Training: Facilitate an assembly

Facilitating assemblies is a core campaign goal of participatory budgeting because it collects community ideas for proposal development and acheives an important outreach goal by educating community members about PB and how they can get involved.

Idea collection depends on volunteer facilitators and scribes to run the small group brainstorms and proposal prioritization. This meeting prepares facilitators and scribes how to handle the common difficult situations that may arise during discussion through role-play and discussion. 

Learning Objective

By the end of this session, volunteers will be able to: 

  • facilitate an idea collection assembly group 

  • scribe for an idea collection assembly group 

Time 

  • Preparation - several hours 

  • Meeting - 2 hours 

Materials 

Preparation 

A week or more before: 

An hour before 

  • setup room 

  • test AV 

  • place scenarios on each table 

  • as participants and facilitators arrive, arrange them at each table and make sure that each facilitator has the scenarios with the answer key 

Process 

I. Welcome (5 min)  

  • Introduce the team  

  • Thank everyone for coming and for interest in facilitating 

  • Share outcomes of the session to sign people up to be facilitators and scribes 

  • Review agenda  

  • Review norms 

II. Review idea collection assembly 

1. Remind volunteers of the resources for learning about assemblies, they can attend assemblies and access the guides online. If they have signed up to organize assembly, they can access the planning template online and schedule a meeting with the PB Manager. 

2. Review the goals of the idea collection assembly to: 

  • Get the word out 

  • Collect ideas 

  • Sign up volunteers to be budget delegates, to facilitator, or to do outreach 

3. Show volunteers the agenda for an idea collection assembly and explain the different parts 

III. (OPTIONAL) Mock assembly

If participants weren’t able to observe an assembly simulate a mock assembly group discussion, either by demonstrating the facilitator role or (ideally) having new members try it the facilitator role.

IV. Explain the facilitator's job 

1. Tell volunteers that the roles of the facilitator are to:  

  • help participants: 

  • discuss community needs 

  • hear and be heard 

  • respect each other's perspectives 

  • generate about 10 ideas for the group 

  • ask to participants to volunteer to be budget delegates, facilitators, canvassers 

2. Point out that the first part of the discussion is brainstorming and the second part is prioritizing. Aks them what norms are different between those. 

Possible response: During brainstorming, people should generate as many ideas as possible without any judgement or discussion.  During prioritization, people should make arguments about the pros/cons of each idea, respectfully. 

3. Explain the facilitation techniques they will use: 

  • Active listening - listen closely, use body language and paraphrasing to show understanding. 

  • Keep stack - When multiple people want to speak at once, keep track of who wants to speak, call them in that order, then ask those who haven't spoken if they'd like to speak. 

  • Brainstorming- When the group is stuck, ask them to generate as many ideas as possible without judgement. 

  • Track - If several conversations or themes emerge at once, step back, synthesize the main point, check with group that summary is correct, then suggest path forward for discussion. 

  • Encourage / Balance - Gently point out who hasn't spoken or who has spoken too much. Call on people directly using open-ended questions. If appropriate, break people into smaller groups or have them write down ideas quietly, then share with the group. 

  • Silence - Use wait time to allow people time to think and speak. 

  • Closure - End the meeting with review of decisions and next steps to give sense of accomplishment and what to do next. 

V. Practice scenarios 

1. Explain to volunteers that they will be role-play and discuss challenging scenarios that sometime arise in small group discussions among strangers. They should take turns role-playing scenarios, and at the end of the scenario, discuss what might be happening, try responding, then discuss ways they might respond. 

2. Turn the session over to the group facilitators and have them work through the scenarios. 

3. When all the groups have finished the scenarios, ask them to share what were scenarios they recognize, which ones they found surprising or difficult, how did they deal with them. 

4. Ask if there are any questions about how to facilitate. 

VI. Wrap up 

1. Remind participants where they can find the facilitator guide and techniques online. 

2. If facilitators haven’t signed up for an idea collection assembly, you can ask them to sign up now. 

3. If there are idea collection assemblies coming up, remind them that a great way to learn is to participate or observe an assembly. 

4. Ask if there are any questions. 

5. Thank everyone for coming and remind them that participatory budgeting only works because of the work they are doing. 

Evaluation

After the training, ask each volunteer to write:

  • What they learned

  • A rating from 1-5 about how well the training helped them learn

  • At least 1 I-like & I-wish about the training

You should also write a reflection on:

  • What worked well, what didn’t work well, and what you will change about the training next time.