A civic lottery is a fair and transparent way of selecting everyday community members to participate in a public panel. People are invited to apply, and final panel members are then randomly selected from the pool of applicants, with care taken to ensure the group broadly reflects the community’s demographics (age, gender, ward geography, and other characteristics). This approach is widely used in citizens’ assemblies and reference panels in Canada and internationally.

Traditional engagement methods often over-represent people who are already highly engaged or have the most time and resources. A lottery helps create a panel that is more inclusive, balanced, and representative of the full community. Research and practice show that lottery-selected panels better reflect public perspectives and build trust in the process.

The process has two stages:

• Open invitation / application – community members signal interest and confirm availability.
• Random selection – panel members are drawn by lottery from the applicant pool.

This ensures participants are both representative and willing to take part, rather than being compelled to serve, as with jury duty.

No. Applying means you are entering the lottery, not being selected automatically. If more people apply than there are spaces (which is expected), a lottery will be used to select participants. Those not selected still play an important role by making the pool diverse and representative. Stay tuned for other ways to make your voice heard.

After applications close, the final group is selected using stratified random selection. This means the lottery is structured so the panel broadly matches the community’s demographic profile (for example, by age ranges, gender balance, neighbourhoods, or other relevant characteristics). This method is standard practice in citizens’ assemblies and civic lotteries.

No expertise, prior experience, or formal training is required. The goal is to hear from everyday residents with diverse life experiences.

Any community member who meets the following requirements can apply:

• Live, work, go to school, own a business or property in Kitchener.
• Willing to deeply engage in learning from a variety of information sources, including reading materials, presentations from experts, and group conversations.
• Able to be open-minded to new ideas and information and think beyond personal opinions to consider the best interests of the broad community.
• Able to work in a team environment, take part in respectful collaboration, and ensure everyone has an opportunity to be heard.
• Able to contribute to recommendations that reflect the group’s collective thinking, even when the final direction is not everyone’s first choice.
• Able to attend all five (5) sessions in-person.
• Able to complete 1 to 3 hours of pre-work prior to each session.

That’s completely okay – and encouraged. Civic lotteries are designed specifically to include people who have never been involved in public engagement before. Information, learning sessions, and facilitation are typically built into the panel process so everyone can participate meaningfully.