Would you like to include the public in your financing decisions?

Participatory budgeting is one of the most widespread forms of civic participation. Not surprisingly, our team has the longest experience with this service. Since 2015, our experts have participated in dozens of such projects in countries such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Scotland, France, USA, or Zambia.

Participation Factory is a founding member of People Powered – an international network of experts in participatory budgeting. We, therefore, draw on deep know-how and have insight into best practices and the latest trends around the world.

Our expertise enables us to contribute regularly to the international Participatory Budgeting World Atlas. Moreover, we are currently involved in an international research project supported by the Visegrad Fund on school participatory budgeting. 

Where can we bring value?

Thanks to our experience, we know in detail all the pitfalls of the different phases of participatory budgeting. In particular, we focus on the design of the entire process to suit our clients’ conditions and constraints.

We do not believe that the same model works everywhere. We specialize in projects for clients who have specific needs and expectations from the process.

We can help in cases where the local authority does not have sufficient capacity,  when it needs to engage one specific demographic group, where participatory budgeting needs to be embedded in a broader system or project plan.

We offer much more:

• We re-design processes – we evaluate and re-configure ongoing participatory budgeting processes and identify the reasons behind any possible issues with the current set-up, whether it is insufficient engagement, poor project management, unclear objectives or anything else.
• We set up a monitoring and evaluation plan (M&E plan) for your participatory budget.
• We implement advanced training for project managers or responsible politicians so that they are prepared in the future not only to implement participatory budgets, but also to continuously evaluate and adapt them to the current needs of the city. 
• We involve primary school pupils in participatory budgets in schools.