By GovFresh · January 24, 2017
[caption id=”attachment_22372” align=”alignnone” width=”2048”] Photo: Jon Viscott[/caption]
Voterheads lets anyone keep track of any council meeting, down to the specific topic.
CEO Karl McCollester shares how they’re making this possible.
Give us the Voterheads elevator pitch.
When trying to get information on local-level topics and events that are coming up for a vote, public meetings can be incredibly confusing and frustrating. Our solution gives you alerts with summaries for every topic on which you’re passionate.
What civic problem does Voterheads solve?
We’re putting the power of knowledge in the hands of citizens by letting them proactively monitors local organizations for keywords that residents want to stay abreast. The results are custom tailored alerts without wading through miles of agenda items.
Our solution:
- Provides one place to monitor cities, counties and school boards
- Lets citizens and advocacy groups select categories of issues or topics in which they’re interested. Some examples, from our 400+ categories, include parks, charter schools, taxes, gun rights/control, etc.
- Provides a consolidated notice of all upcoming meetings, and excerpts of items up for discussion that align with your interests.
- For governments, provides a simple way to compile their agendas once and share them across multiple formats publicly, in tablet-style to the elected official, and in presentation-mode for the meeting itself.
What’s the story behind Voterheads?
Our founders have worked in technology with local governments across the United States for over a decade. As part of that work, we’ve spent a lot of time in both council and board meetings. Have you ever been to a board meeting? They’re painfully slow and most of the time an average person will only get a three minutes slot to talk within the course of a three hour meeting.
As a result, most of us don’t go, unless it’s a big story mentioned in the local newspaper or TV, at which point, there are hundreds of people, each getting three minutes. Now, that same three-hour meeting goes past midnight.
After having been at both types, our team knew there must be a more effective process for knowings what’s happening at the local level before the meetings, and to communicate our concerns without this incredible hassle.
Early into our endeavor, we noticed advocacy and trade groups were monitoring topics such as health, the environment, civil liberties, and even energy policy. We offer those groups plans to allow them to monitor either a region, a specific state, or the entire country. Currently, we are active in over 1,500 cities and counties across 41 states. Every month we’re adding more.
What are the costs, pricing plans?
Voterheads is free for anyone monitoring five organizations or less. Advocacy groups, other organizations, and even empowered citizens interested in monitoring a greater number of organizations can subscribe to one of our professional plans. A professional plan include multiple logins, customized reporting, and API access, starting at just $2.50/month for each organization they monitor.
We also have an Early Access Program that helps local governments manage their agendas and meetings. Interested local governments can reach out to us via our web form at http://www.agenda.ly
How can those interested connect with you?
They can find us at www.Voterheads.com. We’re also on Twitter(@voterheads) and Facebook.
Watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL-CTl5Wzg0