For many, 2024 was a year where celebrations were hard to come by. At PBP, we’d be totally remiss if we didn’t celebrate one important milestone: 2024 marked the 15th anniversary of participatory budgeting in the United States–which started in Chicago in 2009. Since that first cycle, PB has grown to be used by over 50 cities moving more than $400 million dollars into community hands. (PB in the U.S.’s older siblings celebrated special birthdays, too: PB turned 25 in Canada and 35 in Brazil.) As PB nears adulthood in the U.S. and more cities institutionalize it, the message we’re hearing from communities across the country is loud and clear: we need real participatory democracy now more than ever.
No matter who you voted for in November–or whether you voted at all–chances are you encountered the message that the only way to protect our democracy was to vote. While we know elections are essential, we also know that they’re not sufficient to create a healthy, thriving democracy. To do that, we must continue to spread participatory democracy and shift power over budgets, policies, and decisions directly into community hands. Innovative approaches like participatory budgeting, civic assemblies, participatory planning, and legislative theater provide us with important avenues to practice democracy beyond elections.
Americans increasingly agree: our current system of representative democracy doesn’t serve the majority of us who live under it. According to polling data from Public Agenda from 2021, half of Americans believe that we need to change our political system–and that changes should center the participation and leadership of ordinary people. Seventy-three percent of Americans believe that national elected representatives do not respect ordinary peoples’ opinions–and 66% of Americans believe that special interests dominate the political process. The limits of elections to produce social, economic, and racial equity are already well documented.
While trust in our democracy appears to have reached historic lows, a majority of Americans find hope in remaking our government to center community participation. According to Public Agenda, “Americans say they would be more likely to get involved in public affairs if they could exercise real power, build common ground, and if decision-making processes were user-friendly.” That’s why the lessons we’ve learned from 15 years of PB in the U.S. are more important than ever: taken together, they make up a diverse palette of practices and principles that we all can use to create a more inclusive, equitable–and functional–multiracial democracy.
Over the next year, we’ll be sharing lessons that our Research Board, practitioners, and participants of PB believe are important to reflect on now. (You can get a head start by checking out lessons from the first 30 years of PB across the globe.) Along the way, we’ll look at the broader story of the trends and tensions that are shaping participatory democracy today. As PB has grown across the U.S., people are using it in radical and creative ways–from the City of Seattle using it to divest from systems of harm in its historic $30 million dollar process, to community organizers across the U.S. using PB’s principles to re-envision how entire local budgets get made. At PBP, we’ve been stretching our imaginations on how to use participatory democracy to meet the current moment—from supporting 10 community-based organizations to democratically distribute American Rescue Plan Act pandemic funds, to supporting grassroots groups and nonprofit organizations in using PB with our PB for Orgs toolkit.
At the same time–and perhaps not surprisingly–the practice of participatory budgeting has never been more contested than it is now. Too many elected officials see community-led decision making as a threat to their power. The current federal administration’s increasing attacks on human rights and the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion–and democracy itself–will reduce or eliminate funding for PB processes that are vital for combating systemic oppression and inequities. As we watch a flurry of unilateral executive orders freeze, eliminate, or redirect funding for essential federal programs, the importance of community control over the public resources that directly impact our lives is alarmingly clear.
The stakes are high. That’s why we need to come together; this moment is ripe for sharing, learning, and supporting each other in the fight for a government by the people. In September 2025, we’ll also be gathering physically in New Jersey–a place where PBP is investing in seeding and growing PB. As we go, please get in touch if you have questions or lessons you want to share; we need each other–for the next fifteen years, and beyond.
Ingrid Haftel
Ingrid’s work at the Participatory Budgeting Project focuses on using learning, collaboration, and experimentation to strengthen participatory democracy practice. She currently leads the organization’s Participation Lab. Ingrid previously managed Democracy Beyond Elections, PBP’s collaborative campaign to win structural democracy reforms that deepen participatory democracy. She has been working at the intersection of civic engagement, popular education, and design for more than ten years. Before joining PBP, she oversaw Community Education programs at the Center for Urban Pedagogy, and directed cultural organizing campaigns at Peoples Climate Movement. Ingrid is also a member of the US Solidarity Economy Network board. Other past lives include being a curator at an architecture foundation, a mender and shelver of library books, and a pizza slinger. Ingrid shares her Brooklyn apartment with a partner, a toddler, and a cat.
