Loomio
Mon 3 Aug 2015 12:23PM

Participatory Budget Discussion

DU Etienne Public Seen by 303

Dear community, as a follow up to what was decided at the Summit in Salerno, here is our proposal for

PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING V1.0

We have planned one week of discussions and review of this proposal to verify that is make sense. Please, feel free to ask questions, give feedback and tell us if you feel OK with it.
Thank you very much: Etienne-Francesca-Julie-Manuela.

Our Goal :

Create the ideal conditions for each Connector to freely decide in service of OuiShare how to distribute and allocate his/her share of the participatory budget to help OuiShare and its members thrive in the next 6 months.

Requires :

Transparency, a good level of information, trust

Pilot set-up:

This is a first pilot of the participatory budget, decided at the Summit #7. As agreed there, the amount available for the participatory budgeting is 25 000€, to be allocated to the 70 connectors, so around 350 per connector and used in the next 6 months (till end of 2015).

We hope to repeat the exercise next year at the Summit #8 with next years budget and a V2 of this pilot.

Tokens: can be converted into Euros. 1 Token = 1 Euro

Expected Results:

*The projects that make sense to the community are funded
* Projects leaders feel backed by the community
* Connectors have good financial conditions to work

Our Choices:

*Give Connectors the freedom and responsibility to decide whether to distribute his/her tokens to many different projects and / or Connectors, or only a few.
*Do this on an open spreadsheet which offers transparency and consciousness of all the projects and their levels of funding at a given moment.
*Have 2 voting periods, during which you can change your vote until the final deadline, which should enable a liquid evolution of votes, and which, we hope, will stimulate project leaders to communicate for their projects as we are used to from Crowdfunding campaigns.
*We ask each Connector to decide whether they are open to being funded by other Connectors (let’s call this “to cash-in”), which means receiving tokens from others which they will transform into Euros by invoicing OuiShare. Each Connector also has the option to say they do not want to cash-in.
*We ask you to take leadership to propose projects that you think would benefit OuiShare in its development and for each project to describe its aim, impact and financial needs

Our Hope:

By choosing such an open framework we hope to raise collective awareness for our projects and their needs, and create a shared responsibility for how we distribute our budget.

Additionnal information :

We all should be aware that Connectors who would like to transform tokens into Euros need a billing capacity, which also means that they will be taxed.

Next steps & EDITED timeline :

16 - 2nd Septembre : Call for projects that want to apply for budget : Call for projects
3rd-8th Septembre : First Voting period
9th Septembre : Review after 2 weeks of the evolution of projects funding
10-14th Septembre : 2nd and final Voting Period
14th Septembre 12:00am : End of votes
15-16th Septembre : Finalisation / comments / critics
16th Septembre : Distribution - Allocation

You can find the Spreadhsheet here :
Spreadsheet for the Vote
It's a comment only mode for now, just to show you how it would work

This might not be perfect, it’s a permanent beta, a work in progress and we hope you can help us to make it a better tool for us to work collectively in a smooth way.

Looking forward to your feedback so we can launch the call for projects next week!

LH

Lucía Hernández Tue 4 Aug 2015 9:13AM

Thanks guys, it will be a very interesting case study. :)

M

Maud Tue 4 Aug 2015 5:15PM

Thanks for this great work guys, I find it very clear and respectful of our initial intention.

MB

Myriam Bouré Tue 4 Aug 2015 5:30PM

Hi everyone! Thanks a lot for this very detailed plan :-) That looks great!
I just have a question on one point:
"We ask each Connector to decide whether they are open to being funded by other Connectors, which means receiving tokens from others which they will transform into Euros by invoicing OuiShare. Each Connector also has the option to say they do not want to cash-in."
Why to offer that possibility? Why not, to be even more liquid, letting it open for anyone to give token to any another connector, and if the connector doesn't want to take the money for himself (if for example he feels he doesn't need it, or won't have time to contribute so much, or has no capacity to invoice and doesn't want to get one), (s)he can transfer those tokens to a project?
I'm just afraid about "self-censorship"...
We can also inspire from the "election without candidate". Or maybe what I understand about liquid democracy, you can give your vote to someone you trust to decide for you on a given topic. So why not, if for example I don't want to support any of the projects but I want to support someone, if this person receive for example too much tokens for what (s)he needs, (s)he can transfer tokens to projects (s)he believes are important?
It's just a thought... but I think all what you have done is awesome :-)

N

nelly Wed 5 Aug 2015 6:54AM

hello :-)
the plan sounds great! Thank you @etienne @Francesca @Julie @Manuela and @myriamboure raised an interesting point.
Though I guess the proposed timeline is not feasible; I want to add OuiXpertise Project but my brain is fried in this august heat, and everyone's taking their vacation at this time. I would suggest starting September 1st which will can lead to push the plan further until October 15.

Cheers everyone, lots of love and I miss y'all!

KB

Khushboo Balwani Wed 5 Aug 2015 8:29AM

Thanks a lot for this work @etiennezoupic @francesca @julie6 @Manuela. It is very clear.
I have the same concern as Nelly about the timeline. Many connectors are off and might not read this message. Also I feel not all the connectors are still on Loomio and since it is an important news an email or FB connector group reminder would be just perfect.

Another question, if some connectors don't participate on time in the voting due to any reason, does that mean tokens remain with them and it cannot be cashed-in later for a project or another connector?

MB

Myriam Bouré Wed 5 Aug 2015 6:55PM

Good idea @khushboobalwani and @nelly1 to move the dates... I'm disconnecting from tomorrow and until the 17th August myself :-) Talk to you again end of august!

F

Francesca Fri 7 Aug 2015 1:20PM

@khushboobalwani we have 73 people on loomio, so that must almost be all the Connectors! Of course we can also make a facebook post to reach more people, but I have the impression that by now we actually have more people here than on Facebook. In any case, many announcements were made about loomio being the only tool used for such things from now on, so people should be informed....

As I think @etiennezoupic had mentioned in his doc, if a Connector does not distribute his tokens on time, they will simply go into the pot for the next cycle of particpatory budgeting.

AV

Auli Viidalepp Sat 8 Aug 2015 8:26AM

Thank you all for this awesome work!

Just a remark: considering that we need (?) to report on the allocations' and projects' results in the next Summit, likely at the beginning of December, delaying the whole process further to 15 Oct means that we would have only about 6 weeks to work on the projects and reports, and there would be still 2 months from now that projects would not be able to move forward. Would this be reasonable?

TD

Thomas Dönnebrink Sun 9 Aug 2015 7:13AM

Basic income vs.? participatory budgeting.
The original intention and starting point for the proposal made at OuiShare Summit #7 was to introduce features and processes into the dealing with money, decision making and running affairs within OuiShare that are less based on centralization, bureaucratisation, heteronomy, top-down and more on decentralization, openness/transparency, participation/self-determination, trust, bottom-up and thus more in line with our values and principles and walk-the-talk. In my original ideas I tried to frame this by introducing something that I called basic income, this has turned in the course of the discussion and as proposed here in loomeo as participatory budget. I am totally fine with this as I consider both elements: basic income and participatory budgeting as very important and something we should introduce, try out and experiment with. Whether to start with the first or the second or a mixture of both I consider not so important at this point and would trust the process and @etiennezoupic @francesca @julie6 & @Manuela who have jumped in to take the lead on that. It will not be an easy task as it is entering new terrain, new thinking, happits and practices and - as we say in German - the devil is in the detail, but I am very happy that we are doing it, trying it and experimenting with it. So thanks again to the four of you and everybody participating (also agreeing with the comments concerning feasibility of @myriamboure & @khushboobalwani @nelly1 and @auli.)

EG

Elena Giroli Mon 10 Aug 2015 11:34AM

Thanks! it's really interesting! agree on the timeline concern and communication approach that @khushboobalwani mentioned..this is an important step that everybody should be chased for participating in..we can use: loomio/FB/Slack/telegram/travel pigeons/ mind power/ visualisations etc...

Load More