Kelly is the Head of Scotland at Involve, where they lead its work to make participation and deliberation an everyday part of Scotland’s democracy - building the processes, skills, structures and cultures that good decision making needs.
For more than a decade, Kelly has designed and facilitated some significant democratic processes, including the Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland and Scotland’s Climate Assembly, and led a Scottish Government working group on participatory and deliberative democracy. They are currently the civil society lead for the open government participation commitment. Wider work spans participatory budgeting, advising on the development of participation frameworks, local citizens’ assemblies including Dunfermline, and distributed deliberations such as the UK-wide National Conversation on Food. This work spans from grassroots organisations to governments across the UK and Europe, bridging community development and institutional change.
Alongside delivery, Kelly builds the sector’s capacity through training, mentoring, advising and quality assurance for participatory and deliberative practice.
Before Involve, they were Director of Policy & Practice at Democratic Society and Head of Community Engagement at TPXimpact, and an independent practitioner. Kelly holds an MSc in Education from the University of Edinburgh, with a focus on learning for democracy. Outside of work they can be found exploring Scotland's hills and coastline, learning environmental science and playing football.
Kelly McBride on LinkedIn