Participatory Budgeting Chat with Ebony Walden

“More agency, ownership, power, voice, self-determination, decision-making; all of the things that we need in our society to have strong civic engagement and participation”

Listen here for my conversation with Ebony Walden! Ebony is an urban planner and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant and facilitator with over 15 years of experience working to transform communities. As the founder of Ebony Walden Consulting, an urban strategy firm based in Richmond, Virginia, she works with community organizations to design and facilitate trainings and processes that explore race, equity and the creation of more just and inclusive communities.

Ebony is the creator and co-editor of the Richmond Racial Equity Essays, a multimedia project that explores racial equity in Richmond, Virginia. Ebony is also an adjunct professor at Virginia Commonwealth University where she teaches Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the City.

Ebony was a 2019-2020 Encore Public Voices Fellow, where she wrote equity focused op-eds for the Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Hill on Land Use and Affordable Housing. She has also been featured in Next City, The Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond Magazine, Christianity Today and Cville Magazine and conducted workshops at local, national and international events and conferences.

She has also been involved in getting the Participatory Budgeting (PB) process started here in Richmond, so this conversation includes many insights about this new opportunity for Richmond!

As a thought leader in Richmond, she has ideas for the folks who will run the PB program:

“Go out and be at all the places where people already are. There’s so many festivals and barbecues and events going on. Get you a table and be where the people are. Talk in the language they understand…And also find a way to engage, hire, pay, ambassadors that are from those communities so that they can be your champions.”

And also offers a call to action for community members:

“This is a practice in a laboratory on civic engagement, and how do you invest public funds equitably across our community…Learn about it, have an open mind about it. This is how we practice agency and voice and engagement.”

Listen for more kernels of wisdom about how this process can open a new door for the communities of Richmond!