Priority-Setting That Actually Matters

*The need:* Communities set priorities constantly but nothing happens.

Communities set priorities all the time through surveys, listening sessions, and civic engagement, and then nothing happens. This recipe ensures a community's priorities actually influence real decisions, budgets, and action. The basic idea: start with small, real decisions someone has genuine authority over, have the community set priorities, implement them exactly as decided with no reinterpretation, show the result, and build toward bigger decisions from there. It can run with institutions (willing partners), around them (organize directly with people), or despite them (build alternatives). Starting small is what builds the trust that makes bigger decisions possible later.

How it works

1. Start small, like how to spend $500 in programming money or which library hours to change.
2. Be transparent about what is actually possible and what is not.
3. Let the group research, discuss, and decide using whatever process works for them.
4. Implement exactly what they decided, with no interpretation or adjustment.
5. Show what happened because of their decision.
6. Ask the group what to decide next.

Ingredients

• someone with real budget/program authority
• 15-25 affected people
• a way to convene
• clear explanation of constraints
• a trusted facilitator

Minimum resources: Free; meeting space and time.

You'll know it's working when

• people show up because it's real
• authority expands what communities decide
• other departments ask how

Field tips

• start small to build trust
• pay people for their time
• document so it survives staff turnover

Building from (real projects)

• My Oakland Agenda
• Promise Tracker
• Give Us Your Two Cents
• What's On Your Ballot
• Complaints Choir

Details

• size: meal
• patterns: building_civic_muscle, mobilizing_collective_response
• civic need: agency.power, agency.civic_expression
• field tips: start small to build trust, pay people for their time, document so it survives staff turnover
• source tag: CB
• timeliness: evergreen, community_rhythm
• ingredients: someone with real budget/program authority, 15-25 affected people, a way to convene, clear explanation of constraints, a trusted facilitator
• source note: From the Civic Media Cookbook: 'Producing Civic Media: Recipes to Produce Civic Media Through Participation, Power and Community' — Jihii Jolly and Jennifer Brandel, with the News Futures Working Group (2026).
• how it works: Start small, like how to spend $500 in programming money or which library hours to change., Be transparent about what is actually possible and what is not., Let the group research, discuss, and decide using whatever process works for them., Implement exactly what they decided, with no interpretation or adjustment., Show what happened because of their decision., Ask the group what to decide next.
• building from: My Oakland Agenda, Promise Tracker, Give Us Your Two Cents, What's On Your Ballot, Complaints Choir
• min resources: Free; meeting space and time.
• need it meets: Communities set priorities constantly but nothing happens.
• practice kind: recipe
• success signals: people show up because it's real, authority expands what communities decide, other departments ask how
• charter alignment: listening_first, doocracy, community_accountability, public_infrastructure
• participatory nature: collective_action, collective_sensemaking
• conceptual ingredients: trust, reciprocity