Participatory Government Budgeting – Shari Davis Explores the Community’s Role in Public Spending (TrendHunter.com)

Financial literacy advocate and community leader Shari Davis asks viewers “what if you could help decide how the government spends public funds?” in her newest virtual TED talk.

Shari begins her talk by recounting her own experience as a “recovering government employee” and recognizes the challenges faced by those working toward systematic change. The speaker looks back at the first time she stepped inside City Hall seventeen years ago, explaining she felt like a unicorn as she didn’t see many colleagues who looked like her in the building. She also speaks about meeting many government employees that were “committed to addressing hundreds of years of systemic inequity that left some behind and many ignored” while also exposing the flaws of a system described as democratic, but in actuality designed to only benefit a select few.

Shari Davis presents a solution with the idea of participatory budgeting, “a process that brings local residents and governments together to develop concrete solutions to real problems close to home.”