be consulted in parallel with the participatory budget on other subjects such as parking problems in their city, in order to provide solutions collectively. In 2 years, the inhabitants were able to familiarise themselves with the platform through a dozen consultations.
  • In 2020, in the midst of the health crisis, Angers used its Decidim platform to set up a digital space for mutual aid. The platform made it possible to better organize the solidarity between Angevins and Angevines for this occasion.

The first participatory budget of the city of Angers

Carine Mandin

Carine Mandin - Responsible for citizen participation at the City of Angers

"With Open Source Politics, we are working in the same direction: to increase the power of participatory democracy.
Learning how to use Decidim has allowed us to conceptualize participatory approaches that resemble us. By becoming impregnated with the tool, we give strength to citizen participation. »

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Open Source Politics

RCS Paris 820 412 161
32 rue des Cascades
75020 Paris (France)

contact@opensourcepolitics.eu

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Touraine

Touraine

REFERENCES

Touraine

In November 2019, the department of Touraine launches two simultaneous participatory budgets: - One for young people under the age of 18 - One for all the citizens of the department

Client: Department of Touraine

Launch date: November 15, 2019

Url of the platform : https://participation.touraine.fr

Type of project : Participatory budget

The Project

Within the framework of this participatory budget, a budget of 300,000 € is dedicated to the financing of "youth" projects and a budget of 1.1 M€ is dedicated to other citizen projects from the participatory budget.

The keys to success:

- A Decidim platform dedicated to the expression of the citizens within the framework of the participative budget of the Indre-et-Loire department ; - Dedicated sections according to the age of the participants; - Each of the proposals submitted may be associated with a municipality.

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Community of Vendée

Community of Vendée

CASE OF USE

Participater Vendée 

The joint association of the e-collectivités Vendée provides all the communities of Vendée with a shared Decidim platform.

 

Client : e-collectivités of Vendée

Launch of the platform: May 2019

Platform URL:  

https://participer.ecollectivitesvendee.fr

Type of project: Concertation, consultation, calls for proposals

The Project

As part of a project to develop digital tools and their usage, the joint association of e-collectivities wanted to set up an online platform for local authorities in the Vendée region. The platform makes it possible to organise consultations with citizens, surveys and votes, calls for projects to support innovation, idea boxes to stimulate creativity, or even to launch a participatory budget in order to allocate a budget to projects chosen by the inhabitants.

Keys to success

  • A single platform for several communities
  • A possible management by each community
  • Neighbourhood meeting directories and maps
City of Saint-Jean de Braye

City of Saint-Jean de Braye

REFERENCES

City of Saint-Jean de Braye

Open Source Politics accompanied the city of Saint-Jean de Braye with the Decidim citizen consultation platform for the implementation of its participatory budget in January 2019.

saint-jean-braye logo 

Client: City of Saint John de Baye

Start date: December 2018

Platform URL: https://budgetparticipatif.saintjeandebraye.fr

Type of project: Participatory budget

The Project

In December 2018, the city of Saint-Jean de Braye launched the first edition of its participatory budget on the Decidim citizen consultation platform. 

This participatory experience was a success, with 108 proposals, 47 projects validated and submitted to the citizens' vote, and 13 winning projects.

A second edition of the participatory budget is planned for October 2019.

Keys to success

  • A kick-off party with the possibility to participate in the participatory budget in person.
  • Face-to-face workshops to accompany users who are excluded from the digital world in using the platform.

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decidim budget participatif

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