Why the fuck are you doing PB?
Stop doing PB because it's cool. Start designing it to do something.
It's always going to feel like too much work to build something that goes nowhere.
Most PB in the US is built off the same template that was designed for a bigger city, with more staff, and a bigger budget. All the moving parts, at first, seem to match the degree of change you want to make. But the complexity leaves volunteers worn out, participants confused, and staff holding it all together.
These are barriers to participation that harm civic infrastructure more than they help.
Design your system.
I right-size your PB to the money, the staff, and the authority you actually have, and I build it to iterate after cycle one instead of staying the same. A community-led process for $100k is not a charter-ordained process for several million, and it should never be designed like one.
I'm Francesco, and I've been doing PB since 2014.
Before that, I was on a TV show that was by kids, for kids. I still design that way: with the people, not just for them. I've worked alongside practitioners from around the world and have seen what's possible in democracy: people deciding how their tax dollars are spent, communities writing laws together. The infrastructure that enables this innovation has got to be dynamic because the world is ever changing, too.