CONSUL Democracy

CONSUL was built inside Madrid's city hall in 2015 to run decide.madrid.es, and grew into the most widely deployed open-source participation suite: citizen debates, proposals that advance when they clear signature thresholds, consultations, collaborative legislation, and participatory budgeting. Madrid's own participatory budget grew from €60M to €100M a year with tens of thousands of participants; the platform is used by 250+ cities and organizations from Munich to Montevideo, and is now stewarded by the CONSUL Democracy Foundation.

It's AGPL-3.0, accessibility-badged, and verified as a Digital Public Good. Like Decidim, self-hosting is an institution-sized job — but the mechanics are the remixable part.

One honest note from Madrid's record: researchers found final city outcomes only partly reflected what citizens voted for. The tool creates the channel; keeping institutions accountable to its results is organizing work, not software work — which is exactly why this shelf ships alongside the Community Organizing one.

Neighborhood remix: CONSUL's proposal-plus-threshold mechanic at porch scale — any neighbor's idea that collects ten door-knock endorsements automatically goes on the next potluck agenda for a yes/no decision.

Details

• maker: CONSUL Democracy Foundation
• hosted: self-host; demo available
• license: AGPL-3.0
• ctfg url: https://civictech.guide/listing/consul-democracy
• repo url: https://github.com/consuldemocracy/consuldemocracy
• image url: https://texakzqqenzpxawktbgx.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/studio-library/tool-screenshots/consul-democracy-2026-08.jpg
• remix idea: Proposal thresholds at porch scale: ten endorsements puts it on the potluck agenda.
• practice kind: tool