Participatory budgeting process
Darren
Public
Seen by 217
We recently had a poll on preferences for spending a part of our funds which led to discussions around how we should go about contributing to some of the software projects Social Coop uses and the suggestion ,which had a fair amount of support, that we should use a participatory budgeting process.
Following on from that I'm bringing forward a proposal to organise that process
Poll Created Sat 17 Dec 2022 11:17PM
Start a participatory budgeting process Closed Sat 24 Dec 2022 11:02PM
I am happy to see the proposal had a lot of support.
Please join the new participatory budgeting subgroup if you would like to be involved in designing the process through which we distribute these funds.
Assign £600 of our funds to be distributed to support software (or other) projects via a participatory budgeting process which, to avoid notification overload, will be developed in a new Loomio subgroup open to all coop members.
As an example of how such a process may be run -
- the new subgroup decides a number of projects to support
- Then all coop members are invited to participate in a [dot vote] (https://help.loomio.com/en/user_manual/polls/proposal_types/index.html#dot-vote](https://help.loomio.com/en/user_manual/polls/proposal_types/index.html#dot-vote)) & funds are proportionally distributed in line with results
If it all goes smoothly we can repeat the process in six months. (In effect this proposal is for distribution of £100 a month, but avoids the extra overheads of running monthly decision making and money transfer processes)
Results
| Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Agree | 86.4% | 51 |
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| Disagree | 5.1% | 3 |
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| Abstain | 8.5% | 5 |
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| Block | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Undecided | 0% | 245 |
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59 of 304 people have participated (19%)
Justin du Coeur
Sat 17 Dec 2022 11:19PM
If we have the available funds, it seems like a reasonable process experiment.
Bjorn Toft Madsen
Sat 17 Dec 2022 11:20PM
I feel like we should direct funds towards growing the coop: Capacity, new member approval, or find a way to for incident management etc.
Hollie Butler
Sat 17 Dec 2022 11:20PM
It seems like a fun and interesting use of extra funds.
Scott McGerik
Sat 17 Dec 2022 11:20PM
I'm concerned about spending funds for projects that do not align with our goals but I believe a participatory process will address that.
Aaron Wolf
Sat 17 Dec 2022 11:20PM
I don't like the off-the-top-of-my-head "how about something like this?" proposal style. I would ask that in conversation first and then only have a formal vote after deciding a specific proposal rather than this sort of "maybe this could be a proposal" style presented as already being a proposal.
I support doing participatory budgeting, less sure about starting with donating to upstream software (something I also support, but I context about overall co-op budgets and other budgeting options).
Calix
Sat 17 Dec 2022 11:20PM
I'd like to see the same process used to decide on internal social.coop uses, which I'd like to see more of – agreeing with @Bjorn Toft Madsen – but this seems like a good start.
Sven Shipton
Sat 17 Dec 2022 11:20PM
I agree in principle to trying this out, but I believe the allocation of funds should be dropped to £400.
Andrew Shead
Sat 17 Dec 2022 11:20PM
Being new, I don't think I know enough. In principle, I agree yet I feel that the persons who disagree have valid concerns. I favour clear, concise requirements while understanding the need to progress towards consensus. Before allocating money, I think we need to know to whom we propose giving money, and that money should first go to the persons keeping the social.coop infrastructure running. I read the proposal again again and am still undecided.
Matt Noyes
Sat 17 Dec 2022 11:20PM
I think we need to have a strategic planning discussion so that our decisions can be guided by shared priorities and goals, but I also feel like this is a reasonable thing to try. But -- we should revisit the proposal and vote again after six months.