Step Into the Ring: Comparing the Top Local Policy Tracking Solutions

The responsibility of keeping track of local policy issues as they progress from idea to ordinance at the municipal government level can be a nightmare without the right tools.

Tracking policy in local governments most often requires visibility across a large number of cities and counties. To do this in an efficient and organized way requires the help of policy monitoring software. To help government affairs teams evaluate their options, we’ve compiled a blow-by-blow breakdown of how Curate compares to the top policy monitoring services providing local tracking.

Curate: AI-Powered Local Government Monitoring for Communities of 2,000+ Residents

• Number of City & County Governments Tracked: 12,000+
• Number of School Districts Tracked: 4,000+
• Topic Matching: AI & human analysis
• Stakeholder Contact Data: 100,000+ contacts in 8,000+ locations

Curate, part of FiscalNote, was founded in 2016 and monitors more than 12,000 municipal governments, including communities with as few as 2,000 residents. Curate also monitors more than 4,000 local school boards and tracks statewide medical, nursing, pharmacy, and education boards in each of the 50 states.

The granularity of Curate’s local data is what makes it the undisputed champion of providing government affairs teams with insights into discussions in these communities that can help them weigh in on local ordinances they would otherwise miss that could threaten their organization. Or for business development teams looking to spot emerging opportunities in rural areas well before they turn into an RFP.

In addition to agenda tracking, Curate monitors meeting minutes from all covered jurisdictions. These documents often contain verbatim quotes from elected officials and members of the public, offering a goldmine of insights into local sentiment on a specific topic.

Our proprietary technology combines Natural Language Processing (NLP) with human analysis for comprehensive tracking with minimal noise, meaning you'll find more relevant matches and spend less time sifting through irrelevant documents.

Unlike other tools that rely on simple Boolean searches that often return irrelevant results or miss key items, Curate refines AI matching with human oversight for better accuracy. Curate users are also able to receive weekly, analyst-produced reports that highlight the most important policy discussions for an organization to be aware of.

Lastly, we provide a high-touch onboarding experience to ensure your dashboard is set up correctly. We offer ongoing training for all users and proactively reach out to each account as new topics emerge to make sure you’re tracking everything you need to stay ahead of.

Now let's take a look at the tale of the tape with some of the challengers you might also find in the ring with Curate.

Ontopical: Keyword-Based Local Government Tracking in US & Canada

• Number of City & County Governments Tracked: 16,000 jurisdictions in the U.S. & Canada with populations larger than 10,000
• Number of School Districts Tracked: Undisclosed
• Topic Matching: Al-enabled
• Stakeholder Contact Data: None

Ontopical bills itself as a market intelligence tool that aims to help business development teams find more opportunities within government documents before they become RFPs.

Curate vs. Ontopical

Where Curate has a complete set skillset and provides the flexibility to track emerging policy issues or monitor emerging business opportunities, Ontopical is more of a specialist, solely focused on business development. During Curate’s high-touch onboarding process, our customer service team will help you set up your tracking profile to capture the same kind of pre-RFP insights that Ontopical provides. And since Curate tracks cities with populations as small as 2,000 residents, compared to Ontopical’s threshold of 10,000 residents, Curate provides much more granular coverage and delivers a knockout blow to Ontopical’s limited scope.

One notable difference between Ontopical and Curate is that Ontopical provides some coverage of local governments in Canada, which Curate doesn’t yet offer.

State Net: Bill Tracking Software With Limited Local Data

• Number of City & County Governments Tracked: 1,000+
• Number of School Districts Tracked: Not offered
• Topic Matching: Undisclosed
• Stakeholder Contact Data: None

State Net is a legislative and regulatory tracking solution provided by LexisNexis. The product focuses on state and federal government monitoring but includes data from more than 1,000 local governments nationwide.

Curate vs. State Net

Curate provides much more comprehensive coverage of local government discussions, leaving State Net on the ropes. Additionally, Curate’s dashboard and email alerts are more user-friendly. Users report that State Net sends users the entire document when a mention is discovered, leaving it to the user to find the mention within the document. With Curate, users see a snippet that provides the relevant context around a mention and can jump directly into the document where the snippet appears, letting them quickly and easily determine whether the mention deserves further attention.

MultiState: Full-Service Legislative Monitoring Agency

• Number of City & County Governments Tracked: 4,850 jurisdictions in the U.S.
• Number of School Districts Tracked: Not offered
• Topic Matching: Human analysis
• Stakeholder Contact Data: None

MultiState is known for its done-for-you approach to lobbying. Its local policy monitoring service relies entirely on human analysis to identify emerging issues in city and county government discussions.

Curate vs. MultiState

MultiState covers less than one-third as many localities as Curate, and since the service relies on human policy experts to find topic mentions, it’s only cost-effective for a very limited topic list in one or two jurisdictions. Curate's pairing of AI-powered and human analyst-backed insights is ideal for government affairs teams and organizations that need to track multiple policy topics across numerous locations. Curate holds the title belt for teams that need the confidence that they’re not missing anything.

Quorum: Local Policy Tracking Integrated With Government Advocacy Software

• Number of City & County Governments Tracked: Localities with populations greater than 3,000
• Number of School Districts Tracked: Agendas from 2,500 school boards
• Topic Matching: Boolean search logic
• Stakeholder Contact Data: 75,000+ contacts

Quorum is a public affairs software platform founded in 2014.

Curate vs. Quorum

In this matchup, Curate delivers a one-two punch with its AI-powered local data insights, outperforming Quorum's Boolean search approach. Quorum tracks only the largest cities and counties in the country using simple Boolean search logic to identify keywords within the government documents it scrapes from municipal websites. Users note that it takes constant effort to optimize and maintain the keywords you’re tracking to avoid being inundated with irrelevant data or missing mentions of critical topics that use new or alternate phrasing.

Quorum takes an all-in-one approach to government advocacy software, meaning its local data is integrated into the state and federal legislative tracking application. For very small teams tasked with monitoring policy developments at every level of government and running grassroots advocacy campaigns, this could save some time over using two different products.

But beware of the “all-in-one” software for local tracking. The lack of standard formats for how information appears in local government meeting minutes and agendas, as compared to state and federal bills, means you could be exposed to a counterpunch by trying to track local policy in a system built for state and federal tracking.

Stateside Associates: Email Alert Service for Local Government Monitoring

• Number of City & County Governments Tracked: 10,000+
• Number of School Districts Tracked: Undisclosed
• Topic Matching: Search logic
• Stakeholder Contact Data: None

Stateside provides relatively comprehensive local monitoring with more than 10,000 jurisdictions tracked. The service provides email alerts to clients when one of their topics appears in a jurisdiction they’re tracking. The alerts include a summary of the action, the date considered, and links to supporting documents.

Curate vs. Stateside Associates

Stateside lacks an on-demand dashboard where users can view and manage issues on their own time or dive further into the issue, while Curate’s historical research and data visualization provide powerful insights.

The Final Bell: Influence Outcomes With the Most Comprehensive Local Policy Monitoring Tool

In this ultimate matchup of local policy tracking solutions, Curate stands undefeated, boasting the most comprehensive local database with coverage of over 12,000 municipalities and counties nationwide, and an AI-powered, human-refined engine that empowers your government affairs team with the best tool for the job to make sure you never miss another issue. Schedule a demo today and experience why Curate is the undisputed winner in the ring of local policy tracking solutions.