To provide citizens with better access to the workings of city councils, the Participatory Politics Foundation has developed an online tool called Councilmatic. This open-source application allows community groups and individual citizens to follow the actions of their city council and local agencies by searching a user-friendly database of proposed legislation, voting records and meeting minutes. Councilmatic will also provide simple text-messaging tools to improve communication between council members and their constituents. With funding from the Rita Allen Foundation, the Participatory Politics Foundation is partnering with HeartGov, the Open Civic Data project and with several elected officials to pilot Councilmatic in New York City and Chicago, with the goal of bringing the tool to more American cities in the future. NYC Councilmatic launched on September 30, 2015, at the Code for America Summit. In March 2016, Councilmatic was a finalist in the inaugural South By Southwest Interactive “Civic Pitch” event, which included a live demonstration for a group of a dozen U.S. mayors. Civic technologists sponsored by Code for America, which the Rita Allen Foundation has also supported, created an early version of Councilmatic currently in use in Philadelphia.