PB&J: Participatory Budgeting and Justice

At the first Participatory Budgeting Teach-in (Wednesday, January 14; watch the recording here), Black Brilliance Project research leads Shaun Glaze and LéTania Severe educated attendees on how the City of Seattle will dedicate $30M in public funding to participatory budgeting in 2021. First used by Seattle in 2015, participatory budgeting gives residents direct input into how public funds will be spent. (You can learn more in this short informational video from the Participatory Budgeting Project.) This cutting-edge democratic tool will shape how the city reinvests money from the police department to communities most impacted by police violence. At the teach-in, Shaun and LéTania outlined the timeline for the process:

January and February:

• Engage community through outreach and continue research via the Black Brilliance Project.
• Create artwork and promotional material for Participatory Budgeting (PB).
• Develop and advertise the PB steering committee job descriptions. This committee will draw from people with lived experience in the community. It will determine program design specifics and guide the overall PB process for Seattle.

February and March:

• Collect concrete ideas related to five focus areas: housing, youth, mental health, economic development, and crisis & wellness.
• Collaborate on ideas and form workgroups.

Late Spring and Early Summer:

• Develop proposals. Anyone who is affiliated with Seattle can participate. Undocumented people and formerly incarcreated people can fully participate.
• Start the voting process. As with the proposal development, everyone can vote including people who were unable to vote in the November elections.

Fall and Winter:

• Funds are awarded to the winning proposals.
• Proposals are implemented.

Community roles for this work include the steering committee and workgroups. In every PB group, it is important that those who are most likely to be harmed by systemic racism are represented. Those folks will be prioritized to lead this work. Here are examples of workgroups the steering committee may form:

• Outreach workgroup
• Budget delegates
• Process facilitators
• Accountability workgroup
• Lived experience workgroup
• Restorative and proactive safety workgroup

Teach-in participants raised the critical question of how the Black Brilliance Researchers intend to facilitate the inclusion of all members of the community. This includes outreach to formerly incarcerated people and undocumented people, as well as looking beyond income categorizations to reach all members of the diaspora and multi-generational Black Seattle residents. The critical phase of outreach as well as the design and formation of the steering committee is centered around these concerns, and includes artists, writers and digital creatives.

Shaun: “We want to make sure we’re reaching out to every single community member that is out there. People who have roots of any kind here in Seattle, including people who’ve been displaced outside of Seattle. Many of our immigrant refugee communities have also been affected by displacement, by gentrification, by systemic disinvestment, whatever words you want to describe it, people have been forced to move time and time again.”

If you are a member of a group that is more likely to be harmed by systemic racism and violence, your voice is especially important. To build collective power through participatory budgeting, it must include people with the following lived experiences: people who have been incarcerated, people who are well-connectied to multiple community organizations, people with lived experience with homelessness, people with disabilities, people who are trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming, Black women, youth, people from the African Diaspora, people from communities burdened by health disparites, and people who have experienced police violence.

What can volunteers do right now?

• Get information out. Educate your community via an informal teach-in or casual conversations.
• Create artwork, music, and media content to promote PB. Keep an eye out for work by others.
• Identify barriers in your community to participating in PB.
• Think about other ways you want to be involved and reach out to a PB volunteer.

Everyone is encouraged to sign-up to receive PB outreach emails by filling out this form here regardless of whether you know how you intend to participate. You can find other PB links here: https://eztree.me/SeattlePB_outreach

Emma Lower

Emma Lower recently graduated with a Masters in Global Studies from the University of California-Berkeley and is a volunteer for the Black Brilliance Project. She grew up in Seattle, WA.