Theory of the Case
We develop cities from within — investing in the civic, economic, wellbeing, and climate infrastructure that communities engineer and own.
THE PROBLEM
Cities invest billions in civic, economic, and climate systems — but most of those investments fail to reach the communities that need them most. Not because communities lack engagement, but because the systems were never designed with them. The result: programs that expire, infrastructure that displaces, and civic systems that exclude the very people they're meant to serve.
WHAT IS MISSING
The connective infrastructure between community trust and institutional power. Cities have government. Communities have knowledge, culture, and lived experience. What's missing is the method to align them — and the investment to make that alignment durable.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
The people closest to a problem are best positioned to design the solution. When community knowledge is embedded into civic, economic, and climate systems — not consulted and discarded — cities become more resilient, more equitable, and more effective. Culture is not a soft variable. It is the infrastructure that makes everything else work.
OUR THEORY
If you align local government as the institutional anchor, trusted community organizations as the delivery layer, and Community Engineering™ as the method — you can build civic, economic, wellbeing, and climate infrastructure that communities design, own, and sustain. That infrastructure compounds over time. Cities become more inclusive not as a policy goal but as a structural reality.
OUR ROLE
IncludUs sits between local government and community — trusted by both, accountable to the people it serves. Through IncludUs Labs we provide technical assistance and deploy Community Engineering™. Through IncludUs Fund we operate and fiscally sponsor community-led initiatives. Through IncludUs Institute we train the next generation of community engineers. Together, these functions build what neither government nor community can build alone.
Our Approach - Communication Engineering
COMMUNITY ENGINEERING™ — Our proprietary framework aligns four interconnected layers:
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People + Culture — who belongs, who participates, who feels represented
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Governance Design — how decisions are made, ownership is shared, accountability is structured
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Infrastructure Systems — technology, physical assets, service delivery, access and barriers
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Outcome Learning — feedback loops, continuous improvement, measuring what matters
We apply this framework through a 12-month place-based model: 3 months of diagnostic followed by 9 months of full implementation — in deep partnership with local government and community organizations.
Our goal: 40 city developments in 10 years.
WE MEASURE WHAT WE BUILD
Every city engagement produces a Community Wealth Report — a proprietary economic analysis that documents the output generated by communities of color, the gap between what they produce and what they own, and the measurable return on investment. This is not a program report. It is an economic measurement tool built by IncludUs Labs' in-house research team.
The U.S. Inclusion Index — launching 2026 — will give cities and funders a national baseline for tracking belonging, equity, and inclusion across institutions and sectors.
IncludUs doesn't just deploy a method. We measure the gap, document the investment, and prove the return.