Citizen Portal
Government, made trackable.
Federal to school board, every state and territory — Citizen Portal turns hours of public meetings into minutes of clear, neutral insight. So tracking your government is finally as easy as tracking anything else in your life.
Democracy works best when people can clearly see how it works.
- Budget & capital
- Public safety
- Health & social
From the Founder
“I started Citizen Portal because I was bothered by a simple reality — it's easier to track a package than to track what our own government is doing.”
Citizen Portal exists to help people understand what's actually happening in government — clearly, transparently, and without spin. Our mission is to illuminate government action to amplify transparency, provide clarity, and fuel civic engagement.
After helping millions of people understand where they come from at Ancestry.com — a lifelong mission to use technology to uplift humanity, expand access to knowledge, and strengthen civic trust — I turned to a question just as fundamental: how do we help people understand the systems that govern their lives today?
This is the beginning of something important — not just for Citizen Portal, but for all of us who believe an informed public strengthens democracy.
By the Numbers
Civic data at a scale no one else covers.
Inside the Data
Spending, themes, officials — all in one view.
Every state, county, and city gets its own data dashboard — a single page that pulls together the budgets, decisions, and people that shape your community. Here's a peek.
- 42%Capital projects — water, roads, transit
- 28%Public safety budget & accountability
- 17%Housing affordability and zoning reform
What you unlock with founding member access
- Spending dashboards for every level of government
- Follow your state, county, city, or school board
- Track topics like housing, education, and policing across the country
- Receive a daily summary of what your government did
No credit card. Upgrade anytime to unlock advanced search, alerts, and exclusive data tools.
Why We Exist
The decisions that shape your life are public — but practically invisible.
Federal headlines get covered. Your city council, school board, and county budget meetings — the ones deciding your taxes, your kids' classrooms, your streets — almost never do. Local journalism, the connective tissue between government and citizens, has collapsed in most communities.
We close that gap. Citizen Portal connects directly with citizens and partners with news and civic organizations to help them scale what they already do best.
Our Story, in Their Words
Watch Paul Allen explain the mission.
Who We Serve
Find your place in civic life.
Citizen Portal builds a shared civic information layer that meets people where they already are.
Citizens
Get clear on the decisions shaping your community — and your taxes, your schools, your safety.
Journalists
Stretch shrinking local newsrooms across more meetings, more documents, more accountability.
Civic Orgs & Educators
Power voter guides, classroom material, and advocacy with primary-source civic data.
Enterprises & Institutions
Reliable civic intelligence for organizations that need to operate responsibly.
Track Topics
Follow the issues, wherever they go.
Housing affordability, climate, AI policy, public safety — pick any topic and we'll follow it across federal, state, county, and city government, all on one page.
Why topics matter
- Federal, state, county, and city activity on one topic page
- Get notified when your topic is debated in any meeting
- Cuts across jurisdiction — see the whole story, not pieces
- New topics added every week as government priorities shift
How It Works
Built on primary sources. Designed to be auditable.
Ingest
We pull directly from public meeting agendas, video, minutes, and government documents — primary sources only.
Distill
Constrained AI converts hours of proceedings into minutes of clear, neutral summary — without editorial spin.
Surface
Every claim links back to the original record. Audit, trace, and verify every word — and help us get even better every day.
Our North Star
Transparency should not require expertise.
Participation should not require insider access.
Understanding government should not feel like detective work.
The civic intelligence infrastructure for the modern era
Become an informed citizen today.
One payment. Lifetime access. AI briefings, topic alerts, unlimited follows, and advanced search — everything your government is really doing.