Vision
I think AI is the biggest challenge of our time.
And a lot of the business models being built around it are designed to take from local government. Your data. Your budget. Your staff’s know-how.
So I started Good Local Gov, with some of the best colleagues I’ve ever worked with, to do the opposite: leave your organization more capable, and the community you serve better off.
Two organizations
Here’s how we work.
Good Local Gov
Good Local Gov is the business. We work with local governments on AI, climate action, and development.
The Better Places Foundation
The Better Places Foundation is a separate nonprofit, a 501(c)(3). It builds community by rebuilding place — using funds from ethical, non-proprietary AI models to support placemaking, local nonprofits, and neighbors organizing to make their communities better.
The Foundation builds AI models we can use in our work, and the revenue they generate goes straight back into the community — not to profit. Its models are available to anyone who wants them. Good Local Gov is one customer among any number, and gets no better deal than the next.
Good Local Gov builds capacity inside city hall. The Foundation builds it in the community.
Grand Challenges
Good Government, Better Places.
We combine our public-service values, collective expertise, and systems thinking with modern technology and methods to deliver innovative products and services addressing AI, data, climate, operations, housing, democracy, trust, connection, placemaking, and others. We draw inspiration from the concepts of Good Government and NAPA’s 12 Grand Challenges, and from our vision for Good Local Gov and Better Places.
The 12 Grand Challenges in Public Administration (opens in a new tab)
None of this works if we build it alone. It has to be built with the people doing the work.
From those conversations, we’ll build a first cohort of three to five communities that want to do this work better. More on that soon.
I’m looking forward to talking with you.
A free thirty-minute call. Nothing to sign.