Participatory budget proposal coach

01The offer

For civic organizations facilitating public budgets, turn resident-submitted ideas and published program criteria into resident-approved budget proposal. Address this specific problem: residents struggle to express feasible proposals in official formats. The aim: help residents articulate their own proposal without ranking citizens. The pilot tests whether that benefit holds up against reviewer effort and real operating costs.

For

Civic organizations facilitating public budgets

Takes in

Resident-submitted ideas and published program criteria

Delivers

Resident-approved budget proposal

Message

Help residents articulate their own proposal without ranking citizens. Demonstrate the result with prepare five resident-led proposals for civic organizations facilitating public budgets. Use a concrete before-and-after example without promising unmeasured savings.

Lead magnet

Prepare five resident-led proposals

02How it works

1. Structure project intent
2. Identify missing scope
3. Explain supplied criteria
4. Draft cost questions
5. Collect resident corrections
6. Export application draft

Workflow

The buyer creates a project, supplies resident-submitted ideas and published program criteria, and confirms scope and access. The working sequence is: 1. Structure project intent. 2. Identify missing scope. 3. Explain supplied criteria. 4. Draft cost questions. 5. Collect resident corrections. 6. Export application draft. Users correct extracted facts, resolve flagged uncertainties and approve the final resident-approved budget proposal before use. Retain source links and a version history for the next cycle.

AI and people

Suggest questions without inventing municipal prices or eligibility. Keep model suggestions separate from verified facts. Link factual outputs to authorized input evidence and show missing information explicitly. Use deterministic checks for counts, dates, identifiers and arithmetic where applicable. A designated reviewer validates consequential outputs and signs off the delivered result.

Screens

Key screens: Idea canvas, Feasibility questions, Submission draft. Give submitters a mobile-friendly step-by-step form with document uploads and a visible completeness checklist. Staff see a queue with missing items and extracted fields. Place the original document beside each uncertain value. Show submitted, clarification required and ready-for-review states. Open with solution canvas; move into feasibility questions for the detailed task; finish in submission draft for review and handoff. Show the source record, uncertainty and approval status beside each proposed output.

Admin

Secure uploads, configurable checklists, progress saving, duplicate handling, reviewer assignments, clarification threads, deadlines and submission history. Include organization-scoped access, named project owners, review queues, usage limits, export history and retention settings. Never reuse private customer material for other accounts without permission.

03Market gap

Alternatives buyers use today

Email collection, generic web forms, spreadsheets and existing case management systems. Position this concept around help residents articulate their own proposal without ranking citizens. Compare it against the customer's current process on the same representative task. This is proposed differentiation; no exhaustive competitor study or uniqueness claim has been established.

Where this wins

Document-type expertise, tested completeness rules and a low-friction client experience embedded in a repeat administrative process. For this concept, accumulate permissioned examples and reviewer corrections around help residents articulate their own proposal without ranking citizens. The durable asset is reliable task-specific execution and trusted customer configuration, not access to a general-purpose AI model.

04Why now

Government teams are adopting AI for exactly this kind of repeatable work, and the cost of language and vision models has dropped far enough that a narrow, reviewed workflow pays back quickly. Rising compliance and audit expectations make a documented, reviewable process worth more than an ad hoc one. The buyer already feels the problem: residents struggle to express feasible proposals in official formats.

05Proof & signals

Channels where buyers gather: Civic participation nonprofits and community organizers. Metrics that prove it works: Submission completeness and participant comprehension.

Paid pilot

Agree the acceptance criteria, input limits and reviewer responsibilities before starting. Run prepare five resident-led proposals and deliver resident-approved budget proposal. Compare submission completeness and participant comprehension with the buyer's current process on comparable cases; include corrections, missed issues and reviewer time. Seek payment and repeat use. Stop or revise the scope if data access, accuracy or unit economics fail.

06Execution plan

MVP

Costed pilot: One published program; estimates require local validation. Start with one buyer organization and a bounded set of representative inputs. Implement the first two modules: structure project intent; identify missing scope. Support the third task through an assisted review queue: explain supplied criteria. Handle the remaining required functions manually until validated. Include input upload, source references, user correction, a reviewer approval step and export of resident-approved budget proposal. Authentication, account isolation, deletion controls and basic operational logging are included. Specialized production certification, live write integrations and broader rollout are not included unless explicitly stated.

First 30 days

Week 1: interview five prospective buyers from civic organizations facilitating public budgets and inspect how they handle residents struggle to express feasible proposals in official formats. Week 2: prepare prepare five resident-led proposals using authorized or synthetic material. Week 3: share the demonstration through civic participation nonprofits and community organizers and seek one bounded paid pilot. Week 4: measure submission completeness and participant comprehension, review delivery effort and ask for a repeat purchase. This is a validation schedule, not a promise that the full product can be built in thirty days.

After the pilot

After paying customers repeatedly accept resident-approved budget proposal, automate draft cost questions; collect resident corrections; export application draft. Add one tested read integration, reusable customer configuration and scheduled repeat delivery. Increase supported formats or teams only when evaluation cases and reviewer capacity cover the new scope. One published program; estimates require local validation.

Retention

Build repeat use around resident-approved budget proposal. Save approved configurations and review decisions with permission, revisit unresolved exceptions and show progress on submission completeness and participant comprehension. Offer a recurring volume allowance after repeat demand; expand to adjacent tasks only when the buyer asks and delivery quality remains acceptable.

Integrations

Official publications, agency document stores and approved service workflows. Case management, customer records, document storage and notification systems. Begin with an exportable review pack before automating destination writes. Begin with uploads and exports of resident-submitted ideas and published program criteria. Any named system or connector is a candidate requiring current access and compatibility checks; no live connection is included by default.

07Investment and running costs

Revenue model to test

Test USD 500-2,000 setup plus USD 150-750 monthly for one form family and a capped submission volume. Quote specialist review and unusual document formats separately. Prices are experimental. For this buyer, package the first sale around prepare five resident-led proposals and the defined resident-approved budget proposal. Record actual review effort before offering a recurring allowance. The commercial pilot fee is distinct from the platform development budget.

Cost drivers

Document processing, storage, exception review, support, checklist maintenance and customer-specific integration work. Initial validation additionally budgets for community facilitation and accessibility testing. Track model usage, storage, reviewer minutes, exception handling and customer support per accepted deliverable.

Safeguards

Preserve official source versions, accessibility and audit records. Confirm agency-specific procurement, records and data handling requirements during discovery. One published program; estimates require local validation. Require appropriate access and publication approval. Preserve source material, label AI drafts and make corrections traceable. Measure false positives and missed cases alongside speed.