The canvas describes a PB system, the standing apparatus that runs across cycles, not a single cycle. Twelve nodes in four zones. Each node has a few things to name, common options to start from, and questions to ask yourself while you fill it in. The menus are starting points, not limits.
| Node | Description | Dimensions |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | What this PB system is trying to produce: the change it is after, for whom, and over what time horizon. Goals point the system somewhere. | GoalGoal typeBeneficiaryTime horizon |
| Values | What this PB system stands for: the behaviors it wants to see more of, and the lines it will not cross getting to its goals. Where goals point the system somewhere, values set the constraints on how it gets there. A value that shapes no design choice is decoration. | Named valuesSource of valuesStatus |
| Activities | Everything that happens in and around the PB system. Not just the steps of a cycle (outreach, idea collection, deliberation, voting, oversight) but the work that keeps the apparatus alive between and around cycles: advocating for next year's money, teaching people what PB is, cultivating partners, defending the mandate, and building the durable infrastructure the whole thing runs on. | ActivityTypeCadenceOwner |
| Feedback Loops | How this PB system improves itself. The feedback loop that lets each cycle differ from the previous one in informed ways. Each row is an evaluation the system runs (an end-of-event survey, a cycle review, a longitudinal study), and each evaluation can measure more than one thing. Who runs it, how often, what it measures, what its findings are allowed to change, and whether those changes actually come back as new rules. A system with no working feedback loops tends to get stale or fail to adapt to changing sociopolitical contexts. | EvaluationEvaluatorTimingAuthority to change rulesWhat it measures |
| Node | Description | Dimensions |
|---|---|---|
| Partners and Roles | The standing roster of who facilitates this PB system, and in what role. Not the cast of one cycle, the relationships that make it run across cycles. That means the in-cycle roles (convener, fiscal sponsor, outreach, facilitators, decision-makers, evaluators, specialists) and the cross-cycle ones that are easy to forget: the advocates who hold facilitators and conveners to account, and the champions who keep the system iterating toward its goals when no cycle is running. Each one sits somewhere on commitment, from contractual down to a handshake, and comes from some sector. | PartnerRoleSectorCommitment level |
| Pot of Money | The money this PB system has to allocate. Its size, where it comes from, what it is allowed to fund, and whether it is one pot or several. | Pot NameSizeSourceRestrictionsConfiguration |
| Authority and Mandate | The institutional permission for this PB system to exist, and how much the institution has to honor what the system produces. It comes from some source, at some level of formality, with some degree of bindingness, over some scope, and is either released or still pending. | Source of authorityFormalityBindingnessScopeStatus |
| Node | Description | Dimensions |
|---|---|---|
| Geographies | The scale and structure where this PB system operates, and where decisions land. | GeographyScaleBoundary logicConfigurationEquity weighting |
| Engagement Channels | The media people use to engage with the PB system, and the kind of contact those channels create. Borrowing from the Business Model Canvas, channels range from mass and broadcast down to one-on-one. This box is only about how people reach and are reached by the system. What gets decided, and how, lives in Activities. | ChannelParticipation modesRelationship typeSynchronicity |
| Priority Audiences | The participants this PB system centers in its design, why it centers them, how it reaches them, and how it knows it is reaching them. Different from beneficiaries. Priority audiences are who the design is built for first. | Named audiencesReason for centeringReach modeVerification |
| Node | Description | Dimensions |
|---|---|---|
| Costs | What running this PB system actually consumes, beyond the budget line. Money, staff time, volunteer and community time, political capital, what else that money and time could have gone to, and what people have to let go of for participation to work. Read across six levels, from the individual up to the societal, tagging the ones that apply. | CostCost typeLevel of analysisRecurrence |
| Effects | What this PB system produces, read across six levels from the individual up to the societal. Most PB measurement stops at the individual level, counting how many people showed up. The levels above it are where the harder questions live. Effects include the negative and the unintended, and the new ways of thinking that emerge, not only the wins. | EffectEffect typeEffect directionLevel of analysisMeasurement quality |