The guiding principles for CHAS PB in 2018 were to foster equity, community building, accessibility, and transparency among many members of the neighborhood: old, young, immigrants, citizens, long-time residents, new residents, and people of color. Overall, the process achieved its goals in terms of building community among participants and advancing projects that would address inequities in the neighborhood; however, it fell short of garnering widespread participation from residents, and several demographic groups were significantly underrepresented throughout the process.

CHAS PB included monthly meetings and other events within the community to recruit participants that encouraged neighborhood residents to get involved and imagine possibilities for transformation and then vote for community improvement projects they wished to see implemented. From a rulebook created by eight steering committee members, to 254 project ideas submitted by approximately 199 individuals, to eight ballot items developed by five change makers, culminating in community residents voting to fund three projects. CHAS PB involved the participation of more than 200 residents as they worked to improve their neighborhood and achieve CHAS PB’s goals:

• Equity: The three winning projects (a farmer's market, a youth empowerment program, and a pop-up movie theater) addressed social justice concerns of residents, including food insecurity, violence and truancy among young people, and under-investment in safe community spaces for families. Overall, the process successfully incorporated African Americans, Asian Americans, women, and people aged 25–44 years. However, residents who were Latinx, low-income, high school graduates without a college degree, under 18 years old, and over 65 years old were consistently under-represented.

• Community: For those that participated, the process encouraged residents to work collectively to bring residents together to solve issues within the neighborhood, with many working more closely with neighbors prior to PB involvement. In interviews, steering committee members and change makers overwhelmingly reported feeling more connected to their neighbors and community after participating in PB.

• Transparency: CHAS encouraged visibility of a public budget allocation process that participants reported as more transparent and accountable to residents than traditional city budgeting processes. However, steering committee members and change makers often reflected that their outreach efforts were unsatisfactory, raising questions about how many people in the neighborhood were aware of CHAS. The lack of participation from some demographic groups supports this concern that many Cole residents may not have known about the process.

Cole residents convened to solve issues and develop projects that would provide residents the opportunity to improve their community through meaningful dialogue and decision-making that would benefit the well-being of the neighborhood. Winning projects focused on sustainability, community engagement, and empowerment to unite community members and affect social change.

Benefits

CHAS PB provided the opportunity to develop programs that could allow Cole residents to identify community issues, develop potential solutions to those issues, and then implement winning projects. First, PB fostered a sense of community among residents that could increase civic action to affect positive, sustainable change. Second, PB encouraged facilitation to develop project proposals that allowed Cole residents to imagine new possibilities for the process and their roles within the community. As the process evolved, civic engagement strengthened and participants felt their voices were being heard and amplified.

“This is brilliant! I should participate!” If we as a community don’t always feel that we have a

voice, and we’re being given an opportunity to have a voice, we should utilize that.” - CHAS Idea Collection Participant

“By participating, it does make me feel like I have the power to have an impact in the community. …

I feel like this process gave me an opportunity to have that kind of impact, a more direct impact

than I would have.” - CHAS Steering Committee Member

Participants expressed the value of communicating to Cole residents that their voices mattered and were necessary for demonstrating the democratic power of including all community members in the process:

“I think people even got to know their neighbors, and folks may be a little bit more empowered

about how to create a process to get things done in their community.” - CHAS staff member

“Usually we don’t have a voice. Usually the money comes into the neighborhood along with a

program, along with the staff, and either we participate or we don’t. And it doesn’t seem to

matter. And then the money leaves, and the staff leave because they’re not residents. This was

totally the opposite. They were seeking people from the neighborhood.” - CHAS Steering Committee Member

Building Empowerment

As a deliberative democratic process, CHAS organizers wanted to include the entire community, especially those often excluded from other forms of civic participation. Many PB participants felt they could have some influence in improving the community, but did not feel empowered to do so. Surely, residents want to help in improving their community, yet are not always given the chance to or have access to opportunities to exercise their power to generate effective community outcomes. PB provided an opportunity to community members to engage and make decisions that directly affect their lives.

“And I think this [PB] is a step in that direction and because of the health of this community, largely, is

about how empowered people feel to engage in their local government, how empowered they feel as

citizens to make decisions that affect their life and so I think this will help people in local government, it

will help local governments make decisions that are more equitable, make decisions that are more

sustainable. And keep people engaged in a process that ideally I think they want people engaged in.”

- CHAS staff member

CHAS identified values that would motivate the process with empowerment as one of the guiding principles. From the beginning of the process to the end, participants' sense of agency shifted as they felt more compelled to engage and voice their opinions in decision-making. Considering one of the guiding principles of CHAS PB was empowering residents’ voices, this pilot process achieved what it intended, especially among steering committee members and change makers.

Critiques

In spite of CHAS PB’s successes, some participants felt improvements could be made for future PB processes.

Cole residents enjoyed working with one another to identify and make meaningful change within the neighborhood. Several interviewees stated that one of the most rewarding aspects of the process was making connections with other residents and community partners. CHAS PB successfully achieved what is at the center of participatory budgeting: community building.

“On what was most rewarding: Connecting with those members as well as connecting- A good

part of my work was outreach and talking to other residents about their desires and the problems

they’re having as residents. And them saying no one ever wants to hear what they have to say. I

loved doing the door knocking. Connecting with steering committee members and connecting

with other residents of Cole.” - Change Maker

“The core of participatory budgeting really excited me, and I thought it was a cool thing, a cool

process. […] While I was hesitant to commit a full year, given my obligations to the

neighborhood association, I was really excited about the process. What put me over the edge in

deciding to sign up was seeing the other people in the room who were volunteering and wanting

to make deeper connections with them.” - Steering Committee Member

However, the timeline, the lack of collaboration, and lack of city support increasingly presented challenges for participants. PB processes in North America typically last 8–9 months, but CHAS ran in earnest for just 4 months. The narrowed timeline of CHAS PB forced participants to work at a pace quicker than desired, ultimately interfering with the quality of their work. Lack of time also resulted in limited opportunities to conduct outreach and generate broader participation from the community. 

The lack of city support significantly limited the scope of the projects that could be implemented. Without involvement from city officials, CHAS organizers struggled to overcome capacity barriers (time, money, number of participants, and authority to implement some projects) that negatively impacted outreach, community participation, getting information about potential projects, and meeting times.

“I think having a better understanding of the relation of the steering committee to the change maker committee. It was never quite clear to me. Because we did not meet that early in the process. It sort of felt like they came in and took over. I guess more communication of the structure and the nature of that relationship. Maybe a little more, earlier, and frequent interaction between the two committees. That way they can stay united but also understand what each one is doing differently.” - Budget Delegate

Recommendations for Future Cycles

This report has provided observations and suggestions from the many stakeholders involved with Cole Has a Soul. The research team has benefitted from tracking the process since its inception, and with our expertise in communication, we developed several recommendations for the next cycle of Auraria PB, a process that is, at its core, one of public deliberation for social justice.

We recommend that more time be devoted to planning any future processes to better map out how the process will be structured, strategic outreach plans, how steering committee members and change makers will communicate with each other, and the appropriate timelines for each phase of the process. Understandably, because the inaugural cycle of CHAS was many residents’ first experience with PB, decisions about outreach, voting locations, and rules for project eligibility were made ad hoc. Additionally, after launching the process in May 2018, organizers experienced a lack of coordination, and the process effectively went quiet for 3 months until the steering committee reconvened in August 2018 and began making a concerted effort to move the process forward. With these general suggestions in mind, we recommend discussions for implementing future PB cycles in Denver consider:

• Allocating a sufficient amount of money. Budget constraints on CHAS limited the possibilities of the process for addressing systemic, chronic, and historical levels of under-investment in the Cole neighborhood. The $30,000 that residents allocated was not enough to provide moderate to large-scale infrastructure improvements. Despite these challenges, CHAS participants developed creative and beneficial project ideas. However, a key factor for motivating participation in PB is for residents to feel as though their participation will make an impact in their communities. Providing more money for allocation could entice greater levels of participation from community members and generate more impactful community-improvement projects. We recommend future cycles follow the North American average of allocating $9.85 per resident through PB, which would be approximately $6.1 million for a citywide PB process in Denver

• Increasing the length of the PB process. As mentioned in the report, the CHAS PB process was implemented in approximately half the time of other PB processes. The compressed timeline caused multiple challenges for participants and prevented the process from achieving its full potential. Future PB cycles in Denver should last 8–9 months, which will provide more time for outreach, developing participant knowledge and expertise, and generating high-quality, high-impact community improvement projects.

• Developing a strategic plan for targeted outreach. CHAS organizers struggled to garner representative participation from several demographic groups in the neighborhood. Steering committee members embarked on the process without a defined strategy for outreach. Future PB cycles, in the planning stage, should develop a strategic plan for outreach that targets members of historically marginalized, oppressed, and excluded populations. Attracting young people, Latinx residents, and low-income households may require unique recruitment practices, such as visiting schools, door-to-door canvassing, visiting places of worship, and providing culturally appropriate messaging. Indeed, door-to-door canvassing was one of the most successful and rewarding outreach strategies implemented by CHAS steering committee members.

• Providing robust staff support. CHAS participants lacked support from city staff regarding access to government information, expertise of city staff members, and other factors that affected the capacity of the process. Steering committee members worked diligently to develop tools for implementation without assistance from city staff members and a laissez faire approach from facilitators. Future PB processes will need collaboration between city staff, PB organizers, and community residents to establish a more equitable, effective process. Having wider support could allow for broader political participation, stronger relationships between community members and stakeholders, as well as community leaders. City support for this participatory democratic process will enable more people to make decisions, centering equity and transparency.

• Relying upon resident expertise. Although future PB processes will need more staff support to succeed, it should not become a top-down process. CHAS participants consistently remarked how rewarding it was to run PB independent of the government, for they saw the process as providing an opportunity to positively influence their own community, rather than relying on government actors who had disappointed them in the past. Because Cole implemented one of the first PB processes in Denver, there are now Denverites who possess the knowledge to implement future processes, and the city government should trust and rely on their expertise for future public participation processes, such as PB. The city should provide support to future PB processes in order to grow and improve the practice of PB without compromising the expertise of residents to advance equity and democracy.