The National League of Cities, working with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, recently released results from their scan of
community engagement bright spots, drawing specifically on efforts or movements
underway in communities that demonstrate the potential of inclusive, intensive
community engagement.
“Communities across
our nation are experimenting with new ways to engage citizens in the decisions
made by civic leaders from the public, private and non-profit sectors, working
sometimes together and sometimes at cross purposes. Ultimately, success at
making democracy work and sustaining healthy communities requires engaged individuals,
organizations, and institutions. Across our country, community engagement
bright spots are emerging. These initiatives foster a sense of attachment,
expand access to information and resources, and create opportunities for
citizens to play more active roles in setting priorities, addressing issues,
and planning the longer-term sustainability of their communities."
We realize that many are interested in this report because
engaging citizens is essential to your work – particularly as it relates to
participatory budgeting.
It is in this spirit that we too are seeking to advance the
conversation, to share and disseminate stories of huge successes, and to
collaboratively consider future possibilities for citizen engagement.
We’re attempting to do this by assembling some of the
greatest contributors to this body of work, together at the "Summit of Leading Practices" - a
conference co-sponsored by ICMA's Center for
Management Strategies and the Alliance for Innovation, to be held in
Washington D.C., this July 9th and 10th 2013.
We are excited to announce the following leaders, who will
speak to the “Leading Practice” of civic engagement:
--- Davenport
Institute's Pete Peterson will contribute to the discussion on what
“legitimate citizen engagement” is all about, and how it has been done across
the Country. Pete’s experience has taken him to the participatory budgeting
events in Vallejo, California, to the first public budgeting workshops in Bell,
California, to the Redesigning Democracy Summit in North Carolina. He has
inspired our Priority Based Budgeting work in Walnut Creek, California and
Fairfield, California, and we couldn’t be more excited to have him at the
conference this July.
--- National
Research Center's Tom Miller (who we’re pleased to announce just joined the
Conference program this last week) has helped hundreds of jurisdictions use
citizen surveys to set annual priorities. Learn more about measuring resident
opinion from the man who literally wrote the book about why citizen surveys are
important, and how to use them. As Tom wrote to us: “We see such a strong link between the work NRC does to give voice to
resident opinion and the budgeting principles of CPBB that rest on
community-set priorities. We can’t imagine a better opportunity to show that
connection.”
--- Peak
Democracy's Robert Vogel will bring to life the cutting edge world of
online citizen engagement, including the breakthrough story of Douglas County,
Nevada published here in this Group. Peak Democracy has opened up entirely new
possibilities for how we engage citizens using technology. Their work presents
a revolution in how citizens are able to access and influence decision-making.
On top of this, some of the more profound and encouraging
case studies in civic engagement in Priority Based Budgeting will come from
your colleagues – some of the nation’s leaders including: Douglas
County, Nevada, Cincinnati,
Ohio, Fort
Collins, Colorado, and Walnut
Creek, California.
We hope you’ll consider being part of this event!
Center for Priority Based Budgeting 2013 Annual Conference
"A Summit of Leading Practices"
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