The digital services firm rebuilding government from the inside - with open source, agile, and human-centered design.
CivicActions, photographed in the wild: a company of 140 with no headquarters, no proprietary lock-in, and two decades of code shipped to agencies millions of people rely on.
CivicActions helps government agencies deliver public services that people can actually use - modernizing the websites, forms, and platforms behind everyday interactions with the state.
Founded in July 2004 by technologists Henry Poole and Aaron Pava, CivicActions started with a specific conviction: that free and open-source software could do social good. The early work was for NGOs - hosted, group-forming network technology for organizations like Amnesty International and the Center for Reproductive Rights. By 2012 the firm had served more than 175 organizations.
Over time, that mission pointed toward government. Today CivicActions is a digital services firm working with federal, state, and local agencies. It takes legacy systems - the slow, hard-to-use, often inaccessible technology behind public services - and rebuilds them using agile delivery, DevSecOps, and human-centered design.
The through-line is open source. Drupal sits at the center of the work, but so do open standards, open data, and a habit of publishing code under public license. The company summarizes its own posture in three words on its homepage: digital first, data driven, human centered.
It is, notably, a company without a building. CivicActions has been fully remote since the day it was founded, long before distributed work became common. That is not a footnote - it shaped how the firm hires, communicates, and operates.
Government websites carry a reputation: slow, confusing, and difficult to use for people with disabilities. Underneath is a harder problem - procurement rules, security compliance, and legacy systems that resist change. Most vendors sell software an agency can never open, run, or fully control.
CivicActions built its model around that reality rather than around a product. It leans on agile acquisition and "compliance as code," bakes Section 508 accessibility into every engagement, and delivers on open-source foundations so agencies aren't locked into a single vendor. When it acquired the accessibility specialist OpenConcept in 2020, the point wasn't headcount - it was pulling a Drupal core accessibility maintainer onto the team.
"We help government deliver trusted public services through open technology and design."
Contributions ship under public license. No proprietary lock-in for the agencies it serves.
Staff maintain Drupal core accessibility and helped build OpenACR, the GSA's machine-readable VPAT tool.
Financials, decisions, and plans are shared internally - a transparency the firm applies to itself.
Large-scale government websites, primarily on Drupal, designed and modernized end to end.
Migrating legacy systems to cloud-native, API-driven, agile-delivered platforms.
DevSecOps, continuous compliance, ATO support, and Section 508 accessibility.
User research, service design, and human-centered UX for public-facing services.
Open data platforms including DKAN, data strategy, and data-driven decision support.
Training and certification, including DITAP for agile digital acquisition professionals.
CivicActions works across all three levels of American government. Public case studies and its client wall name a long list of agencies:
Bars are illustrative and scaled for comparison, not precise measurements.
CivicActions is a business-to-government professional services firm. It contracts with agencies - largely through GSA Schedule and agile procurement vehicles - and bills for consulting, design, engineering, and managed delivery rather than software licenses. Its estimated annual revenue is around $20 million.
The firm's technical center of gravity is Drupal, extended by cloud-native development, DevSecOps, open data (DKAN), and accessibility. That expertise is not just billed - it's contributed back. More than 25 staff maintain over 70 Drupal modules, and the team helps maintain Drupal core accessibility itself.
CivicActions sits among the "non-traditional" government technology firms - companies pushing agile methods, human-centered design, and open source into a sector long dominated by large integrators. In 2019 it helped co-found the Digital Services Coalition, a non-profit alliance of 16 such firms. Peers and alternatives include Ad Hoc, Nava PBC, Skylight, Bixal, and Drupal-focused shops like Lullabot and Mediacurrent.
Its distinguishing bet is that openness itself is a competitive advantage - that publishing code, sharing knowledge, and investing in the commons makes government software more durable and more trustworthy over time.
Henry Poole and Aaron Pava launch the firm to bring open-source group-forming tech to NGOs.
Early roster includes Amnesty International, Center for Reproductive Rights, and American Public Media.
Co-founds AGL and publishes the Agile Government Handbook.
Aaron Pava is recruited to the U.S. Digital Service.
Helps form a coalition of 16 non-traditional govtech companies.
Deepens Section 508 and web accessibility expertise.
Two decades of open-source-driven modernization - still fully remote.
Those three values are the operating system of a company with no shared office. CivicActions describes its culture as open and authentic, with transparent communication and an environment where people can be themselves. It practices "radical openness" - sharing financial data, decision-making, and strategy internally - and encourages every employee to spend 5% of working time contributing back to the open-source communities its work depends on.
"Open by default - our contributions are under public license for the benefit of all."
Explore talks, case studies, and demos from the CivicActions team.
It is a digital services firm that helps U.S. government agencies modernize websites and platforms using open-source software, agile delivery, DevSecOps, and human-centered design.
Henry Poole and Aaron Pava founded it in 2004. Henry Poole serves as CEO and also sits on the board of the Free Software Foundation.
Federal, state, and local agencies including the Department of Veterans Affairs, the FCC, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Justice, and the State of Georgia.
Yes. CivicActions has been fully remote since it was founded in 2004 and has never had a physical office.
It is best known for Drupal, along with cloud-native development, DevSecOps, accessibility (Section 508/WCAG), open data platforms like DKAN, and agile procurement practices.
Profile compiled from public sources including Wikipedia, CivicActions.com, its open Guidebook, Crunchbase, and company publications. Figures marked estimated or approximate are not official. Last reviewed July 2026.