Is your community truly
Business Friendly?
The Business Friendly Index (BFI) gives towns, cities, counties, and states a data-driven measure of their business climate — and a proven way to build an ongoing conversation with the businesses that power your local economy.
Or select your state on the map ↓
"We are by definition business friendly."
Most local officials sincerely believe this. Real BFI survey data consistently tells a different story — businesses rate their local governments far lower than officials expect. Communities have scored 46/100 from businesses while leadership maintained they were welcoming.
See a real BFI report →Silent evaluation, silent rejection
Businesses check your permit process, ask around, look at how existing businesses are treated. If the signals aren't right, they move on — without a meeting, without a word. You never find out.
The cost compounds over time
When employers quietly choose the next town over, it signals to others that yours is difficult. Vacancies multiply, jobs decline, tax revenues fall. It becomes harder to reverse the longer it goes unaddressed.
One survey changes everything
The BFI gives your entire business community a structured, scored, unified voice — one elected officials can act on rather than attribute to a single disgruntled business.
From Purchase to Action Plan
Five steps. Fully guided. No consultants required.
Purchase
A community leader, chamber, or EDO purchases a survey engagement.
Import Respondents
Upload a CSV of business owners and members, or share a public opt-in link.
Invite & Engage
Automated invitations and reminders go out. Every invite signals that government is listening.
Collect Ratings
Respondents rate 30 statements on Importance and Performance — Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA).
Get the Report
Your BFI score, quadrant chart, scorecards, and action plan generate automatically.
The Survey Is the Conversation
Most communities only hear from businesses when something goes wrong. The BFI changes that.
When businesses have rated you on 30 specific dimensions, leadership is accountable to act. The BFI report makes the data impossible to dismiss — and the Action Plan gives them an immediate roadmap.
Demands a response — with a roadmap to deliver it.
Your report goes far beyond a score.
It tells you exactly what to fix — and in what order. Everything your leadership needs to present, act on, and improve year over year.
View Sample Report →The Four-Quadrant Framework
Every survey item is classified into one of four strategic quadrants based on Importance and Performance scores.
Who Uses Business Friendly
Township & City Officials
Understand exactly how your business community perceives your government — and demonstrate that you're listening. Get a data-driven case for change you can return to every year.
Chambers of Commerce
Arm your members with objective data and facilitate a real conversation between business and local government. Present the BFI report to elected officials — and come back next year to show what changed.
Economic Development Organizations
Attract investment by demonstrating an ongoing commitment to improvement — not just a one-time study. Show prospects a community that actively listens to its business community.
County & State Leaders
Survey across multiple communities and compare results. Identify where policy changes would have the greatest economic impact at scale.
Business Friendly Certification
Every completed survey earns a certification tier based on your BFI score — valid for one year and displayed on your public community profile.
Exceptional business climate. Your community is a model for others — promote it, protect it, and build on it.
Strong foundation with clear opportunity. Your BFI report shows exactly where to focus to reach Gold.
You've taken the first step. Your Action Plan identifies the highest-impact changes to move the needle fast.
Significant work ahead — but now you know exactly where to start. The data is your roadmap.
Certification is valid for one year. Annual subscribers maintain certification automatically with each resurvey.
Standard Pricing
All plans include BFI survey, scoring, and certification. Annual subscriptions maintain your certification and unlock year-over-year tracking.
- Full 30-question BFI survey
- Email invitations + 3 reminders
- BFI Score + IPA Chart
- Category scorecards
- BFI Certification + public profile
- Everything in Benchmark
- Action Plan with task assignments
- Prioritized improvement roadmap
- Improve your rating by completing your Action Plan for the rest of the year
- Collaboration tools for your team
- Everything in Improve
- Improve your rating by completing your Action Plan for the rest of the year
- Board Review included (one-time bonus)
- Board member report cards
- Meeting minutes analysis
- Unlocks after Survey Report is complete. On annual plans, your Survey renews every year at this rate — the included Board Review is a one-time bonus, not repeated each renewal. Add future or updated reviews anytime from your dashboard.
Annual subscriptions renew each year to maintain active certification and continue surveying. View a sample report →
Years of minutes. No index. No shortcuts.
A real record of how a Board or Planning Commission has actually governed isn't a tidy dataset — it's hundreds of scanned agendas and minutes, scattered across a dozen different portals, with no search index and no summary anyone can trust. Reading all of it by hand, consistently, without skimming or fatigue by page forty, was never realistic for a hired researcher on a deadline — which is exactly why so much of this evidence simply goes unread, and why community/business feedback ends up resting on impressions instead of the record.
Our AI analysis engine is not a feature bolted onto a survey product — it's the core of what we do. It's what makes it possible to actually read the whole stack, every time, and turn it into a scored, sourced evaluation instead of a guess.
See how a review is actually built →Every page, every meeting
No sampling, no "representative" selection, no getting tired thirty pages in. The full record gets read, every time — that's the difference between an AI analysis engine and a hired reader with a deadline.
Only what's documented
Scores are built strictly from votes, motions, and statements that are actually in the public record — never speculation, inference, or hearsay. Every source document is listed alongside the report, so any finding can be checked against the original page.
A true picture, not a verdict
The goal was never to build a case for or against anyone — it's an accurate mirror, good news included. That's what makes it something business and government can actually sit down with and talk about, instead of argue over.
Next: Holding the Governing Body Accountable
Your Survey Report tells you what businesses think. These planned reports are designed to tell you why — sourced directly from the public record, not opinion.
Coming Soon — These products are under development and legal, methodological, and quality review. They are not currently available for purchase and are not included in the Business Friendly Index Survey. Features, scope, pricing, and release timing may change.
- AI-scored review of board conduct from public meeting minutes — votes, motions, statements
- Same Business Friendly IPA framework as your Survey
- Full source list — every document, always visible
- Planning Commission conduct in its own section
- The Board appoints and directs the Commission — accountability follows
- Same public-record methodology, same transparency
- Every business that considered your community — named, dated, sourced
- Grouped: decided not to come, in progress, approved, coming
- Contact info included whenever the public record states it
Available now: the Business Friendly Index Survey, its scoring, and your Action Plan. Start with your Survey Report →
Start the conversation with your business community.
The survey opens the door. The annual cycle keeps it open. Have your BFI report in as little as 30 days.
Claim a Founding Spot