Engaged Public

What Engaged Public does

Engaged Public, doing business as Balancing Act, is a Denver-based public policy strategy firm founded in 1998 that provides simulation-based online engagement tools for local government agencies. Its platform enables municipal leaders to engage residents in fiscally complex decisions by letting citizens experience the same budget constraints and trade-offs that government officials face, thereby generating informed public input rather than uninformed preferences. The product suite comprises five interconnected offerings: Budget Simulation (interactive municipal budget modeling), Housing Simulation (RHNA distribution for housing planning), Prioritize (a dual selection-and-ranking engagement tool for budgeted projects), Tax Receipt (a personal tax allocation visualization application), and Consulting services to assist government clients with implementation.\n\nThe company's revenue model is SaaS subscription-based, with quote-based annual pricing for government clients, supplemented by self-serve trial demos for budget and housing simulations. Distribution is primarily direct enterprise sales targeting city managers, village administrators, and municipal finance directors, supplemented by content marketing (whitepapers, case studies, blog), earned media presence, and demo-driven demand generation. Customers are exclusively local government agencies across the United States, with named deployments including the City of Corona (California), Germantown (Wisconsin), City of Roseville (California), and Denver (Colorado). The firm has received industry recognition including the Government Technology Top 100 award and consecutive ELGL Haverford Awards (2019, 2020) for innovation in local government technology.

Name

Engaged Public

Website

https://engagedpublic.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1998

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Engaged Public (dba Balancing Act) is a Denver-based firm founded in 1998 that provides simulation-based SaaS engagement tools—Budget Simulation, Housing Simulation, Prioritize, and Tax Receipt—to local government agencies for resident financial transparency and participatory budgeting.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Government Public Engagement Software

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Management Consulting Services (8742)

akta.pro primary industry

Interactive Presentation & Lesson Delivery Engagement Tools (EDAFAGAJ)

akta.pro secondary industry

Simulation, Scenario & Serious Games Design (EDAGAKAH)

Keywords

• Public engagement software
• Government budget simulation
• Civic engagement platform
• Municipal budget tools
• Citizen participation software

Headquarters

HQ city

Denver

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. SaaS Platform Subscription: Engaged Public (Balancing Act) generates revenue through subscription-based access to its simulation and engagement platform. Government clients pay for access to budget simulations, housing tools, taxpayer receipt applications, and prioritization tools. Pricing page exists suggesting tiered subscription model.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Engaged Public, operating as Balancing Act, provides a simulation-based online engagement platform for local government agencies. The platform offers interactive tools including budget simulations, housing simulations, taxpayer receipt applications, and prioritization tools that help government leaders educate residents about fiscal constraints and collect informed public input on budget, housing, climate, and planning decisions.

Product overview

Balancing Act is a simulation-based public engagement platform for government, providing a suite of interconnected tools that enable meaningful financial transparency, accountability, and citizen participation. The portfolio consists of five core products: Budget Simulation and Housing Simulation, which use interactive models to show residents the constraints leaders face; Prioritize, which gathers stakeholder preferences on budgeted projects through a dual selection-and-ranking approach; Tax Receipt (Taxpayer Receipt), which helps users estimate their taxes and see allocation of public funds; and Consulting services that support implementation. All products work together to help government leaders make informed decisions while engaging residents in the process.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Budget Simulation An online simulation tool that educates residents about municipal budgets by letting them experience the same financial constraints facing government leaders, enabling informed public input on budget decisions. Designed for city governments, village administrations, and municipal finance departments.
• Housing Simulation A simulation tool that engages stakeholders on housing-related decisions and planning issues, allowing users to explore housing allocation scenarios and trade-offs. Includes RHNA distribution functionality for regional housing planning.
• Prioritize An engagement tool that goes beyond traditional surveys by allowing stakeholders to make selections and then rank-order budgeted projects based on their preferences through a unique dual approach.
• Tax Receipt (Taxpayer Receipt) An application that asks users a few simple questions to estimate their taxes paid and then visually displays where their tax dollars are allocated across government services. Deployed through municipal finance departments.
• Consulting Professional services offered alongside the simulation tools to help government entities implement and optimize public engagement during budget and planning processes.

Named customers4 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Granicus: Granicus is a large, established govtech platform spanning communications, service delivery, and civic engagement (including acquired assets like Peak Democracy and MindMixer). It competes in the same government engagement category but as part of a much broader suite.
• Tyler Technologies: Tyler Technologies is a large public-sector software provider offering financial management, ERP, and citizen engagement solutions to U.S. governments. It overlaps with Engaged Public in budget transparency and resident-facing municipal software.

Regional players

• Bang the Table (EngagementHQ): Bang the Table provides the EngagementHQ civic engagement platform, primarily serving governments in Australia, New Zealand, and other markets outside the U.S. It is a comparable civic engagement offering focused on consultation and idea prioritization, similar in approach to Balancing Act's Prioritize tool.

Direct peers

• MindMixer: MindMixer (now part of Granicus) is a civic engagement platform that helps local governments crowdsource ideas and feedback from residents. Its idea-ranking and feedback tools overlap with Engaged Public's Prioritize and simulation-based engagement approach.
• ClearGov: ClearGov offers municipal budget transparency and benchmarking tools to local governments. Its focus on visual budget dashboards and resident-facing transparency overlaps directly with Engaged Public's Budget Simulation and Tax Receipt offerings.
• CitizenLab: CitizenLab is a civic engagement platform used by cities for participatory projects, surveys, and budgeting consultations. Its budget engagement use cases directly overlap with Engaged Public's simulation-based approach.
• PublicInput: PublicInput is a civic engagement platform that helps local governments collect and analyze resident input across projects, including budgeting processes. It is a directly comparable engagement tool for U.S. municipalities.
• OpenGov: OpenGov provides government budgeting, transparency, and performance software to U.S. municipalities and states. Its budgeting and citizen-facing transparency suite competes directly with Balancing Act's Budget Simulation and Tax Receipt products.
• Polco: Polco is a direct competitor in civic engagement and resident polling, with the company's own whitepaper hosted on polco.us infrastructure. Both serve local governments with engagement tools, making them the closest product-level peer.
• Peak Democracy: Peak Democracy (now part of Granicus) is a civic engagement platform for local governments offering online forums, surveys, and participatory budgeting. It competes with Balancing Act in the citizen-input layer of municipal decision-making.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/EngagedPublic
• Facebookfacebook.com/EngagedPublic
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/engaged-public

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

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 Engaged Public