Balancing Act

What Balancing Act does

Balancing Act is a Denver-based software company, founded in 2015 as a product of parent firm Engaged Public (founded 1998), that builds web-based, simulation-driven public engagement tools for government. Its core Budget Simulation product presents residents with an interactive model of a municipality's or county's budget, asking them to make trade-offs and collect informed input, with companion modules including a Housing Simulation for zoning and density planning, a Prioritize tool for ranking budgeted projects, and a Tax Receipt application that estimates individual tax payments and shows allocation across services. The platform supports both online self-service use and a "Meeting Mode" for in-person facilitation, runs in multiple languages and currencies, and is available in a "research version" for use with representative samples.

The company sells primarily through a sales-led, quote-based SaaS subscription model targeted at government budget officers, elected officials, and communications staff, with a self-service component for governments that can self-onboard in 2-3 hours. Wrapping the software is a "Our Budget" professional services line that handles engagement strategy, simulation building, facilitation, and reporting. Customers include 100+ local governments spanning cities, counties, and school districts in the US, with additional presence in Canada and Australia; high-profile users include Baltimore County, Kansas City, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Roseville, Fort Collins, and Riverside. The firm has won multiple government-finance and digital-cities awards (GFOA Excellence, Digital Cities, ELGL Haverford, GovTech 100 in 2019 and 2020) and has a classroom distribution channel through PBS NewsHour reaching 100,000+ students.

Name

Balancing Act

Legal name

Engaged Public

Website

https://abalancingact.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Balancing Act is a Denver-based software company that builds web-based budget and housing simulation tools for local governments. Its SaaS platform plus wrap-around consulting helps cities, counties, and school districts engage residents in transparent, informed financial and planning decisions.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Denver

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Software Subscription: SaaS subscription model for government entities to access budget simulation, housing simulation, taxpayer receipt, and prioritize tools. Pricing varies based on government size and needs.
2. Consulting Services: Custom-designed consulting services including budget engagement planning, stakeholder understanding, simulation building, meeting facilitation, report writing, and results presentations. Wraps around the software to help clients achieve desired outcomes.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Balancing Act provides a web-based, simulation-driven public engagement platform that enables government entities to share budget and policy information with residents and collect informed input. The suite includes a core Budget Simulation, Housing Simulation, Prioritize (project ranking), and Taxpayer Receipt modules, complemented by wrap-around consulting services for stakeholder engagement and meeting facilitation.

Product overview

Balancing Act is a simulation-based public engagement platform for government, consisting of a core Budget Simulation product with additional specialized modules. The core Budget Simulation enables governments to engage residents in budget decisions by putting users in the shoes of decision-makers. Additional products include Housing Simulation for housing planning engagement, Prioritize for project prioritization, Tax Receipt as a transparency companion tool, and Consulting Services for implementation support. The platform is optimized for budget, housing, climate, and planning engagements.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Our Budget: A comprehensive set of wrap-around consulting services designed to help clients achieve budget engagement outcomes.
• Prioritize
• Taxpayer Receipt
• Meeting Mode

Products and services

• Budget Simulation An interactive online simulation that allows governments to share budget information with residents, educate them on key financial issues, and collect informed feedback on service levels and priorities. Features include easy import, fine-tuned questions, multi-language support, Meeting Mode for in-person use, and detailed user-level reporting.
• Housing Simulation Online simulation designed to help cities, counties, and planning organizations engage residents in housing and zoning decisions by allowing users to try different combinations of options to reach housing goals.
• Prioritize Engagement tool that allows users to make selections on budgeted projects and then rank order them, providing deeper insight for decision-making within fixed or one-time expense budgets. Used by school districts for ARPA and ESSER stimulus allocation and by other entities for project prioritization.
• Taxpayer Receipt Application that asks simple questions to estimate taxes paid and shows individuals where their tax dollars go with an itemized receipt format, helping demonstrate the value of government services.
• Consulting Services (Our Budget) Custom-designed professional consulting services including budget engagement planning, stakeholder understanding, simulation building, meeting facilitation, report writing, results presentations, and training to help government clients achieve desired engagement outcomes.

Quantifiable outcome

• 40,000+ Coloradans engaged during Great Recession with first simulation (2007)
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature8 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Engaged PublicOthersEngaged Public is the parent company and founder of Balancing Act, established in 1998. It is a Colorado-based public policy consulting firm specializing in engagement-driven strategies and public policy leadership development. Engaged Public has been facilitating public discussions for over 25 years and created the budget simulation concept that evolved into Balancing Act.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Emerging players

• Neighborland: Neighborland is a community input platform that helps cities collect resident feedback on planning, housing, and development projects. It overlaps directly with Balancing Act's Housing Simulation and Prioritize use cases but is positioned as a lightweight, narrower tool.

Direct peers

• CitizenLab: CitizenLab is a civic participation platform used by cities worldwide to crowdsource ideas, run surveys, and prioritize projects. It competes with Balancing Act's Prioritize and consultation capabilities, with a stronger international footprint and broader ideation features.
• Bang the Table (EngagementHQ): Bang the Table's EngagementHQ is a community engagement platform for local governments featuring surveys, idea forums, and project prioritization. It targets the same municipal buyer as Balancing Act and overlaps on stakeholder input collection for budgets and planning.
• MindMixer: MindMixer is a civic engagement platform that enables residents to submit ideas and weigh in on local government projects and budgets. It targets the same municipal market and use case as Balancing Act, with comparable community-input functionality.
• Zencity: Zencity provides AI-driven civic analytics and resident feedback tools for local governments. It overlaps with Balancing Act on the citizen-engagement-for-municipalities proposition, although Zencity emphasizes passive listening and survey data rather than simulation-based budget engagement.
• Polco: Polco is a civic engagement and data analytics platform serving local governments, and Balancing Act is referenced as 'Balancing Act by Polco' with contact emails routed through polco.us, indicating Polco is either the distribution parent or the closest direct peer offering overlapping citizen engagement and polling tools to municipalities.
• Peak Democracy (legacy): Peak Democracy (now part of the Polco ecosystem historically) provided online town hall and civic engagement tools to local governments. It is comparable to Balancing Act's Meeting Mode and online simulation features for soliciting resident input on public budgets and policies.

Broad incumbents

• OpenGov: OpenGov offers a broad suite of government financial transparency, budgeting, and procurement software to state and local governments. Its budget transparency and citizen-facing modules compete head-on with Balancing Act's core simulation use case, though OpenGov covers a much wider workflow footprint.
• Granicus: Granicus is a large government experience platform covering communications, service requests, and legislative management. It serves many of the same municipal and county customers as Balancing Act and represents an incumbent bundling threat to standalone engagement tools.
• FiscalNote: FiscalNote is a policy and government-relations intelligence platform serving legislative, regulatory, and corporate customers. While focused on legislative tracking rather than citizen engagement, it operates in the same broader government technology space and shares a public-sector buyer.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/affef9b54f5c4f38871d19dd4a408d39
• Xx.com/BalancingActEP
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/balancing-act-budget-simulator

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles9 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Balancing Act