RVA Participatory Budgeting

This website will follow the efforts of City Council, City Staff, Residents, and Non profit partners as they work together to bring participatory budgeting to the City of Richmond. With a commitment to transparency, equity, and accountability, it will be a living document of the conversations and decisions that come forward as this effort moves forward. It is also meant to be a space to share information and educate the community so that they can be active participants in the planning process and future implementation.

History

In 2019, Richmond City Council unanimously passed a resolution supporting the development of a participatory budgeting (PB) process in Richmond, VA. The goal of this resolution was to set some initial perimeters around the use of the capital improvement budget and the design of a process that would allow residents of the city to decide how these dollars are invested in their neighborhoods.

PB started in Brazil over 30 years ago and has spread around the world as a way of giving community members a voice in deciding how public funds are spent. In doing so it seeks to bring transparency and accountability to governmental systems that can be hard to understand and access. At the same time it pairs the immense knowledge that is in every neighborhood with the experience of city staff to make thoughtful, informed decisions and respond to community needs. Since coming to the US in 2008 in Chicago, various PB efforts have started in the south in Greensboro, Durham, Atlanta, and Birmingham.