Budget Delegate Facilitator Guide
Thank you for being a budget delegate facilitator! Facilitators are the glue of the participatory budgeting process—your work allows the community to create impactful proposals that will benefit the community.
Before learning about your role as the facilitator, make sure you read Learn about PB and Learn about Proposal Development Process.
Then watch this video to see what budget delegates do.
Purpose
As facilitators, you help community members ideas into concrete proposals that can be implemented.
As a facilitator, your help the issue committee achieve their goals:
develops 2 impactful proposals for ballot
all participate, hear each other, and be heard
Have fun
To achieve these goals, facilitators:
facilitate meetings
serve as point of contact between the issue committee and PB Manager
plan group tasks
keep group accountable
organize & delegate roles, such as scribing, timekeeping, managing documents, etc.
Meetings
As a facilitator, one of your main responsibilities is to facilitate discussions. There are several kinds of discussions you’ll have at the budget delegate meetings. The PB staff will help you moderate many of these discussions but it’s good to familiarize yourself ahead of time and prepare for running any ad hoc meetings between budget delegate meetings.
Prioritizing ideas
Discussing which proposals to advance can be very difficult and there are several techniques that make prioritizing proposals easier. To prioritize proposals, it’s helpful to start with a decision matrix, for example a table with proposals in the first column, and a rating of each proposal on different dimensions (such as impact, feasibility, equity) in the next columns. Before the meeting, members should rank each proposal on each dimension and use a spreadsheet to average those scores for an overall ranking. At the meeting, discussing disagreements in ranking of proposals that are near the top, but not quite at the top of the list by calling on people with differing rankings. After discussing and updating the rankings, the group decides whether to take the top ranked proposals, or whether another round of discussion is needed.
Developing proposals
To develop proposals, your group will think about, discuss, and write answers to the questions in the proposal template. When the group can’t answer a question, you’ll have to determine who to talk to, what kind of research, or what other next step is needed to answer the question. As a facilitator, you will also help the group assign these writing and research tasks to different members.
Feedback
There will be many feedback meetings where you will get feedback from staff about the proposal. In feedback meetings with staff, the group should prepare by reading the written feedback from staff and preparing a list of questions about the feedback, then schedule a meeting to ask those questions to the staff. After discussing the feedback with staff, the group should decide the next step for addressing the feedback.
Brainstorming ideas
To develop a proposal, your group might find that you need to brainstorm solutions to a community needs. In a group brainstorm, you ask individuals to generate as many ideas as possible, because the more ideas you generate, the more likely you are to generate a good idea. It’s important to defer any judgement or criticisms during brainstorming because this prevents people from generating ideas. A good brainstorm starts off with a humorous icebreaker (Sound ball, Category, category die!), a review of brainstorming norms, followed by 5-10 minutes of writing ideas silently, followed by sharing of ideas to generate new directions, and then a prioritizing of the top ideas to develop further, say by dot voting. A good 30-minute brainstorm with 4 people will easily generate over 100 ideas.
Organizing a meeting
PB staff will co-moderate most of the budget delegate meetings with budget delegate facilitators in charge of managing discussion for each issue committee.
You may also want to organize a few ad hoc meetings with just your issue committee to work on proposal development. In that case, remember the steps for organizing a great meeting.
1. Decide if the meeting is necessary
Meetings can be a great way for a group to make progress, but they also take a great deal of people’s time. When planning a meeting, you should first think about whether the meeting is the best way to move forward, otherwise you’ll just be wasting people’s time.
To determine if the meeting is the best way to move forward, ask yourself:
What do I need to move forward? Do I need: advice, a decision, approval, alignment, resources, a work plan, clarity, information. If you aren’t sure what you need, take some time to think more carefully before scheduling a meeting.
Do I need others to achieve this goal? If you can move forward without others, then no need to schedule a meeting.
Do I know who can provide what I need? If you aren’t sure, take some time to think about who you need to involve before scheduling the meeting.
Is a meeting the best format? Sometimes there are quicker ways to achieve the goal than having everyone meet. For example,
if you just need to provide information or remind people, you could just send an email or text
if you need to see what everyone is doing, maybe a shared online task list will work
if you need to collaborate asynchronously, maybe a google doc is enough.
if you want to build connection, a party or social event might be better
if you need to finish some work, a work session might be best
If you know what you need, others are necessary, you know who to invite, and the meeting is a best way to make progress, then it’s time to start planning the meeting.
2. Plan the meeting
Define the desired outcome
Start by defining the desired outcome of the meeting. For example: “decide on 6 proposals to submit for vetting”. Your desired outcome should be stated as a noun and as specific as possible. According to Stewart & Tsao (2017) some common desired outcomes for a meeting include:
Decide - make a decision so that work can move forward, e.g., “decide which 6 policies to submit”.
Ideate - Brainstorm a list of potential ideas, solutions, or questions for further exploration, e.g., “generate 10 proposal ideas”.
Produce - collaborate to accomplish a specific output, e.g. “draft a 500 word description for a proposal”.
Plan - strategize or outline steps to achieve a result, i.e. “a list of next steps for researching our proposal”.
Align - generate shared understanding of complex information, e.g. “alignment on our ratings of each proposal”.
Connect - build stronger relationships among participants, e.g., “learn about what each of us hope to get out of PB”.
Decide who to invite
When you are making group decisions or if you have a small group you’ll probably want to involve the whole issue committee. For other meetings, like meeting with staff to clarify feedback or discussing a small research task, you may have to think more carefully about who to invite so you aren’t wasting anyone’s time.
When thinking about who should be at the meeting to achieve the desired outcome, make sure to consider who are:
key decision-makers
people that have needed info and knowledge
stakeholders
people who need to know the information
people necessary for implementation
Also remember that some people might be involved in other ways, such as by getting an email summary rather than attend.ing the entire meeting.
Create the agenda
List the agenda items you will need to accomplish the meeting outcome(s). Also include a check-in, wrap-up and check-out if appropriate.
It’s often a good idea to email your team if there are any items they want to add to the agenda.
For each agenda item, define:
the activity (verb) and topic (noun), e.g., “discuss proposals” or even better, a question such as “Which 6 proposals should we submit?”
the time required for each item
who will lead the item
the disposition — is this item about sharing information, gathering input, or making a decision?
Also be clear how decisions will be made (consensus, majority vote, leader’s choice) and who will be making them.
Plan pre-work
Describe any pre-work that participants must do to prepare for the meeting, including specific instructions for how to complete the prework.
In general, don’t assign more than 5-10 minutes of pre-work per 30 minutes of meeting time.
Identify norms
Think about norms for the meeting that the team should follow, such as for:
Decision rules – How will you make decisions when there are disagreements? Some options include consensus (everyone must agree), majority vote (half+1 must agree), or fist to five (a mix of consensus and majority voting).
Accountability – How will the group hold each other accountable when a commitment is broken? This can include 1-1s with the facilitator to discuss and address the problem, so it doesn’t happen in the future. Some teams like to impose slightly embarrassing but humorous “punishments” such as holding a yoga pose for 30 seconds or sincerely complementing each member of the group.
Time – what are expectations around starting and ending on time, responding to communications, advance notice, etc.
This is especially important if there are norms that are new to the team, or that they have had difficulty following.
See the Norms section for a detailed list of norms you can use to improve your meetings.
Set roles
Determine which roles you will have in your meeting and who will fulfill each role.
leader - the person responsible for calling the meeting, designing the agenda and responsible for the meeting outcomes.
facilitator - the person responsible for guiding the group through the agenda, engaging participants, enforcing norms, to achieve the meeting outcome.
notetaker - notetakers both capture the key decisions, tasks, learnings and information from the meeting and facilitate by asking the group to clarify what agreements have been made and asking the group to summarize the conversation.
timekeeper - keep an eye on the clock and warn the group when they’re running out of time.
information manager - make sure all the technology is working, help participants with technology, and make sure information is available online.
participants - participants support the meeting by taking on roles, enforcing roles and even using facilitation techniques to encourage good discussion.
It’s good to rotate roles to build your team’s skills, create shared ownership in the meeting outcomes and to build empathy with people responsible for other roles.
Decide if the meeting leader will assign roles, ask people to volunteer, rotate roles, or randomly assign.
3. Invite participants
Set the group up for success before the meeting by sharing:
Pre-work - sending out any pre-work for the group to do before the meeting (if necessary)
Tasks - reminding the group of any next steps they agreed to complete from the previous meeting
Meeting goal, time & location
Agenda – list each agenda item, how long it should take, and who will lead that item. You may also want to specify the desired outcome of that item, for example: share information, discuss, or decide.
4. Meet!
Arrive early to arrange the room, handouts, food, signs with norms, etc.
Start on time
Begin the meeting:
Check-in with everyone to see what’s on their minds
Share the outcome of the meeting at the beginning
Review agenda
Ask participants if there are any additional items that need to be added to the agenda
Assign roles
Review norms - especially to get buy in on new norms
Explain the note taking approach (see the Note Taking section)
Discuss — for each item:
introduce the agenda item
engage participants
enforce norms
take notes
check if ready to move to next item
Check-out
review notes including next steps, decisions & learnings
check completion — ask “does anyone have anything else to say?”
check alignment - ask “do we all agree on the decisions?”
develop communication points (what you will tell others about what happened in the meeting) if necessary
reflect on value of what is accomplished
acknowledge key contributions of members
assess the meeting
End on time
5 Share notes
Send with the issue committee (and any other stakeholders) within 24 hours of the meeting:
Meetings notes
Next steps
Logistics of the next meeting
6 Follow up
Check in on your team for:
completing tasks
outcomes
stakeholders
reminding people to respect decisions made in the meeting
Facilitation techniques
A good meeting depends on the facilitator making sure that all voices are heard while moving the group efficiently to the meeting outcomes. There are different techniques you can use for the different parts of the meeting.
Check-in
The check-in at the beginning of the meeting is a way to include everyone’s voice and invite them to be present in the meeting.
There are a few different kinds of check-ins you can use, choose a check-in you think will work for the group:
Check-in type 1: What’s on your mind?
This type of check-in allows people to acknowledge and release what’s on their mind and makes others aware of their state. Challenge participants to keep their statements under 30 seconds, not to respond, and if they don’t want to share they can simply say “I’m in.” Then ask a question like:
what’s on your mind you want to let go of?
anything you want to share with the group before we start the meeting?
how are you doing today?
Check-in type 2: Emotional readiness
Ask participants to rate their day on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 = worst day in your life, 10 = best day of your life.
If people are all below a 6, you might decide to hold the meeting later.
Check-in type 3: Relationship building
Ask a question that helps participants get to know each other like:
What was your favorite movie as a kid?
If you could meet any historical figure, who would it be?
What is your spirit vegetable and why?
What is one fun thing you did this past weekend?
Moving the next item
Sometimes the meeting moves smoothly from one agenda item to the next. Other times you will find that the participants go off topic, go around in circles or interrupt when you try to finish one item and move to the next. You can prevent some of these frustrations, interruptions and off-topic discussion by making sure people understand the current item and have had a chance to share their perspectives. You can do this by:
state the outcome for the agenda item — when you introduce an agenda item, state the outcome you hope to achieve for that item and ask if people have any questions. This will prevent misunderstandings about what the group should be discussing and focus the group toward a common goal.
checking readiness - before, moving on to the next item, make sure that people are ready by saying: "I think we’re ready to move onto topic Y. Anyone have anything else we haven’t fully addressed on X?”
test assumptions that someone is off track - sometimes when a participant seem to be off track, it may be because they see something relevant that we don’t. Ask them to explain connection of what they are saying to the topic: “I’m not seeing how your point about… is related to the topic of …” You might find they see a connection to the topics you hadn’t seen.
ask if we can go longer - sometimes the group needs to discuss an agenda item for longer than planned — if appropriate, you can ask the group if they want to take extra time to discuss the topic.
save for later - if an agenda item will take longer than planned but you need to move on to more pressing items, ask the group if you can postpone this item until the next meeting.
Engaging participants
To facilitator, there are a number of general techniques you will use.
Throughout the whole meeting use:
Active listening - listen closely, with body language and paraphrasing to show understanding.
When many people are speaking:
Keep stack - when multiple people want to speak at once, keep track of who wants to speak and call in order, then ask those who haven't spoken if they'd like to speak.
Track - If several conversations or themes emerge at once, step back, synthesize the main point, check with group that summary is correct, then suggest path forward for discussion.
Some should speak last - if there is someone who tends to speak a lot, or whose status would prevent others from speaking up, you can arrange with them before the meeting to let others speak first.
When someone is not speaking:
Encourage / draw people out - Call on people directly using open ended questions. Ask someone what they think. Ask: “tell me more”, or “why?”
Balancing - Gently point out who hasn't spoken or who has spoken too much.
Break into smaller groups - Introverts often work better if they have time to think or discuss in small groups. If appropriate, break people into smaller groups or have them write down ideas quietly, then share with the group.
Pauses & silence - Use wait time to allow people time to think and speak.
When the group is stuck:
Acknowledge what’s holding us back: “It seems like we’ve been talking about this idea and running in circles for the last few minutes. What’s hindering us? What other things do we need to move forward?” If it’s clear what getting in the way you can identify the next step, such as getting additional information, involving another decision maker, then save that agenda item for another meeting.
Re-engage voting - if the group is having trouble coming to a decision, you can take a straw poll, for example anonymous polls, dot-voting, fist of five.
Brainstorm - when group stuck finding an option, ask them to generate as many ideas as possible without judgement.
Breaks & energizers - When people are tired or restless, take a break and use an activity like group stretch when they come back.
Empathize - ask the group to imagine what others whom they interact with but who aren’t in the meeting might say.
When someone is getting off track:
Jellyfish! - When the group gets off track, anyone can yell “jellyfish!” or “I think we’re having a jellyfish moment!” It’s a humorous accessible way for anyone to help the group stay on topic. Make sure to introduce the rule at the beginning of the meeting.
Test assumptions - if someone is getting off track, ask them to explain connection of what they are saying to the topic: “I’m not seeing how your point about… is related to the topic of …”.
To make sure that the work in the meeting translates into action:
Closure - End meeting with review of decisions and next steps to give sense of accomplishment and what to do next.
Follow up - Share meeting notes & next steps to guide action between meetings.
Enforcing norms
make norms the bad guy - when a norm is violated, simply remind the group: “Thanks Gus, but I want to remind you that we agreed not to …”
use norms to empower yourself - when you want to do something difficult supported by a norm call it out: “We agreed that people should play devil’s advocate, so I’d like to offer some controversial ideas.”
celebrate when norms are followed -when someone follows a norm say thank you, at the end of the meeting point out how the group did well following the norm.
When facilitating, remember that your goal is to help the participants do the work, not do the work for them:
| A facilitator DOES | A facilitator does NOT |
|---|---|
| Manage the meeting | Take part in the discussion |
| Give participants the relevant structure and tools | Try to influence the outcome |
| Make sure everyone is heard | Offer your own view |
| Help participants identify, articulate, and refine ideas (and or/goals) | Make decisions |
| Help participants develop action plans | Take control of the content |
| Help participants assume responsibility and take charge (as possible delegate volunteers) | Only interact with certain people in the group |
Taking Notes
Taking good notes is critical to making sure the meeting discussion is translated to action. Unfortunately, most groups don’t take notes in a way that is actionable or is understandable to people who weren’t at the meeting. A great way to make your meeting notes more useful is to focus on capturing the following types of notes:
tasks - what are next steps, who is responsible, what do they need to do, and by when?
decisions - what decisions did we make?
learning - what important insights have come out of the discussion that we need to remember?
general - any other information that should be recorded that isn’t a task, decision, or learning.
At the beginning of the meeting, you also need to agree on who will take notes. There are a couple of different approaches:
assigning a scribe — one person has a dedicated role to take notes for the group, and help facilitate by asking for clarification of group decisions. The downside of this approach is that the scribe alone is responsible for identifying the important information and may not be able to participate in the meeting — if so, consider rotating the scribe role.
team captures notes at end — at the end of the meeting the team reviews the discussion and takes notes together. This is a good approach that removes pressure from the other roles. To do this, create a shared or projected document and ask the group:
What are our next steps? Who will do what by when?
What decisions did we make?
Is there any information that people who are being informed of this meeting need to know.
Is there anything that needs to be captured for historical purposes?
facilitator takes rough notes, then fleshes them out at the end — if neither the scribe nor team is capturing notes, the facilitator can jot down rough notes during the meeting, then flesh them out at the end. The difficulty of this approach is that the facilitator has quite a bit to handle during the meeting.
After the meeting, notes should be shared immediately with the entire team and any other stakeholders that need to be informed of the meeting outcomes.
Meeting norms
When you are organizing the meeting, you need to decide on meeting norms. There are many types of norms your team can set to improve process, communication, preparation, decision-making, virtual meetings, check-ins & brainstorming (Stewart & Tsao, 2017).
You may want to choose just a few norms to focus on and introduce more as you go. Choose the norms that are most critical to your teamwork.
For a norm to work, people must be introduced to the norm before it’s applied, then gently reminded when the norm is violated. You may want to discuss with the group which norms they want to adopt to increase buy-in. Be careful not to shame the person who has violated the norm, but rather assume good intentions and simply remind them of the norm the team agreed to abide by.
Remember to introduce the norms at the beginning of the meeting so people know/remember what’s expected of them. You can also help them remember during the meeting by making the norms visible on signs or in the agenda.
When a norm is violated, it’s every participant’s job to remind each other to keep to the norm and to thank people when the norm is followed.
Process Norms
Start/end on time. We will respect everyone’s time by starting and ending on time. If you enter late, feather yourself in without disturbing the conversation.
One conversation at a time. Refrain from side-talk.
Capture off topic items in a ‘backburner’ and agree to discuss them later at a more appropriate time.
Take bio breaks as needed.
Everyone is responsible for staying on topic. Speak up if you feel like we’re getting off track.
Everyone is responsible for upholding the norms. Acknowledge if you notice we are not doing so.
Allow yourself to be facilitated.
Communication Norms
Ask questions for clarification.
Make sure everyone’s voice is heard.
Balance your participation—speak and listen.
Listen actively without interrupting.
Clarify when you are advocating vs. offering an idea.
Say it now, in the room.
All voices count. All opinions are valid, but offer reasoning behind your thinking.
Acknowledge when you are playing devil’s advocate.
Half-baked ideas are welcome.
Preparation Norms
Be prepared and ready to engage. Read agenda; do; prework.
Come empowered to make commitments for your area or function.
Focus on the discussion.
Send material and agenda 24 hours before a meeting.
Decision-Making Meeting Norm
We will use [consensus, consultative, majority rule, fist of five voting] as our decision-making process.
Each person is responsible for ensuring they understand the options and arguments before making the decision.
Be willing to support a team consensus even if you initially do not agree with it.
Do not push your ideas on the team after a decision has been made.
Acknowledge when you are playing “devil’s advocate” to help test a decision or idea.
Separate your own personal feelings from what’s best for the team/organization.
Consider our principles/priorities/criteria over your preference.
Virtual Meetings Norms
Do not multitask (do other work) during the meeting.
Use the mute button at your site to prevent the transmission of background noise.
Speak up to get attention if you have something to say.
Use the chat panel to build the stack/signal when you want to speak.
Turn on your video whenever possible.
Follow an organized line up to ensure each person has a chance to respond.
Staff Meeting/ Check-in Meeting
Be concise and to the point.
Be open to feedback.
Share only new information, not a repeat of old information.
Be sure your information is accurate.
Acknowledge when you don’t have an answer but will provide it after the meeting.
Share celebrations and challenges alike.
Brainstorming norms
All ideas are good ideas.
Think big and small.
Build on the ideas of others. use “yes, and…”; avoid “no, but…”.
Defer judgement of ideas during brainstorming.
Keep resource constraints in mind.
Focus on thinking big picture (40,000 feet) or small changes (1,000 feet).
Other Helpful Norms
Our community’s opinions are more important than our own.
Bring in data whenever possible.
Be present with the people you are meeting with. Put away phones and other devices during the meeting.
Only use devices if they support your participation.
Challenge past assumptions and sacred cows.
Address conflict head on.
Look ahead to positive action, not back on shoulda, woulda, coulda.
Aim for GETGO – good enough to go, not perfection.
Ask “how might we?”
Team / Meeting Roles
For the group to share responsibility, roles and responsibilities should be clearly defined. Each role should be based on a specific team outcome and assigned to someone with the necessary skills and motivation to carry it out.
Your team will have to decide on which roles to create and who to assign to each role and for how long. Some possible roles your team might want to create:
| Role name | Outcome | Required skills |
|---|---|---|
| Facilitator | Ensure the issue committee achieves its goals. Lead meetings | Organization, coaching, lead discussions |
| Scribe | Ensure notes & decisions are recorded. | Listening, notetaking |
| Timekeeper | Ensure meetings start and end on time. | Keep an eye on the clock. |
| Information Manager | Ensure documents are stored and shared | Technology skill |
| PB Liaison | Communicate between issue committee and PB Manager | Communication skill, ability to respond quickly |
| Proposal Lead | Ensure that a specific proposal is developed on time | Management, research |
When assigning roles, remember that the person assigned to the role does not necessarily do all the work to achieve that goal, but is responsible for making sure that goal is achieved. For example, the “proposal lead” doesn’t develop the proposal alone but makes sure the people working on that proposal achieve their goal.
FAQ
Coming soon...