(Notes: You are invited to become an editor and contribute your own case studies.  The purpose of this site is not to duplicate content that is elsewhere on the Web, but to serve as a useful directory for open government pioneers in the public and private sectors.  You may also be interested in transparency or collaboration case studies and effective practices.)

Index:

Note: you may also search the entire OpenGov Playbook by keyword on the right side of the page.

• Federal Participation Initiatives
• State Participation Initiatives
• Local Participation Initiatives
• Participation Initiatives from outside the US
• General Participation Principles and Ideas

Federal Participation Initiatives:

• Engaging Citizens in Government: (General Services Administration) Discussion of deeper potential methods of citizen engagement

• Regulations.gov Exchange: (Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and Environmental Protection Agency) An online forum allowing citizens to explore new innovative features proposed for Regulations.gov.
• Open for Questions: (White House Office of New Media) Open for Questions gave Americans across the nation a direct line to the Administration to ask exactly what they wanted to know about the Administration’s efforts to get the economy back on track.
• Healthreform.gov: (Department of Health and Human Services) The Online Home of Health Reform
• IdeaFactory: (Department of Homeland Security) Empowers the Transportation Security Administration’s large and dispersed workforce to submit and collaborate on innovative ideas to improve TSA and keep the nation’s transportation systems secure.
• Business.Gov: (Small Business Administration) First Government-Sponsored Online Community for Small Businesses.

• Development 2.0 Challenge: (United States Agency for International Development) Tech Competition for the Developing World

• Knowledge and Collaboration at the Department of State: (Department of State) Discussion of a range of innovative initiatives.

• Science Integrity Blog: (Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Executive Office of the President) Cultivating a Conversation on Scientific Integrity
• Consequential Public Engagement: (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Discussion of case studies over the past five years
• TSA: A Social Media Success Story: (Transportation Security Administration) The TSA turns a potential social media crisis into an opportunity
• Drug Facts Chat Day: (National Institutes of Health-NIDA) High school students learn facts about drug use from scientists rather than experimentation
• The Conscience Unconference: (US Holocaust Memorial Museum) Harnessing citizen ideas for social good

(Back to top)

State Participation Initiatives:

• CaliforniaSpeaks: CaliforniaSpeaks brought together nearly 3,500 Californians on August 11, 2007, for an all-day, non-partisan conversation on health care reform.

(Back to top)

Local Participation Initiatives:

• Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program: The Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) was established jointly by the Minnesota state legislature and the Minneapolis city council in 1990 to revitalize inner city neighborhoods. The NRP represented a procedural innovation, with a focus on empowering local residents to set priorities, design projects and undertake implementation.
• Transportation Priorities Project: A series of 32 smaller community meetings led to five larger community forums, all of which led to a community-wide all-day summit over a short, three-month time period.

(Back to top)

Participation Initiatives from Outside the US:

• Biobanking in British Columbia: (Canada) Researchers at the W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics, University of British Columbia (UBC), conducted two deliberative forums on the topic of human tissue biobanking.

• British Columbia Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform: (Canada) The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform was a body created by the government of British Columbia, Canada. The Assembly was charged with investigating and recommending changes to improve the electoral system of the province.

• BürgerForum Europa: (Europe) The Citizens’ Forum is a new form of participation developed by the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Ludwig-Erhard Foundation and the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation. It is a 6-8 week online deliberation embedded in two live events, one at the beginning of the process and the other one at the end.

• Porto Alegre Participatory Budgeting: (Brazil) Established in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1989 as a means of involving ordinary citizens in the annual municipal budget decision-making cycle. By the turn of the 21st century, some 20,000 citizens participated in popular assemblies affecting the distribution of around $160 million in investment
• Wenling City Deliberative Poll: (China) A participatory budgeting experiment conducted by local government officials in the Zeguo Township of Wenling City, China.

(Back to top)

General Participation Principles and Ideas:

• Better Decisions through Consultation and Collaboration: (Environmental Protection Agency) A fantastic guide to help agencies improve their public engagement practices.
• Public Engagement Process: (EPA) An overview of effective public engagement practices for federal agencies.
• National Coalition of Dialogue and Deliberation's (NCDD) Principles of Public Engagement creates the conditions for authentic public engagement around complex issues.
• NCDD's Engagement Streams Framework helps public servants navigate the range of dialogue and deliberation approaches that are available to them and make design choices that are appropriate for their circumstance and resources.
• Creating Social Media Policy: (MiXT Media Strategies) How federal agencies can intelligently engage with social media.
• Plain Langauge: (Plain Language Institute) The importance and return on investment for engaging an audience in plain language
• Participant Selection: (via Participedia) Bringing the right people to the table in the right way is essential.
• Communication Mode: (via Participedia) A measurable dimension of participatory design that specifies how participants will interact with one another within a venue of public discussion or decision.
• Kind of Influence: (via Participedia) A conceptual dimension of participatory design that gauges the impact public participation has upon the direction of public policy and other similar decision-making processes.
• Kinds of goods: (via Participedia) Participatory processes can, in part, be classified according to the kind of good or goods at issue. What "works" will depend, in part, on the nature of these goods.

(Back to top)