Josh Lerner is the Director of The Participatory Budgeting Project. He has completed a PhD in Politics at the New School for Social Research and a Masters in Planning at the University of Toronto. Since 2003, he has researched, advised, and worked with participatory budgeting processes in the US, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, Spain, and the UK. In addition to teaching at Fordham University and The New School, he has worked as a popular educator with the Center for the Urban Environment and as a community development advisor on UNDP projects in Slovakia. He has published in venues such as YES! Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, The National Civic Review, Shelterforce, and the Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management.
How to start Participatory Budgeting in your city
In 1989, the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre developed a new model of democratic participation, which has become known internationally as participatory budgeting (PB). Through this process, community members directly decide how to spend a portion of a public budget. In other words, the people who pay taxes (all of us) decide how they get spent.
July 9, 2024