Participatory budgeting initiative strives for equity
Cities, counties and schools across the country are boldly reimagining how to make public spending more equitable and effective.
This new way of making decisions about publicly funded projects is called participatory budgeting (aka PB). It gives community members real power over real money.
Led by the Office of Equity, Marin County recently launched its first participatory budgeting initiative. Using a democratic process, the county is making $2.5 million available from the American Rescue Plan Act and the public will directly decide how to spend it.
Equity is at the heart of participatory budgeting. Key goals of Marin's PB process are to transform the relationship that people have with government, increase civic trust and engage more people in the local democratic process, particularly marginalized groups such as young people, people of color, immigrants and low-income communities, among others.
Participatory budgeting honors the wisdom and expertise of community members to identify their needs and develop creative strategies to address them. It invites new and action-oriented solutions to a wide range of community issues such as affordable housing, economic mobility, mental health and climate change.
This is a powerful approach to community-led decision making. But you might be wondering how it works. Our PB cycle consists of five steps, all of which are rooted in deep community participation.
The first step is for community members to share ideas on how they would spend $2.5 million to improve their communities and advance equity. We are prioritizing project ideas in communities that score below 70 on the state's healthy places index, or have significant economic and racial disparities including Marin City, the Canal neighborhood and portions of West Marin and Novato. The index maps data on social conditions that drive health — like education, job opportunities, clean air and water, as well as other indicators that are positively associated with life expectancy at birth.
Ideas received to date include free and low-cost early childhood education programs, neighborhood-based disaster response plans, safe havens for social gathering and increased access to public transportation in rural communities, just to name a few.
Nearly 200 ideas have been shared thus far. Community members and neighbors shared over 2,675 “likes” of those ideas. An online map of the submitted ideas is available on the Office of Equity website.
The next step is for community members to turn their idea into a grant proposal. Participatory budgeting grant funds are available ranging from $10,000 to $250,000.
The county is providing free grant-writing assistance to help community members develop their proposals. Grant applicants must partner with a nonprofit or a fiscal sponsor to be eligible to receive funds. From there, community members who are 14 years or older vote to determine which projects would best serve Marin. Then, the Board of Supervisors will fund the winning projects from the $2.5 million in Rescue Plan Act resources.
The final step is for grant recipients to implement the winning projects and track progress.
On Friday, the Office of Equity and First 5 Marin will host a free in-person community forum titled “Participatory Budgeting: Advancing Equity and Building Community Power.” It will take place from 9 a.m. to noon at Embassy Suites, 101 McInnis Parkway, in San Rafael. The interactive forum will include an overview of PB and the community ideas submitted, as well as a panel discussion on participatory budgeting lessons learned from other communities. Participants will also learn how to apply for a PB grant and how to vote on which projects to fund. Online registration is open, and seating is limited.
Participatory budgeting is democracy in action. We invite you to get involved and transform your ideas into reality, making your community a better place to live, work and play. For more information, visit pb.marincounty.org or email equity@marincounty.org.