Residents in an imagined neighborhood consider the public places they share. Original editorial painting, not a depiction of a documented project or participant.
Participatory budgeting earns its value when residents can shape spending choices and follow them through to delivery
By Arbab Naseebullah Kasi, Chief Executive Officer - CEO, Feel Worldwide Foundation Inc..
A public budget becomes easier to understand when the conversation reaches something people use: the crossing outside a library, a shaded place to rest, or a service that helps a family get through the week. Residents know where a route becomes difficult and which opening hours make a useful service practically unavailable. That knowledge deserves a role in deciding what gets funded.
Participatory budgeting gives residents a defined share of spending authority. They propose ideas, help turn them into workable options, deliberate about priorities and choose projects within an agreed budget. The institution responsible for the money then has to carry the decision into its formal budget and delivery process.
That last responsibility matters enormously. A winning vote is exciting. Months later, people still need to know whether the contract was awarded, why the design changed and when the promised service will begin.
A credible process therefore starts with a clear promise about power and ends with an account of what happened. Between those points, it needs fair participation, honest costing and a willingness to explain difficult decisions in public.
Define the decision before inviting ideas
Before asking people what they want, explain what they can decide.
Publish the amount available, where it comes from, the spending period and the legal authority responsible for approval. State whether the fund can pay for construction, equipment, recurring services or some combination. Explain which expenses are already committed and why they sit outside the process.
Residents should also know what happens after a vote. If the council must formally appropriate the money, describe that step. If a proposal can still be rejected on legal or safety grounds, state the grounds in advance and require a public explanation. Do not present an advisory exercise as binding control over funds that officials remain free to redirect.
The choice of eligible spending affects who benefits. A capital-only fund can support a building improvement while excluding the staff needed to extend its hours. A service fund may answer an immediate need but run out before residents have found a reliable alternative. Neither approach is automatically wrong. Each makes a different promise about what can last.
Keep the administration budget visible too. Translation, accessible venues, facilitation, technical assessment and outreach require money and staff time. Concealing those costs makes a process look cheaper than it is and can leave participation dependent on unpaid effort.
Cambridge shows how ideas become funded options
Cambridge, Massachusetts, offers a useful account of a complete selection cycle. Its tenth participatory budgeting process gathered more than 1,100 ideas in September and October 2023. Volunteer delegates researched proposals through January 2024. In March, 10,522 residents aged 12 and older voted. The city had announced a US$2 million fund and ultimately committed US$2.065 million to eight winning projects for fiscal year 2025. Cambridge cycle ten record.
The winning list mixed different kinds of need. It included US$85,000 for menstrual care and infant hygiene products, US$400,000 for pedestrian safety and US$450,000 for shaded seats on hot streets. Capital and operating projects were both eligible in that cycle. These figures document selected allocations, not an independent finding that every project delivered its intended benefits. Cambridge funding announcement.
The sequence is worth studying. An idea collection period produced more suggestions than any ballot could sensibly contain. Proposal development made the choice manageable. The vote connected those options to a specific budget year and named projects.
Every institution adapting this approach should make the narrowing stage visible. Publish eligibility rules before submissions open. Give each idea an identifier and record whether it was combined with another proposal, revised, deferred or ruled out. A short explanation can show a resident that someone examined their suggestion rather than quietly dropping it.
Technical staff should help people improve workable ideas. An early cost estimate may reveal that an entire street redesign is beyond the fund, while a narrower accessibility improvement is possible. Residents need to understand the difference and retain a meaningful role in choosing what the revised proposal is trying to achieve.
Give deliberation enough room to change minds
A ballot can record a preference. Deliberation gives people a chance to examine why they hold it and what another neighborhood may need.
Provide comparable information for every finalist: the problem, likely users, estimated cost, delivery period, responsible agency and ongoing obligations. Explain uncertainty in ordinary language. A location that still needs permission should not appear as settled simply because the proposal has an attractive rendering.
Facilitators can help participants discuss tradeoffs without turning every disagreement into a contest of presentation skills. Ask who benefits, who might face inconvenience and whether a lower-cost alternative could meet the same need. Let residents question technical assumptions. Let engineers and service staff explain constraints without treating their first design as the only imaginable answer.
New York City’s fourth cycle of The People’s Money illustrates a substantial deliberative stage. The Civic Engagement Commission reported that 107 randomly selected residents spent 20 hours across four weeks deciding which ideas would reach borough ballots. The ideas came from workshops involving nearly 10,000 people in fall 2025. The subsequent 2026 vote drew 134,418 residents and selected 20 projects within a US$4 million allocation. These are the commission’s reported process and selection figures, not an evaluation of completed services. New York City fourth-cycle results.
Random selection can broaden who gets a deliberative role, but recruitment, acceptance and retention still matter. Publish how the group was formed and where participation fell short. A smaller assembly and a public vote perform different functions; neither should be described as a perfect miniature of the whole community.
Do not confuse a large turnout with equal influence
An open invitation is a beginning. It does not remove the cost of attending, reading technical documents or finding time to campaign for a proposal.
Offer in-person and remote routes where feasible, accessible materials and meeting times that do not assume everyone controls their working hours. Budget appropriate participation support, including interpretation and help with practical attendance costs. Explain eligibility and verification requirements without collecting more personal information than necessary.
New York City’s 2024 process shows why the channel matters. Of nearly 140,000 participants, more than 31,000 voted online and the remainder used paper ballots. Voting was available in English and 12 additional languages. The commission also reported that borough funding allocations reflected population and poverty indicators. Those design choices are documented; they do not, by themselves, establish that every group had equal influence. New York City second-cycle results.
Measure who participates at each stage. People who submit ideas may differ from those who refine the shortlist or cast ballots. Use voluntary, proportionate information to look for gaps by area and relevant demographic characteristics. Report missing responses and protect small groups from being identified in published data.
There is also a distribution question that turnout cannot resolve. A densely organized neighborhood may mobilize many votes for a welcome improvement while a smaller, less connected community needs a more essential service. Decide in advance whether geographic allocations, needs-based criteria or another lawful approach will address that imbalance. Publish the reasoning before anyone knows which projects will benefit.
Basic rights and mandatory services require protection through the ordinary budget and applicable law. Access to an essential accommodation should not depend solely on winning a popular vote. Participatory funding can add meaningful choices without making vulnerable residents compete for obligations the institution already owes them.
A small illustration makes the tradeoff visible
Consider a purely illustrative town with US$120,000 available for a defined set of improvements. After technical review, residents have three eligible options: an accessible crossing costing US$70,000, shade and seating costing US$45,000, and a one-year evening study service costing US$40,000. These are invented amounts for explanation, not real bids or a reported Foundation project.
The town cannot fund all three. The crossing and shade would use US$115,000. The crossing and study service would use US$110,000. Shade and the study service would use US$85,000. The decision includes a different remaining balance in each combination, which is why the rules for unspent money should be public before voting.
Residents also need more than the initial price. Who maintains the crossing? Who repairs damaged seating? What happens to evening study hours when the one-year service allocation ends? If those responsibilities are unresolved, the ballot offers incomplete choices.
Suppose the crossing estimate rises after a site investigation. A published contingency rule might permit a limited increase, require a revised scope or return the decision to residents. The appropriate rule depends on local authority and the nature of the fund. Quietly replacing the crossing with another project would weaken the meaning of the original vote.
This is the practical purpose of deliberation: people can weigh costs, beneficiaries and duration before a persuasive project title becomes a spending commitment.
Keep the public decision visible during delivery
Once projects are selected, assign responsibility to named departments or contracted providers. Publish the approved scope, budget, expected milestones and a contact route for questions. Separate approval, procurement, construction or service delivery, and completion so residents can tell what has actually happened.
Cambridge added a useful accountability tool in June 2024: an interactive map covering the 72 projects that had won funding across its first ten cycles. The city said the map would show locations, completion status and photographs, with updates on implementation. That launch documents a public reporting mechanism. It does not establish that every entry remains current or that all 72 projects were complete. Cambridge project-map announcement.
Whatever the format, report delays as soon as they become meaningful. Explain the reason, the revised expectation and who must act next. A utility conflict, an unsuccessful procurement and an unfunded staffing need require different responses. Labeling all three “in progress” hides information residents could use.
Keep procurement fair. Helping propose a project should not automatically entitle a person or organization to deliver it. In New York City’s 2024 announcement, selected projects were to be implemented by community organizations chosen competitively. The vote selected priorities; provider selection remained a separate step. New York City implementation arrangements.
Publish a proportionate change process. Small operational adjustments may sit with the delivery team, while a material change to purpose, location or beneficiaries should trigger public explanation and the agreed review. Residents should be able to recognize their decision in the completed work.
Read the evidence at the right scale
Participatory budgeting can affect more than the experience of attending meetings, but outcome claims need care.
Sónia Gonçalves’s research, published in World Development in 2014, examined Brazilian municipal data from 1990 to 2004. The study estimated that adoption was associated with a two-to-three-percentage-point increase in the budget share devoted to health and sanitation. It also reported reductions in infant mortality using its measure of deaths relative to resident infants. Its panel analysis and robustness checks went beyond a simple before-and-after comparison, but municipalities were not randomly assigned to adopt the process. Gonçalves study.
This is meaningful evidence from a particular institutional setting and historical period. The study itself discusses differences between adopting and non-adopting municipalities. It should not be converted into a promise that a small discretionary project fund elsewhere will produce the same spending shift or health effect.
Local evaluation should follow the chain of decisions. Did the process reach residents who are often absent? Did technical review treat proposals consistently? Were selected projects funded and delivered? Who used them, and what changed for those users?
Different questions need different evidence. Attendance and ballots describe participation. Financial records show allocations and expenditure. Completion records show delivery. Service-use data, resident accounts and appropriately designed outcome evaluation help establish whether the work was useful. A photograph of a finished facility cannot answer every one of those questions.
Include residents whose proposals lost and those who stopped participating. Ask whether they understood the decision and felt able to challenge an error. Their accounts can reveal unfairness that a satisfaction survey of successful project sponsors would miss.
Return with an account before asking again
The next cycle should begin with an honest account of the last one. Show what was selected, what was spent, what remains unfinished and what will change in response to feedback. If capacity is already strained by undelivered projects, address that backlog before inviting more promises.
Residents do not need to agree on every priority for the process to be worthwhile. They need a fair opportunity to influence a real decision, enough information to understand the tradeoffs and a reliable way to see whether the institution kept its commitment.
That is a demanding standard. It is also a practical one. A clear budget, a reasoned choice and a completed improvement give people something firmer than an invitation to be heard. They give participation a consequence that can be examined and improved.
If your organization has a concrete proposal involving resident participation, accessible budget information or community oversight, you can start a partnership conversation with Feel Worldwide Foundation. Any collaboration would require review of fit, resources, responsibilities and the relevant public authority; this is not an announcement of a Foundation participatory budgeting program or municipal funding. You can also support Feel Worldwide Foundation through a donation, reviewing the available giving purpose and terms. A general donation should not be assumed to finance a particular public project.
