As startups across Massachusetts struggle to stay alive, one company had a record quarter in Q1 2020: ClearGov, the Maynard, Mass.-based transparency and budgeting software startup that exists to serve local governments.
ClearGov CEO Chris Bullock has found that his startup is positioned to help local governments as they pivot along with the private sector. Typically, he says, their struggles fall into two buckets—communication with residents, and the shift to remote working for government employees themselves.
"When public meetings aren't public, you need to find a new way to communicate with constituents," Bullock said. "I think in a time of crisis like this, transparency and communication around metrics—not just Covid-19 metrics but also government performance—are critical."
ClearGov's platform has enabled cities and towns to get public health and other civic information to their residents. Maynard, Merrimac and Barre have all set up webpages with localized Covid-19 information.
Meanwhile, ClearGov's remote budgeting software has streamlined the process for communicating remotely within government departments. Public servants have been forced to make especially difficult decisions about town finances, given that revenue has taken a major hit with the effective shutdown of local economies. Data from the Urban Institute show that statewide, Massachusetts saw a 54.2 percent decline in tax revenue in April 2020 as opposed to April 2019.
The maelstrom means there's more demand for ClearGov's tools, Bullock said.
"We're seeing a big, big uptick in people interested in remote budgeting," Bullock said. "We're seeing a big shift to cloud-based services. Frankly, I think that was happening before. This is just accelerating it."
ClearGov is not the only civic tech startup scrambling to keep up with new demand. Rave Mobile Safety, the 16-year old software company based in Framingham, has similarly been partnering with local governments to get out critical information to residents, particularly those who rely on social services.
COO Todd Miller points out that those services are under additional strain as a direct result of the pandemic. The number of new unemployment claims in the U.S. has now risen to more than 36 million in the last two months alone. SNAP programs, senior services and child services programs are all seeing new enrollees as well, Miller said.
"All these services provided by the state are under extreme strain, and their old way of doing things isn't really working," Miller said. "Oftentimes, these are organizations that are run fairly thin. ... They were getting inundated with inbound requests, so many that they simply can't manage them. We're collaborating on how to do proactive outreach rather than waiting until your website is getting overwhelmed with requests."
Rave Mobile Safety's clientele now includes government agencies in Louisiana, Delaware, Colorado, Arkansas and Chicago.
The company has also begun folding in Covid-19 information into its flagship "Smart911" software. Smart911 is a service used to collect and deliver additional emergency data to first responders with the goal of increasing emergency response times. Individuals use the tool to create a "safety profile," which is then conveyed to operators when that person actually calls 911.
People who register for Smart911 now will be asked questions specific to the coronavirus, including whether they've tested positive, if they're in a high-risk group and whether they're in quarantine, plus whether that quarantine is self-imposed or medically mandated.
"As the Covid-19 crisis picked up steam, we recognized we have the ability to collect critical Covid-19 information and make that not only available to 911 and first responders, but also to public health and emergency management personnel," Miller said.
In Massachusetts, the communities of Framingham, Springfield, Cambridge and Worcester, among others, are all using Smart911.
As ClearGov and Rave Mobile Safety both look to help manage the crisis in the moment, one company is looking to the future: Preservica, the Boston- and U.K.-based digital archiving software provider.
Preservica is widely used in the public sector, including by 20 U.S. state archives. (Massachusetts is among those.) Typically, public agencies use Preservica's software to record things like city events, land records and other historical documents for posterity.
Now, we are living through history. Many organizations are taking a specialized approach in response.
"Our customers in government particularly are making contemporary records in response to Covid-19," said CEO Mike Quinn. "Right now, folks like the Boston city archivists are using Preservica to maintain digital records of things like press conferences, videos, executive orders, emergency rules and regulations. The stuff being issued on the web, social media, anything that's digital—and everything is digital now—is being captured."
Preservica also has a handful of international clients, including the World Bank, which is using the five-year-old startup's software to document the coronavirus' impact on global economies.
All this has led Preservica to be well-positioned financially. In March, Quinn was one of the few CEOs who was able to pledge to his employees that the company would not be conducting any layoffs for at least six months.
For Quinn and his fellow civic tech CEOs, though, the companies are not the star of the show. These startups exist to help local governments. As Bullock put it, making public agencies "more fully digitized" will allow them to better serve their constituents, even once we're out of the pandemic.
"The best local governments will come out of this pandemic stronger because of it," Bullock said. "They’ll have better systems in place. Better workflows. They’ll be more fully digitized and be prepared to better communicate and work from home."
Correction: Due to a note-taking error, this article originally attributed information about Rave Mobile Safety to CEO Todd Piett rather than COO Todd Miller. The article has been updated accordingly.
