Project Components

Project Components

1. Assistance to Citizen Performance Teams

To assist cities in establishing citizen performance teams, which consists of citizen representatives as the majority members, one or two elected city council members, and one or two departmental staff;
To ensure representativeness of citizen performance teams;
To facilitate meetings of citizen performance teams; and
To facilitate dialogues between citizen performance teams and the general public.

2. Facilitation of Citizen Engagement

To provide assistance to cities that may use various mechanisms to solicit citizen input, including citizen surveys, focus group discussion, and town meetings;
To provide workshops for elected and non-elected officials about citizen engagement and democratic governance; and
To work with local mass media to encourage citizen engagement

3. Information Technology Support

To provide technical assistance to cities to use information kiosks, interactive websites, Internet chat rooms, and ComNet™ to solicit citizen input;
To provide technical assistance to cities to build a database management system that integrates citizen input into activity-based management and performance reporting.

4. Assistance for Activity-Based Management

To provide technical assistance to officials and citizen representatives to integrate citizen input and citizen-based performance measures into budgeting, program management, and performance reporting;
To provide technical assistance in data collection, activity-based cost analysis, and performance measurement; and
To re-orient elected officials to focus on outputs, outcomes, and impact of public programs in the budgetary process.

5. Education and Dissemination

To develop and organize workshop materials on performance measurement, citizen engagement, and activity-based management according to the needs of citizen groups, elected officials, and non-elected officials;
To disseminate educational materials through publications, conferences and the World Wide Web; and
To report project progress and result to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and other interested parties