Budget Civic Engagement in the City of Durham

How can the City of Durham’s Budget and Management Services Department improve civic engagement in the budget development process? What opportunities exist to coordinate budget engagement with the city’s other civic engagement efforts? This paper explores these questions through an overview of Durham’s budget engagement, a case study of the pilot Community Conversations, and mapping of city wide communication channels and engagement efforts. Interviews with city staff as well as with community organizations provide the bulk of the information for this analysis.