The most useful participatory democracy resources, all in one place
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By Nikhil Kumar, Resource Manager
Are you looking for a facilitation plan template for a citizens’ assembly, the perfect video to explain legislative theater to community members, or the latest papers on the use of artificial intelligence in participatory processes — but have limited time to track them down? Look no further than our online resource center, which offers a curated catalog of useful resources for participatory democracy practice. In partnership with members and partners, we compile the best resources in dozens of languages and make them available to you in one place.
Originally prioritized in 2020 by People Powered’s expert community of participatory democracy practitioners and researchers, the online resource center addresses a simple problem: there’s a large (and growing) body of guides, toolkits and other resources on participation, but the people in government and civil society they’re made for have limited time to sift through them all to determine which are the most useful for their context.
With this in mind, People Powered, together with the global community who power our work, identifies and catalogs participatory democracy resources; reviews them to ensure their quality and utility for different participatory approaches, regions, languages and institutions; and uploads them to the online resource center.
Today, the resource center includes nearly 500 resources in 39 languages, from Spanish to Hungarian to Chinese, and covers 136 countries. Here are three tips to get the most out of it:
1. Refine your search to focus on the most useful resources for your needs.
Enter keywords in the search bar, sort to view older or newer resources first, and apply filters — including resource type, participatory process type, language, country, region, and institution — to limit your results to resources relevant for your work and the challenges you face.
2. Consult resource collections to explore common themes in participatory democracy.
We’ve curated the collections for practitioners looking for an introduction to participatory democracy, the most popular resources, and resources on climate action, inclusion, and digital participation.
3. Learn about what your peers are doing, and connect with them.
Using filters, you can use the online resource center to find out about democratic innovations in your country, region, or peer institutions. If you want to learn more, every resource includes a source link and author information to help you get in touch with the practitioners and researchers behind it.
Contribute to our growing library
The online resource center is an ongoing project, and we’re actively collecting, reviewing and uploading new resources, together with our partners at Nets4Dem. If you know of an excellent guide to participatory policymaking, the latest toolkit for participatory budgeting, an inspiring case study of legislative theater or another resource that you’d recommend to be added, please submit it for consideration. And don’t hesitate to get in touch with feedback on how you’ve used it in your work or suggestions of how the resource center can be improved.
Besides its potential to save you time as you search for materials to support your work advocating for, planning and implementing participatory programs, the online resource center also offers a potent reminder that you are not alone. Thousands of practitioners are part of the global movement to make public decision-making more participatory, inclusive and equitable, and we all benefit from learning from the resources they’ve developed: which innovations worked, which didn’t work, and most importantly, how to do them better next time.