The new Fund It tool goes beyond Participatory Budgeting.

As the practice of digital engagement matures, practitioners are seeking deeper and more creative ways to involve citizens. The concept of Participatory Budgeting (PB) has been around since the eighties and the World Bank declared it a best practice in democratic innovation in 1996, but the idea has taken a wider hold in recent years.

Last year, NewDemocracy touted PB as ‘the next big thing in Australian local government’. Dr Hollie Russman-Gilman, an authority on the open government movement, wrote that PB and other civic innovations “suggest the opportunity for experimentation and digital tools to provide new opportunities for citizens to engage with the state.”

Despite this promise and enthusiasm among practitioners, the available digital tools haven’t always provided the features to deliver on that “opportunity for experimentation”. Few move beyond budgeting to funding specific projects or testing how they should be implemented. And none offer the flexibility to extend the process to voting or points-allocation.

In short, for all their strengths, we feel they do not offer enough opportunities for experimentation or creativity.

Our answer? Fund It.

Fund It is a tool that extends the capabilities of The HiVE’s digital participation platform to facilitate participatory budgeting, funding, grant-making, giving, voting and competitions. It wraps an industry-leading list of features in a stylish, user-friendly package that is easy to set up and manage.

Designed for the user

Fund It is designed with the user in mind. The interface is dynamic, elegant and requires little to no explanation. It invites engagement, with the option to include further information, images and video for each item. Setting it up is easy and intuitive, and with a range of customisable options, it dares you to think outside the box and unleash your creativity in your engagements.

More flexible than a slinky

Fund It doesn’t just simulate or allocate a budgeting process: it offers unrivalled flexibility in project design.

Fund It empowers users to step into the shoes of decision makers and weigh projects against each other on cost, merit and necessity. It can funnel participants through to the point end of a planning process, allowing them a say on how projects are implemented. It can be used on projects of any scale, and customised to suit a variety of objectives.

Money isn’t everything

Putting a price on things can empower and educate people. But money can also skew people’s responses or influence their thinking or behaviour. If you are using money for your PB activity, it is important to put safeguards in place to ensure people can’t ‘game the system’ or aren’t being lead or influenced unduelly.

Not everything has a dollar value, and only using money precludes many options, such as different kinds of competitions or voting processes. In some cases, you may not have exact costings for your projects, but are still keen to understand user priorities.

Fund It can be used with both 'dollar' or 'point' values. Using points allows the activity to be conducted in non-monetary terms and can be used for assessing priorities or weighting different options. Points can also be used to find priorities by assigning an equal point value to all items, and setting the budget to only allow people to choose a certain amount. By going beyond money, Fund It opens up a range of engagement possibilities.

Fully integrated

Fund It is fully integrated into The HiVE. That means you can run it alongside other participation tools and activities, integrate it into your projects and look at the results side-by-side with, or included in, the rest of your data.

Take Fund It for a spin

Fund It is available for Premium customers of THE HiVE (multi-project subscription) or can be purchased through a single project subscription.

Contact us to get a demo or learn more.