Moderate an idea collection assembly
Idea collection assembly moderators ensure that participatory budgeting is inclusive and directs funding to the greatest needs of our city. Moderating an idea collection event is also easy and fun way to get involved in your local community and build your leadership skill.
Understanding idea collection assemblies
Learn about PB
If you're new to PB, check out the videos on Learn about PB.
As a moderator, you’ll need to know:
what participatory budgeting is and its goals
the timeline
proposal eligibility
that the purpose of the idea collection phase is to sign up budget delegates and generate ideas
Learn about idea collection event
At the Idea Collection Event (also called a neighborhood assembly) community members lean about the PB process, generate ideas in small groups, and sign up to become budget delegates. Watch How to Organize a PB Assembly to understand what a community assembly looks like.
Attend an idea collection Event
The best way to learn how to moderate is to attend an idea collection event. If you haven't attended an event, get in touch with the city PB Manager or a PB Evanston organizer about how to sign up for the next idea collection event.
Learn about proposal development
You should also watch the Delegate Training Video 2016 to understand what budget delegates do so you can answer participant's questions about the budget delegate process.
Moderating and scribing overview
The idea collection moderators and scribes' goals are to:
help participants in each group generate about 10 ideas
sign up participants to become budget delegates
make sure that everyone's voices are heard
You will do this by moderating small group brainstorming sessions.
Setup
Make sure to arrive at least 30 minutes early to the event to help setup (see table checklist). When you arrive at the sign up desk, you’ll be assigned to a table as a moderator or scribe. You’ll need to get the table setup for the small group discussion and assign roles to participants at your table. To setup, you should:
Setup the table tent with the table number on it
Assign scribe, timekeeper & survey collection roles to people at your table. Give each person the role/card lanyard and ask them to put it on and review the tasks on the back of their lanyard. Ask them if they have any questions about their role.
(Ask your scribe to) draw the 2 flip charts you’ll need for the discussion and hang them on the easels or tape them to the wall. Remember to write your table number on the flip charts
Moderating small group brainstorming
During the assembly you will take the small group through the following steps in the small group brainstorm, which lasts about 45 minutes:
Ask participants to spend 5-10 minutes writing as many ideas as they can
Ask participants to go around the circle and share their favorite idea with the group, add it to the chart. Continue until you have at least 10 ideas.
Ask participants to rank their top 3 ideas using markers or dot stickers.
Flesh out the top 3 ideas in a little more detail.
Ask participants if they are willing to sign up to be community representatives who will turn ideas into proposals. Explain that this is an important part of the process because ideas have to be developed into full proposals to make it onto the ballot.
Ask one of the participants to volunteer to report back the top 3 ideas to the group.
Ask participants to fill out the survey
Wrap up
At then end of the assembly, there are some very important steps to make sure that everyone’s ideas are submitted and the data from the assembly is collected to support future participation:
Double check that everyone has filled out a survey online (preferred) or on paper
Make sure that everyone who want to be budget delegates on budget delegate sign up sheet
(Ask survey collector) to collect budget delegate sign-up sheets & give to data manager
Work with scribe to digitize ideas from the flip charts (see how to digitize ideas)
Tell participants they can digitize ideas on their worksheet to submit them if they want.
| A moderator DOES | A moderator 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 |
When moderating, remember that your goal is to help the participants do the work, not do the work for them:
Moderation techniques
General moderation techniques
As a moderator, your goal is to help people develop their ideas and get excited about participating further as a budget delegate. You do this by making sure their voices are heard, not by trying to generate ideas for them or adding your own opinions.
To moderate, there are a number of general techniques you will use:
Active listening - listen closely, with body language and paraphrasing to show understanding
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.
Brainstorm - when group stuck, ask them to generate as many ideas as possible without judgement
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.
Encourage / balancing / draw people out - Gently point out who hasn't spoken or who has spoken too much. Call on people directly using open ended questions. 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
Breaks & energizers - When people are tired or restless, take a break and use an activity like group stretch when they come back.
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.
Watch Moderating Participatory Budgeting Meetings (starting at minute 2) to learn about these techniques.
Idea Collection moderation techniques
There are also a number of situations that come up during idea collection brainstorms that require specific moderation moves.
1. Participants have trouble generating ideas
Sometimes participants might feel like they don't have any ideas or struggle to come with an idea. However, we've found that everyone we've talked to can generate an idea with the right support.
Here are 3 questions that we've found really helpful to ask:
How has covid impact you, your friends & family, or community? or What existing problems do you think were exacerbated by covid?
What would make that better?
What could the city spend money on to do that?
Sometimes, when people are struggling to come up with an idea, they just need some time to think. The group brainstorm starts with a few minutes of quiet individual time for people to brainstorm their own ideas before sharing with the group. Notice that this is an example of the general moderation technique: "encourage/balancing/draw people out".
2. Ideas are too broad
Sometimes participants will generate and upvote an idea that is too broad. For example: "spend more on education."
In that case, you might ask participants to brainstorm some smaller, more specific ideas within this category, and then vote again on the sub ideas.
To solicit more information, you might ask:
What kind of service or help do you think would alleviate that problem?
What is the cause of that problem?
Who is affected by ____ ? Who will this solution help?
Is there anything being done to address that problem right now (to your knowledge)?
What has worked well in the past, or elsewhere, to help that situation?
To help participants refine their ideas, you might ask:
What would the ideal outcome look like?
What part of the problem is most urgent?
What would be the first steps?
How can we break this problem down into smaller parts that can be addressed?
3. Participants are discouraged that their idea doesn't get upvoted
Sometimes participants are discouraged that their idea didn't get chosen for the group. This can often happen if the majority of the group is interested in a specific topic and the participant is interested in another topic.
Explain to the participants, that if there is a great idea that didn't get selected tonight, it can still be selected by the budget delegates to advance in the next stage. If they want to advance an idea, they can refine it further and submit to the budget delegates, or they can sign up to be a budget delegate themselves!
4. Making a hard ask
The most important goals of the idea collection event is to sign people up to participate in other parts of the process.
A soft ask like "go to the pbevanston.org website to learn more" is NOT an effective way to encourage people to participate.
A better way is to make a hard ask like: "can I count on you to sign up to be a budget delegate tonight?"
In general, a hard ask specifies:
what you want them to do
why it is important for them to do
when/where/how to do it.
There are several asks we have of participants at the idea collection assembly including signing up to
be a budget delegate
participate in an outreach event
moderate or scribe for an assembly
5. What is involved with being a budget delegate?
Participants will probably ask you what is involved with being a budget delegate, make sure you are familiar with Delegate Training Video 2016 so you can answer their general questions, and then refer them to the PB Manager if they have additional questions.
5. What are the surveys for?
Participants might have questions about the surveys at the end of the idea collection event.
There are two surveys:
a demographic survey -- this is anonymous, and very important because it tells us whether we are running an inclusive process (and if not what we have to change)
a budget delegate signup survey -- also very important because the goal of idea collection is to sign up budget delegates for the next phase of participatory budgeting.
Thank you!
Thank you for taking the time to prepare for moderating an idea collection event!
Participatory budgeting would not be possible without your participation, and we hope you enjoy being an idea collection moderator!