Budget Ballot

What it is

Budget Ballot is a crowdsourcing tool which has been developed by Think Public that helps people set up and manage an online participatory budgeting process for any purpose. You can specify the amount they have to spend, the geographical area and the criteria for eligibility. You can also give the project a name and can then publish the budget to the web- inviting people to add their own project ideas.

Participatory Budgeting (PB) can sometimes be expensive and time consuming; promoting it, facilitating events and finding a time when everyone can be there. Budget Ballot takes the process online to help minimise expense and management time. It can also be used alongside physical PB events. Anyone can use Budget Ballot to set up a participatory budgeting process for any purpose.

Each person who submits a project to Budget Ballot has their own page, describing their idea that they can promote to their contacts. Participatory budgeting events often appear to happen under the radar, Budget Ballot supports users to promote projects in their wider community.

How the idea developed

Budget Ballot was developed as part of the Your Local Budget programme run by Nesta in partnership with the Big Society Network and PB Unit, which sought to develop approaches to participatory budgeting.

Think Public received £11,000 to build the app which they developed and tested in partnership with the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. Budget Ballot was originally intended to be a Facebook app. However user testing highlighted that applicants seeking funding wanted to be able to submit details of their bid and then push details out through Facebook and Twitter to generate wider interest and invite comments, ideas and suggestions for improving the bid.

Latest news (as at 3 September 2012)

A beta version of the tool is freely available on request to users and further details on Budget Ballot can be found on the Your Local Budget website.

Want to know more

Richard Owen @ Think Public - richard.owen@thinkpublic.com