By The Engagement Lab

A Playful Civic Engagement Project

The ProblemMany civic meetings (town halls,

community planning, committees) are often homogenous, poorly attended, and

suffer from attrition.

Some innovative projects that have increased civic engagemen include civic hackathons, fellowships like Code for America, and

apps like Citizens Connect, and platforms like MindMixer.

Current Solutions

Why Games?

Fun, appealing to youth Creativity+Collaboration Risk-taking+Failing SafelyEmpathy+New Perspectives Rapid ideation+Systems-thinking And more...

Process

September October November

CreateResearch

Plan

Play at 3PB

Meetings in NYC

Launch mobile version!

December February

Create Video Tutorial and wireframes

Iterate, conceive of follow-up

Short-term Mid-term Long-termSocial awareness

Greater willingness to listen

Novel ideation

Enhanced systems-thinking issues in game

Comfort w/ deliberation

Attend to issues of procedural fairness

Logic Model

Open to more process

Advocacy beyond self interest

Enhanced systems thinking about gov’t

Continued involvement incommunity process

Increased commitment to social justice

Greater ability to evaluate fairness in PB

Greater participation in PB

Deeper commitment to process

Increased empathy

Enhanced systems thinking about budget

Enter: @Stake@Stake is a role playing card game designed to foster empathy and collaboration among stakeholders, while brainstorming solutions to real world problems.

@Stake was chosen by the Participatory Budgeting Project to include during budget delegate orientations as a response to previous participants' desires for more opportunities to get to know each other.

In Many Contexts

Frontiers of Democracy Conference 2014

UNDP in Bhutan, 2014

Curriculum design workshops

Brainstorm Pitch Deliberate

Stakeholder roles include: single parents, elected officials, activists, artists, data specialists, veterans, etc. Examples of community issues to debate: improving literacy, neighborhood participation, access to healthy food, etc.

Decide

@Stake3 rounds to-

Tutorialhttp://vimeo.com/111892702

A participatory budgeting participant said:

“It was cool to play a different role than my own and come up with new ideas.”

Game Reflections

FeedbackEmphasize difficulty of learning games Materials

A larger print instructions sheetDebriefing notes on poster board helps visual learners for multimodal learning

Edit gameSimplify rulesDiversify roles of stakeholders

Deepen debrief- lessons on deliberation

Clarify purpose of play: "to provide more ways to learn about different perspectives in

the community and to get to know each other."

Josh Lerner, ED of Participatory Budgeting Project

Digitizing @StakeTo save costs while increasing accessibility and customization

Graphic ElementsIn Progress

February 1,2015

Beta version of mobile version complete!

Mid-February 2015 Playtest at PB Youth Meeting in Boston

Next Steps

City Committees

Urban Planning

ConferencesDeliberative Spaces

Classrooms

Local Nonprofits

Potential Spaces

Let's play togetheremail: becky@engagementgamelab.org

Thank You!