Description:

As part of our Elliott Scholars Program, the Roberta Buffett Institute invites scholars and practitioners working in areas related to international development to Northwestern University for short residencies. While on campus, these guests engage with our undergraduate Elliott Scholars and the wider Northwestern community.

Join us for an Elliott Speaker Series conversation with Josh Lerner, Co-Executive Director of People Powered, a global hub for participatory democracy—the direct participation of community members in making the policy decisions that affect their lives.

Josh has spent the past 20 years developing, researching and supporting participatory democracy programs around the world. He is dedicated to building and connecting movements that expand people’s democratic power.

Before starting People Powered, he founded and served as Executive Director of the Participatory Budgeting Project, a nonprofit organization that empowers people to decide together how to spend public money across the United States and Canada. Through this work, 534,000 people in 30 cities directly decided how to spend $337 million.

Josh completed a PhD in politics at the New School for Social Research and a master’s degree in planning from the University of Toronto. He is the author of Making Democracy Fun: How Game Design Can Empower Citizens and Transform Politics, Everyone Counts: Could Participatory Budgeting Change Democracy? and dozens of articles.

Please note that 720 University Place is not an ADA-accessible space. Increasing physical access to buildings and facilities is a goal of the University, but not all buildings and venues have been updated at this time.