Shari Davis

Currently, Shari serves as Executive Director of the Participatory Budgeting Project, a national non-profit organization focused on empowering people to decide together how to spend public money. Shari oversees PBP's advocacy work, technical assistance, and operations. She joined PBP staff after nearly 15 years of service and leadership in local government. As Director of Youth Engagement and Employment for the City of Boston she launched Youth Lead the Change, the first youth participatory budgeting process in the US, which won the US Conference of Mayors’ City Livability Award. Shari first got involved in city government in high school, serving as the Citywide Neighborhood Safety Coordinator on the Boston Mayor’s Youth Council and working at the Mayor’s Youthline. Shari is a graduate of Boston University’s Sargent College for Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and holds a master’s degree in anatomy and physiology. In 2019 Shari was named an Obama Foundation Fellow for her innovative work to advance and promote participatory democracy and co-governance models. Currently Shari is a 2022 Emerson Collective Fellow building an immersive and very cool project to transform democracy.

Participatory budgeting, social justice, youth leadership, democracy, equity, food, philanthropy and speculative fiction

Better, safer and more efficient communities are built when we make decisions together.

Poetry, nerding out on generally and especially about comic books, martial arts