Fixing what slows
your city down
We fund projects that fix the small, stubborn problems in American towns.
NCPSI is a national nonprofit, founded in 2026 and building in the open.
Mission
NCPSI funds projects, led by young people, that fix real problems in local communities. We back the fixes that work around red tape instead of waiting on it.
What we do
Every town has problems that have sat unsolved for too long. NCPSI funds the projects that fix them: new programs, tools, services, and businesses that deliver results people can see. Each project is led by young people from every field, who bring the speed and fresh eyes institutions often can't.
The Idea
We bring young people into the work of American civic life, and back their efforts to make this country ever better.
Most of what slows a city down isn’t a big policy fight. It’s the form nobody understands, the approval that takes three months instead of three days, the rule that made sense decades ago and never got updated. Residents and small businesses run into these problems every day. City staff usually know about them too. What’s missing is the time and the people to fix them.
That’s what our projects do. Each one starts by listening to the people stuck in the process, on both sides of the counter. Then it digs into the data to find where things actually break down, and builds something that fixes it: a tool, a program, a simpler process. The result is a city that runs faster, and a fix any other city can pick up and use.
Initiative 1: Sign permits in Boulder
A sign permit shouldn't take six weeks.
Boulder's sign code sets a 5-working-day window for a first decision. When an application needs corrections, the window starts over, and the rounds add up. Since January 2024, 72% of sign permits have taken more than four weeks to issue. Only 5 of 309 came through within a week.
The fixes are small: a missing dimension, a light spec without the color temperature, a wind figure copied from another city. Our Boulder team is building free tools that flag what would be sent back before an application is filed, and cite the sign code for every finding.
Time to get a sign permit issued
- 5 of 309
- Issued within a week
- 72%
- Took more than four weeks
- 44
- Median days to issue
Every city has a problem everyone has learned to live with. We fund the people who refuse to.