Why Participatory Budgeting Is Central to FirstRoot’s Mission
Participatory budgeting (PB) is a democratic process in which a group of people provide input or decide directly on ?how to invest a shared budget. First developed in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1989, PB has gained acceptance in more than 3,000 cities and schools around the world. Sponsored by local government officials, most of these PB projects serve cities.
Participatory Budgeting in Schools
When applied in educational settings, PB puts real money in students’ hands and supports them as they collaborate on investing this shared budget to improve their schools.
PB programs have the following phases:
Why Participatory Budgeting is the foundation of our offerings
PB is pretty magical. In one powerful tool, our children learn the “Four Cs” of modern education: creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration, jumpstarting their path to financial literacy.
I don’t know of a more effective teaching tool.
How Participatory Budgeting teaches civics
The values on which democratic societies are based are crumbling. A root cause is that we’re no longer teaching civics — the art and practice of being a good citizen.
This is a structural problem, requiring a structural solution.
Within a school, PB motivates students to move from “me” thinking to “we” thinking: Not what is right for me, or what do I want, but what is right for the group, or what do we want? This perspective shift opens the door for empathy and solutions that improve the school for all stakeholders.
For example, our platform gives students the option to fund a participatory budgeting program in another school. Children in the originating school cannot tell the other children how to spend that money; they simply support them in creating their own program.
In addition to supporting other schools, children from different schools can collaborate to fund proposals that benefit the larger com munity. For example, students in one school may propose a new bus line that would improve safety and serve the community better. Students from multiple schools could support this proposal, substantially increasing its chance for success.
Together, these approaches create a breakthrough in civics.
Don’t be surprised: students make good choices
One concern adults share when considering PB is their worry about the choices the students will make. What causes this? My best guess is that adults are overly influenced by movies in which kids throw wild parties when their parents go on vacation, so they imagine that students will be irresponsible with their budgets.
The best way to address these concerns is to look at the choices students have made in past projects, as there is a rich history of students making excellent choices using PB. Here are a few examples from completed PB programs.
Sunnyvale Middle School Sunnyvale, CA
Budget: $1,000
Students collaborated to purchase a 3D printer to prepare for the ‘future of work.”
Overfelt High School San José, CA
Budget: $50,000
One student program created a?driving lesson scholarship?for fellow classmates.
Phoenix Union High School District
Budget: $4,000 -$7,000/school
Students in several schools chose to renovate their school cafeteria.
As a game designer, I delight in creating experiences that include surprises for the players. Secretly, that’s one of my favorite reasons why I love PB: the choices students make always seem to surprise the adults.
Long term benefits of Participatory Budgeting
PB creates many benefits:
By participating in PB, students will …
Research has shown that:
Participatory Budgeting is what students need now
PB motivates students to learn and practice the “Four Cs” of the 21st Century curriculum: creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration—all while teaching design thinking, civics, and launching their journey to increasing financial literacy. Students experience true agency and stewardship over their futures, learning through their own experiences how money really works.
[1] Cohen, M., D. Schugurensky and A. Wiek (2015). Citizenship Education through Participatory Budgeting: The Case of Bioscience High School in Phoenix, Arizona. Curriculum and Teaching, Volume 30, Number 2, pp. 5-26. https://core.ac.uk/reader/79588158
[3] 72 Frequently Asked Questions about Participatory Budgeting, UN-HABIT.
About this article:
This article was originally posted at FirstRoot, a Benefit Corporation I founded in 2020 to promote financial literacy, financial equity, design thinking, and positive civic engagement through Participatory Budgeting in Schools.?
The approach was simple and profound: we taught kids how to manage money by giving them money to manage. The program was managed by a teacher, with the budget given to the students based on the scope of the program. A single classroom might give the students $100 to $1,000. A program that includes an entire school would often have a budget of $2,000 to $10,000. The source of these funds was most commonly the Principal, the PTA, or a corporate/non-profit organization as a sponsor. Many principals also contributed discretionary funds to the program.?
Despite being supported by many passionate investors, FirstRoot ultimately failed, as I was unable to find a viable economic model for the company.?
As part of the shutdown process, I decided to repost these articles and other relevant content from FirstRoot into LinkedIn. My hope is that they may inspire other entrepreneurs and companies to promote financial literacy, financial equity, design thinking, and positive civic engagement.?