About
Built for Cities. Powered by Data.
Focal Dataworks builds strategic planning software and delivers planning services purpose-built for local government.
Our story
Why we exist.
Focal Dataworks exists because cities deserve better tools. The data that describes every American community is public — but it arrives scattered, unlabeled, and hard to use in the room where decisions get made. The plans that guide those communities too often go quiet between adoptions.
We combine public policy, data science, and software engineering to close that gap: a platform that keeps a strategic plan connected to current, sourced data — and a services practice, delivered by the people who built the platform, for communities that want help doing the work.
Strategic planning is supposed to be what makes an administration more effective; too often, the weight of reporting is what buries it. Making it finally work the way everyone always wanted is why Focal exists. We are early, and we act like it: our price is on the page, our sources are on every figure, and when we don’t know something, we say so.
Mission
We give local governments the tools to substantially improve the lives of the people living in their communities.
Values
Our values.
Innovative
We explore new technologies and approaches to solve the unique challenges facing local governments, always looking for better ways to turn data into action.
Approachable
We design tools that are intuitive and accessible, so every team member can use them regardless of technical background or experience level.
Responsive
We listen to the communities we serve and adapt quickly to their evolving needs, building solutions that reflect real-world priorities.
Public value
We prioritize outcomes that deliver real, measurable benefits to the public good, keeping the well-being of residents at the center of everything we build.
Impact
We measure our success by the positive change our tools help create in communities, not just by the features we ship.
Integrity
We uphold the highest standards of honesty, ethics, and transparency in everything we do, building trust with the governments and communities we serve.
How we work
The rules we hold ourselves to.
Everything we publish — on this site, in the product, in a handout — follows the same standards.
Every figure carries its source, vintage, and geography.
Uncertainty is shown, never discovered.
Modeled estimates are labeled as modeled.
We describe communities; we don't grade them.
Founders
The people doing the work.
Focal Dataworks has two founding partners — that is the whole company.
Noah Faldet
Founding Partner · City Success & Leadership
Noah Faldet leads city success and leadership at Focal Dataworks, owning how cities are onboarded, supported, and renewed. He served as assistant to the city manager in West St. Paul and coordinated the creation of Bloomington’s community-led strategic plan, reporting to city council, so cities work with someone who has sat in their chair.
Nathan Maloney
Founding Partner · Data & Technology
Nathan Maloney leads data and technology at Focal Dataworks, owning the pipelines behind every figure the platform shows, the platform architecture, and its security. He built web applications at Sparq for nearly five years and was a senior systems analyst at National Dentex before that, so a city's IT review gets straight answers about where data lives and who can reach it.
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