The article discusses the global and Russian experience in the development of various approaches for the influence of society on the budgetary process. These are the participation of public organizations in the discussion of the regional or city budget (public budgeting) and the distribution of a small share of the budget by the boards of residents (participatory budgeting). The experience of the project “A budget that can be understood and influenced”, implemented by the St. Petersburg Humanitarian and Political Science Center “Strategy”, is briefly presented in the article. The foreign and domestic experience of another related approach for the civic participation in the activities of the authorities - the participatory design of urban space - is analyzed. In case of municipal formations of St. Petersburg, the authors analyze the reasons why municipal deputies choose not participatory budgeting, but participatory design while seeking ways of civic inclusion in decision-making. Expert interviews were conducted with deputies of four municipalities of St. Petersburg, and the cognitive mapping method was used to analyze the texts of the interviews. The reasons for deputies to make such a choice appeared to be the vagueness of the normative support for participatory budgeting, which increased the risk of intervention of the prosecutor's office, disagreements among deputies in municipal councils, as well as obstacles with the availability of expert support. The article discusses the problems of developing an ecosystem of public participation in the government activities.