Participatory Budgeting (PB) Cycles
Why does FirstRoot talk about “Participatory Budgeting (PB) Cycles” and not “PB Projects,” “PB Events,” or “PB Workshops”?
Cycle n. – “a series of events repeated on a regular basis”
Participatory budgeting is most effective when performed on a regular basis with the same audience (e.g., at the same school, annually). As a group of participants becomes more familiar with Participatory Budgeting, they begin to trust the process more. They see the impact that they’re creating, which creates a virtuous cycle of participation: more students participate, budgets allocated to the students become larger, and impact continues to increase.
This impact is experienced within the school and in the larger community, especially as students graduate and bring Participatory Budgeting into your community and their workplaces.
Each PB Cycle is made up of a series of phases. These phases are executed in sequence, and each must be completed before the subsequent phase can begin.
These phases include:
- Discover (Planning)
- Dream (Ideation)
- Design (Refinement)
- Decide (Voting)
- Do (Project Implementation)
When planning a PB Cycle, you’re planning each of the phases listed above and taking into account when your “next” PB Cycle will occur too (when the cycle will repeat itself).
PB Cycles and Civics — The idea of periodic cycles that repeat are part of the foundation of every democratic society. Sometimes these are annual cycles, such as the yearly elections in cities. At other times the cycle is longer, such as the election cycles of Congress or other government offices. We compliment periodic elections with ad-hoc elections, such as when we have an urgent need to pass a new law or respond to a voter referendum. Similarly, a school can have a series of Participatory Budgeting Cycles that give students their first hands-on experience in a democratic process. For example, a school could run an annual PB Cycle for everyone in the school, and each classroom or club in the school could run an annual or ad-hoc cycle.
Related Articles
Introduction to FirstRoot and Participatory Budgeting
Thank you for deciding to bring FirstRoot along with you as you make your journey through a Participatory Budgeting (PB) Cycle at your school! If you’ve made it this far we’re going to assume you are at least somewhat familiar with Participatory ...Promoting your PB Cycle
An essential activity in Discover is promoting the PB program and registering participants. Promotion When the Dream phase begins, students should be signed up, knowledgeable of what PB is and what they should expect in the coming weeks. Consider ...Teaching Financial Literacy through Participatory Budgeting
What is the best way to teach good financial decision making to students? We —at FirstRoot— believe that the best way to teach students how to manage money, is by giving them real money to manage. How? Through Participatory Budgeting. Take a look at ...App Overview
FirstRoot is the world’s first platform for collaborative financial decision making in schools. With the FirstRoot app, students work together to invest real money on projects that they create. FirstRoot’s app follows the principles of Participatory ...PB Schedule
Setting the PB cycle schedule defines the starting and ending dates for each phase. This helps students plan their activities as they know in advance how much time is allocated for each phase When setting the schedule, is helpful to take into account ...