Building public finance innovation with discipline.
GovFi Solutions exists to help promising ideas in public finance become practical, scalable solutions. Because we work at the intersection of government, technology, private enterprise, and investment, how we operate matters as much as what we build.
Our approach is designed to protect trust, encourage fair participation, and keep the needs of public finance professionals at the center of our decisions.
The rules that guide our decisions.
Public value comes first
We start with real problems facing public finance professionals and governments. Commercial potential matters, but it does not replace the need to create meaningful public-sector value.
Evidence before investment
We test assumptions before making large commitments. Ideas move forward based on evidence of the problem, user need, practical feasibility, and a credible path to adoption.
Clear and fair evaluation
We use defined criteria and decision gates to evaluate opportunities. Relationships, vendors, founders, or individual technologies should not bypass the discipline required of other opportunities.
Independence matters
No single company, product, technology, investor, or partner should define GovFi’s direction. We work with private-sector partners where they can help create value while preserving GovFi’s ability to make independent decisions.
Transparency builds trust
Material commercial relationships, ownership interests, and potential conflicts should be understood and managed. Where GovFi has an economic interest in a solution, that interest should not be confused with independent validation or endorsement.
Responsible experimentation
Innovation involves uncertainty. We support thoughtful experimentation, but the level of evidence, oversight, and safeguards should increase with the potential consequences of failure.
Small bets before big ones.
GovFi is designed to learn before it commits significant capital or organizational resources. Opportunities generally move through progressively higher levels of validation.
Problem
Is the problem real, important, and experienced by public finance professionals?
Evidence
Who has the problem? How significant is it? What alternatives exist today?
Solution
Is there a credible way to solve it, and can we demonstrate that it works?
Adoption
Who will use it, who will pay for it, and what would prevent adoption?
Scale
What capabilities, partners, capital, or distribution are required to grow it?
Investment
Does deeper GovFi participation create value that would not otherwise exist?
At each stage, GovFi can continue, narrow the scope, seek additional evidence, partner with others, or stop. Not every good idea needs to become a GovFi venture.
Partners help good ideas scale.
GovFi may work with founders, technology companies, governments, researchers, investors, and other organizations to develop and commercialize solutions.
Those relationships should have clear roles, economics, ownership, responsibilities, and expectations. GovFi should retain the flexibility to work with the best partners for each opportunity and avoid arrangements that unnecessarily limit future innovation.
Clear ownership
Intellectual property, data, technology, and commercial rights should be understood before significant investment is made.
Aligned economics
Revenue sharing, equity, investment, licensing, or other economics should reflect each party’s contribution and risk.
Protected trust
Partnerships should include appropriate safeguards around quality, data, conflicts, brand, liability, and reputation.
Connected by mission. Distinct in responsibility.
GovFi Solutions was created to pursue innovation and commercialization in public finance through a separate corporate structure.
GovFi and the Government Finance Officers Association share an interest in improving the practice of public finance, but they have distinct governance, responsibilities, and activities.
GovFi may collaborate with GFOA where doing so advances their respective missions. Commercial activities, contractual commitments, investments, partnerships, and services offered by GovFi are the responsibility of GovFi Solutions unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Specific uses of GFOA intellectual property, branding, member channels, data, or other resources are subject to the applicable agreements and approvals between the organizations.
Commitments we make.
We will
- Start with validated public finance problems.
- Test ideas before making significant investments.
- Use clear decision gates.
- Work with strong partners when they improve the outcome.
- Be transparent about material economic interests and relationships.
- Protect data, intellectual property, institutional credibility, and future flexibility.
- Stop or change direction when the evidence does not support continuing.
We will not
- Pursue ideas only because the technology is interesting.
- Allow one vendor or partner to determine GovFi’s agenda.
- Treat access or relationships as substitutes for merit.
- Make large investments before validating the underlying problem.
- Present GovFi’s commercial interests as independent endorsement.
- Create unnecessary ambiguity about whether GovFi or another organization is responsible for a product, service, or agreement.
Have a public finance problem worth solving?
We want to hear from finance officers, founders, practitioners, and partners who see important problems that deserve a better solution.