Do you want to make an impact on student life at MIT? The Undergraduate Association (UA), in collaboration with realtalk@MIT, is running a participatory budgeting process this semester to give undergraduates a direct voice in how resources are allocated.
What’s participatory budgeting?
Participatory budgeting (PB) is a process by which citizens determine how portions of the budget of a governing body is spent on the community. Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and New York City all have Participatory Budgeting programs – now, the MIT UA will apportion funds unused from previous years towards a Participatory Budgeting program for MIT undergraduates this academic year. This process aims to empower students to contribute ideas, vote on proposals, and oversee the implementation of winning projects.
What will these UROPs be doing to support the process?
Participatory budgeting (PB) is a process by which citizens determine how portions of the budget of a governing body is spent on the community. Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and New York City all have Participatory Budgeting programs – now, the MIT UA will apportion funds unused from previous years towards a Participatory Budgeting program for MIT undergraduates this academic year. This process aims to empower students to contribute ideas, vote on proposals, and oversee the implementation of winning projects.
- Collecting ideas from across the student body (e.g., running workshops, tabling, and interviewing students in the infinite corridor, etc.)
- Moderating online or asynchronous submissions to ensure adherence to MIT values and budget constraints.
- Iterating on data visualization tools to demonstrate how hundreds of ideas can be clustered into coherent themes and actionable items.
- Designing ways to increase transparency around decision-making processes at every stage of the PB process.
- Identifying and interviewing subject matter experts to help bring student ideas into reality.
