NAVIGATING GOVERNMENT. ADVANCING IMPACT.

Compete more effectively in the state and local market.
Learn how to get started and approach opportunities
in a way that drives results.

Led by Kelly Sekulich

Civic Acumen helps individuals and organizations understand how to navigate in the state and local market to get results sooner.

What Changes?

You know how to navigate state and local government
You spot opportunities early
You analyze incumbents, contracts and pricing
You engage stakeholders strategically
You pursue the right opportunities — and decline the wrong ones

How You Can Engage

NAVIGATING GOVERNMENT. ADVANCING IMPACT.

How Civic Acumen Helps

We offer three complementary ways to help you better navigate state and local government. Each is designed to support you at different points in the journey, whether you need perspective, practical guidance or targeted learning.

Advisory Group

Live advisory calls focused on common pursuit challenges and strategic decisions raised by members

Intelligence Tools

Practical tools that help you collect, organize and review the information you need to evaluate opportunities and prioritize your resources

Online Courses

Modular, on-demand learning so you can access the material you need at each stage of your work, with additional content added over time

Together, these elements help you operate more intentionally so you make better decisions, prepare earlier and compete more effectively in the state and local market.

Less guesswork. More confident execution. Built to win in the state and local market.

Where We Focus

We focus on the areas that most often slow people down or create uncertainty:

Procurement and contracting basics
Registration and compliance requirements
Finding and understanding opportunities
Timing, readiness and expectations
Relationship-building and proper engagement

When you understand how governments function, you're better positioned to:

Engage at the right time and in the right way
Avoid common missteps that slow progress
Prepare more effectively for opportunities
Achieve stronger results and build sustainable public sector work

Who Civic Acumen Is For

Civic Acumen is for professionals who want to win work with state and local government and grow their public sector footprint, including:

Consultants and advisors
Small business owners
Organizational leaders

If you’re looking to win contracts, grow revenue and expand your public sector work, with clear, practical guidance, you’re in the right place.

How You Can Engage

You can engage with Civic Acumen in different ways, depending on what you need:

Learn through clear explanations and foundational guidance
Use practical tools and resources to support real decisions
Engage more deeply through advisory participation and discussion

Each option is designed to support confident engagement and better outcomes.

Making Government Make Sense

After nearly 40 years advising state and local government leaders, Kelly Sekulich saw a consistent pattern: capable, mission-driven professionals were often held back not by lack of expertise, but by lack of clarity about how governments function.

Civic Acumen was created to close that gap.

Through practical frameworks, plain-language explanations and applied tools, Civic Acumen helps individuals and organizations move from confusion to confidence and from readiness to real, sustained impact in the public sector.

Kelly in Gold dress w shoulders_edited.jpg

Kelly Sekulich

Founder and Managing Director, Civic Acumen

About the Founder

Kelly Sekulich

Founder and Managing Director, Civic Acumen

Kelly Sekulich brings more than four decades of experience working exclusively with state and local government. She has operated across every side of the public sector landscape - all in pursuit of opportunities: as a consultant, founder of a women-owned business, Capture Director, software vendor executive and Senior Advisor at McKinsey & Company.

This rare combination gives her deep, practical insight into how government decisions are actually made, how procurement really works and why many capable firms struggle to move forward. Kelly understands the realities that matter most: the importance of early relationship-building with decision makers, the need to support early clarity and alignment on requirements well before an RFP is released and how to respond to procurements in ways that maximize scoring and credibility.

Through Civic Acumen, she helps organizations see the whole picture, avoid costly missteps and move more quickly and confidently through the public sector landscape.