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Across the globe, urban planners and community decision-makers are embracing new technologies as a way of broadening and diversifying participation in local processes. But how do we design for success with these technologies -- and how do we measure that success? Far too often, indicators such as participant satisfaction surveys and rote number of participants are used to assess the impact of a project.

Lately I’ve been reading about an increasing number of instances in which good-faith planning efforts are being ambushed, often delaying or completely derailing various initiatives. Here, for example, are the new commissioners of Carroll County, Maryland, working to “fix” their comprehensive plan – click on item VI in the agenda under the video or jump to about 1:07 to get to the heart of it. More informatively, here’s the East Bay Tea Party in California revealing the strategy it used to derail a public visioning workshop focused on sustainable development.

First implemented in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1990,  Participatory Budgeting (PB) is a planning process which allows citizens to decide directly how to allocate all or part of a public budget, typically through a series of meetings, work by community “delegates” or representatives, and ultimately through a final vote. While the process has been widely utilized worldwide, especially in Europe over the past two decades, only recently has it been implemented in a few U.S. cities — including Chicago.

Inspired by local community success stories that had yet to be shared beyond the community itself, the Craigslist Foundation, well known as a catalyst for individual and collective action for the public good across America, set out a little over a year ago to develop an online platform which would help spread these powerful stories to a broader audience. The concept behind this public engagement tool was to create a new type of forum especially for people who wanted to change something in their community but were unsure of where to start.