Open Application: Seeking partners to collaborate with DemocracyNext

We are DemocracyNext, an international, non-profit and non-partisan research and action institute. We believe in a more just, joyful, and collaborative future, where everyone has meaningful power to shape their societies. Our mission is to shift who has power and how we take decisions in government and in institutions of daily life including schools, workplaces, museums, banks and others. 

We work to enable more people to see the potential of sortition (selecting decision makers by lottery), deliberation, and participation as transformative democratic principles; to enable the creation of more deliberative spaces - such as Citizens’ Assemblies - in which we can be with complexity, channel our collective wisdom, and find common ground; and to explore how these principles transform leadership. 

Our work to innovate democratic governance is anchored in a holistic, systemic worldview, which seeks to nurture our relationships with one another as well as with the living world. 

As the global urban population is set to more than double by 2050, with nearly seven in 10 of people living in urban areas, cities, and how decisions are made about their future, presents a huge opportunity to consider how we foster democratic innovation and empower people to shape the places they call home. 

We recognise that local governments and other key actors in shaping the built environment are finding it difficult to tackle some of the most pressing and complex challenges facing cities today. Around the world, urban areas are facing similar issues related to housing affordability, the widening gap of social and economic inequality, vulnerability to climate change, population increase, rapid urbanisation, and mobility challenges. These challenges are pressing and complex, and will require the collective agency and intelligence of everybody to find better, more inclusive, paths forward. We see a huge opportunity to re-consider how people living in urban areas can be empowered to shape the places they call home.

For this reason, we convened an International Task Force on Democratising City Planning in recognition of these problems, with a desire to propose systemic changes for addressing them. With the Task Force, we learned from numerous inspiring examples of participatory and deliberative processes around the globe. We then considered and explored how the system could change to make meaningful and informed public deliberation and participation, such as Citizens’ Assemblies, the norm in urban planning decision making.

At the heart of this proposal are three types of Citizens’ Assemblies with rotating Members selected by lottery (sortition) - city-wide, community, and ad-hoc. These representative and deliberative Assemblies are envisioned to be a core part of a much wider participatory ecosystem that involves digital surveying, participatory data collection and map-making, citizen science, and community-driven initiatives like placemaking, public dialogues, and design workshops. 

We have thought about Citizens’ Assemblies holistically, as an intrinsic part of a city’s decision-making processes. This means there should be a direct connection to the relevant public authority and other key actors, including managers, urban planners, developers and investors, civil society groups, architects, and researchers. 

To read the proposal, please click here 

We're seeking partners that are motivated and have the capacity to collaborate with DemocracyNext to design and implement a Citizens’ Assembly on a specific, relevant topic over the next 2 years. In our proposal we identified some possible ‘entry points’ or ‘scenarios’ which are listed below’. This is not exhaustive but rather a range of possible starting points:

1. If you are a city or a region about to initiate a major urban infrastructure project and would like to develop project objectives and key design goals that are more aligned with the community’s wants and needs. 
2. If you are a developer in the early stages of a large urban development project and want to generate higher quality, community-supported design strategies and site programming that, in turn, enables the creation of places where people can connect, live, and thrive.
3. If you are a city about to embark on developing your next long-term plan, a significant urban policy, or a financial plan and want to develop a citizen-supported vision for the city, a multi-year budget, or a planning policy that is aligned with and reflects the needs, values, and desires of the city’s residents. 
4. If you are a city, or a region, frustrated with the status quo of legally-required public consultation and want to improve the quality of mandatory public engagement. 
5. If you are a member or leader of a community board or neighbourhood association and want to increase the membership’s representativeness of the community OR if you are a municipality or a civil society organisation in a city where community boards or neighbourhood associations do not exist, and would like to establish them.
6. If you are a city that is already familiar with Citizens’ Assemblies but want to implement them to tackle city-wide challenges in an ongoing way

We are seeking applications from cities around the world who are interested in piloting the ideas outlined in DemocracyNext’s proposal, Six ways to democratise city planning: Enabling thriving and healthy cities. The basis for this collaboration is to implement a new model for citizen engagement that is guided by the models outlined in the proposal.

The intention is to work with a cohort of 3 cities to contextualise and implement how Citizens’ Assemblies can be used systematically to broaden and deepen citizen participation in urban planning decision-making processes. This will require tapping into the knowledge and expertise of each particular city in order to adapt these general proposals. This means that the approach will be different in each place, as the logical entry point and the available resources for initiating a Citizens’ Assembly will differ in each city.

Experience 

DemocracyNext brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in designing Citizens’ Assemblies and connections to an extensive network of international experts in the field of Deliberative Democracy. DemNext’s founder and CEO, Claudia Chwalisz, was involved in designing the world’s first permanent Citizens’ Assemblies in Paris, Ostbelgien, and Brussels (on climate). With DemNext’s Founding Head of Research and Learning, Ieva Česnulaitytė, she has also co-authored the OECD’s flagship report Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions: Catching the Deliberative Wave and led the development of the OECD Good Practice Principles for Deliberative Processes. Claudia oversaw the development of the OECD Evaluation Guidelines for Representative Deliberative Processes (2021) and wrote the OECD paper on Eight Ways to Institutionalise Deliberative Democracy (2021). She also set up and co-ordinated the global OECD Innovative Citizen Participation Network. 

James Macdonald-Nelson, the Project Lead for Urban Design and Planning at DemocracyNext, a designer with degrees in landscape architecture, urbanism, and global development studies. Having studied and worked in spatial practice for 10 years in Toronto and then Berlin, mostly delivering large-scale commercial and residential development projects James has a deep knowledge of how the built environment is transformed, how decisions are made about our cities - and how often citizens are left out of these processes. 

Support 

• We will provide support in capacity-building through a 3-stage learning program tailored to civil servants, decision makers, and planners to increase the knowledge and capacity of staff and decision makers to understand the elements of initiating and running a Citizens’ Assembly. This will be done both virtually and in person.  
• With each city, we will organise and co-host an in-depth context-building and knowledge-sharing workshop to map out key actors and stakeholders in the current system and better understand the specific challenges and opportunities in each city.
• We will coordinate an Assembly design workshop with all relevant stakeholders and local actors and will provide advice on how to contextualise the proposal. 
• We will provide ongoing advice and guidance throughout implementation of the Citizens' Assembly.
• We will provide opportunities for knowledge-sharing and learning between the cohort of three-cities cohort. This will include the opportunity for a field visit to one of the three cities to observe progress and exchange experiences. This will include facilitated workshops to discuss specific challenges faced by cities in the cohort and identify potential solutions.

Research and Learning 

• In each city we will carry out research with local academic partners to evaluate and learn from the process of designing and implementing the Citizens’ Assembly. 

Promotion and Advocacy

• This collaboration presents an opportunity to visibly demonstrate to the world the kind of bold steps each city is taking to innovate how citizen engagement is done. Throughout the process we will ensure that each city is well promoted in order to inspire other cities. We will share what each of the cities have accomplished and learned with other cities interested in doing the same.

Political/Administrative buy-in

• Demonstrable commitment to the project from senior stakeholders and an openness from key decision makers to explore/experiment.
• As part of the second stage of the application process, we need firm commitment from each city that decision makers will respond to the outputs of this collaboration and the Citizens’ Assembly that takes place.

Available staff 

• A dedicated project manager.-This person should be well connected and should be able to work with the key stakeholders;  they must have sufficient time to lead and coordinate the city's involvement at a local level.

Strategic partners  

• This should include one or a group of organisations or people who will help deliver, advise, and collaborate on contextualisation and implementation of the proposal. This can include: an NGO/Civil society organisation with experience in citizen participation/deliberation or an explicit willingness to learn how; an urban developer; an academic partner (a local university or college). 

Time commitment

• At the beginning of the collaboration DemocracyNext will lead the cohort of cities through a learning program which will require weekly meetings. 
• Throughout the process, we will also hold regular, weekly and/or bi-weekly check-in meetings with each city and their strategic partners.  The frequency of these meetings will likely increase as we approach the implementation of the Citizens’ Assembly. 
• Overall, we estimate this to be a minimum 2 year collaboration with the aim of documenting and learning from what works and applying learnings to considerations for making Citizens’ Assemblies a regular form of citizen participation.  

Financial commitment

• We expect a minimum financial contribution from cities in order to ensure that the process is fully supported by the partner city, however, we recognize this amount will vary depending on the context. (details outline below)

The application is intended for representatives from a mayor's office, senior planners and heads of planning departments, managers in a municipal engagement department, or city manager in general. The application must be made in partnership with an allied civil society organisation, and can include a developer. 

We are also interested in hearing from motivated urban developers, civil society organisations, or heads of neighbourhood associations/community boards who are interested in implementing these ideas. In these cases though, it’s important to emphasise that political and administrative buy-in in the local municipality is fundamental to forming a collaboration with DemocracyNext. 

Absolutely! For cities that are not selected to be part of the first cohort in 2024, but who would like to stay updated and wish to learn from the experiences of the first cohort, it will be possible to do so. Progress will be shared regularly with cities who wish to stay informed via a newsletter and occasional learning calls to share what has been developed so far. There will also be opportunities to partner with us in the future to expand this work. 

DemocracyNext has secured funding for the next 2 years from the National Endowment for Democracy to carry out this work with 2 cities in Global Majority countries. This includes the ability to ‘sub-grant’ a portion of our funding to support the cost of a local delivery organisation to deliver the Citizens’ Assembly (and/or venue or other core costs) for the two cities. These funds would be paid directly to the local operator or would cover costs directly. However, we still expect a minimum financial contribution from the municipality in order to ensure that the process is fully supported by the partner city. However, we recognize this amount will vary depending on the context, the size of the city, and the scale of the Assembly. 

The third city will need to indicate that they have the initial resources to carry out this collaboration, or that they are willing to apply for or seek funding with DemocracyNext. 

To give an idea of how much to budget for an Citizens’ Assembly we have included below the typical costs. 

Feb 19/20 - DemocracyNext Office hours - Q&A session 

Drop in for a group Q&A session with our DemocracyNext team members to ask any general questions you may have about Citizens’ Assemblies. Be sure to also check out our Assembling an Assembly Guide - a step by step guide that walks you through the process of implementing a Citizens’ Assembly from start to finish. You can register here:

19 February (17:00-18:00 CET, 8:00-9:00 PST, 11:00-12:00 EST)

20 February ​​(10:30-11:30 CET, 14:30-15:30 IST, 20:30-21:30 AEDT)

21 February -  Information call for interested cities

We will host a targeted call with interested cities to answer any further practical questions about the application process and how a collaboration with DemocracyNext would work. We will host two calls to accommodate different time zones. You can register here:

21 February - (10:00-11:00 CET, 14:00-15:00 IST, 20:00-21:00 AEDT) or

21 February - (9:00-10:00 EST, 15:00-14:00 CET, 19:00-20:00 IS) 

12 March - Deadline to submit Expression of Interest 

Deadline to submit initial expression of interest to partner with DemocracyNext. 

Please fill out this application form by the end of the day on 12 March. **Questions found in the application form can be found below so applicants can prepare in advance**

20 March - Shortlisted cities announced 

Cities that are not shortlisted will be invited to become part of a learning group to follow progress. 

Week of 25 March - Interviews with shortlisted cities 

During the week of March 25h, DemocracyNext will hold interviews with potential partner cities. 

3 April - Invitations sent to selected shortlisted cities to make full application

DemocracyNext will be available for one-on-one calls with cities to answer any questions.  

3 May - Deadline for full applications

Details of what is expected in the full application will be communicated to selected shortlisted cities. 

13-25 May - Second stage interviews

31 May - Cohort of 3 cities chosen

This is an estimated timeline which has some flexibility to adapt to each city's policy making/project development cycles. 

June - October 2024: Setting the scene - capacity building, mutual learning, understanding of context

• Call with cohort of cities together and calls with individual cities
• 3 stage learning program begins
• DemNext team will travel to each city 
• Context workshops - understanding the cities (led by the cities), understanding the ‘field’ and potential participation / facilitation partners, understanding the issue, stakeholder mapping 

October - December 2024: Before the Assembly - designing the assembly, securing wide buy-in 

• Groundwork to set up the Assembly begins
• Securing political support building (wider) 
• Assembly design workshops (with stakeholders, civil servants, civil society organisations) 

January - September 2025: During the Assembly - implementation of the assemblies

• Citizens’ Assemblies in each city implemented 

September - November 2025: After the Assembly 

• follow-up; evaluation and lessons learned; dissemination of results; next steps towards democratised urban planning

To help cities prepare to submit an Expression of Interest, the application questions are listed below. You can access the online application here.

Expression of interest

Please answer the questions below to show your interest. If selected, you’ll be asked to fill in the full application. You can find the preliminary list of questions for the full application below. 

Note: even if you don’t have experience with deliberative engagement, or will require help to get political buy-in to run such a process, or if applicants would need to secure the necessary resources, please don’t hesitate to apply. If you feel that there is a meaningful opportunity in your city to pilot Citizens’ Assemblies in urban planning, we’d like to hear from you!

1. Name(s) of applicant(s) 
2. City
3. Country
4. Email address
5. Phone number
6. LinkedIn profile link (where applicable)
7. Organisational affiliation (could be municipality, developer, civil society organisation etc)
8. Specific department and/or role (could be planning department, chief city planner, head of… etc) 
9. What excites and inspires you most about the Democratising City Planning proposal?  
10. Please briefly explain what city planning problem you’re tackling and how citizen deliberation would be a helpful solution.
11. How would this work fit into your city’s strategic priorities?
12. How would you describe the commitment of the administration and the political leadership to carry out this work? 
13. Briefly explain what competences (if any) you/your team has with commissioning, overseeing or implementing participatory or deliberative processes.
14. Is there an existing and available budget for citizen engagement or similar? If so, would you be able to tap into some of this to support this work?

Context: 

• Please elaborate on what urban planning problem the city is facing.
• Of the ‘6 ways’ outlined in the proposal, is there a scenario / scenarios that applies best to your city?
• What do you see as the main benefits and opportunities of this project?
• What would be the headline risks to your involvement in this project?

Partnerships: 

• Can you identify a list of potential NGO or civil society partners who will help carry out this work? (for governmental and developer applicants)
• If you are a CSO or an urban developer making this application, can you identify a potential government partner who will take on board citizen recommendations? 
• Do you have a working relationship with them already? 
• Have you delivered any projects in collaboration with them? If so, can you please describe one of them.
• Can you identify a potential research/academic partner? 

Resources:

• Who would be leading this work from your city (name and title)?
• How would this work fit into you or your team’s existing role/projects?

Existing competences:

• Tell us about any participatory or deliberative practices you/your team has been a part of organising in your city (include any links to further materials).
• What impact did it have? 

Commitment and timing:

• Which stakeholders would need to be on board for this project to be possible? 
• Are there any particularly important upcoming milestones in your city (ie. an election, a major vote on a key topic in the city, a strategic moment in a policy-making cycle)? If so, can you tell us what they are and why they are significant, and what impact they would have in your participation or the continuation of this project (if any)?

Systemic change:

•  Do you have a commitment to explore how citizen deliberation could become a more permanent way in which urban planning related decisions are taken in your city?