Open Budget Value Statement

Part 1: The Big Picture

What is the website?

• Open Budget Oakland

What is the “mission” or purpose of the website?

• To enable community members in examining their city’s budget themselves

In your own words, what is the problem being solved according to the “mission?”

• Providing a user-friendly tool for accessing information about the budget

Based on the “mission,” who does this serve?

• Active community voters who want to understand where their money goes
• Local non-profits that may be seeking city funding through grants

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Part 2: The Products

What are the different products offered by the site?

The Overview Tool, Comparison Tool, Detail Tool, and Timeline Tool

What product are you focusing on?

The Overview Tool

• What is the “mission” or purpose of this particular product?

  • To help users get a big-picture view of the revenue and expenses categories in a given year

• What is the primary “problem” that this product seeks to solve?

  • This tool gives a novice budget enthusiast a non-intimidating starting place for learning about the budget process

• How does this product solve the problem above?

  • Users who are new to reading city budgets can see broad revenue and expense categories
  • They can also see how revenue is used to cover expense through the flow diagram

• What are some secondary problems that this product seeks to solve?

  • Allowing users to compare changes in revenue-expense flows in different years

• How does the product solve the problems above?

  • Through the “Fiscal Year” tab

• Who is the intended audience for this product?

  • Anyone! Primarily though, people new to looking at budgets of any kind

• Who are other kinds of audiences that would benefit from this product beyond the intended audience?

  • Journalists looking to contextualize a budget-related editorial

• What are some problems or questions that the product doesn’t address?

  • Which expense categories does any particular revenue category “flow into”?

• What does this imply about the kind of audience that this product isn’t for?

  • People looking to “follow the money” in more detail i.e. match item-by-item revenue to expense

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