UIC's Great Cities Institute
An initiative of UIC's Great Cities Institute, Participatory Budgeting Chicago (PB Chicago) is helping Chicagoans gain real power over real money. They continue to connect Chicago residents to the tools and skills necessary to take control of our tax dollars in order to better our communities.
CPS and UIC’s Great Cities Institute have worked together to facilitate PB processes into schools since 2015. It has now expanded to 25 schools and is in the process of expanding districtwide.
Learn More About Participatory Budgeting
PB has a basic framework that typically includes three main phases: Idea Collection, Proposal Development, and Project Expo & Community Vote. Within these phases, there is a wide variety of strategies and activities that can be implemented. In schools, PB has been implemented in a single classroom, across multiple civics classrooms, across multiple classrooms as an interdisciplinary project; and through a Student Voice Committee or Student Council, to name just a few models.
Featured Resource
The PB in Schools Toolkit has been designed to take all of these variables into consideration and provide you with the information, resources, and tools to design a process for your school.
Bring PB To Your School
Interested in implementing participatory budgeting with your school community? Contact us to get started at ssce@cps.edu.