Local policy. International perspective.

Your constituents deserve a city within reach.

One where they can easily participate in shaping their civic landscape, where they can connect with their neighbors, and where all of their daily needs are met within easy proximity to a home that they can afford in a neighborhood that they love.

You have the power to create policies that foster social cohesion, strengthen communities, and ensure everyone has a right to their city.

Through Within Reach US policymakers and advocacy organizations can connect with French municipalities, organizations, political movements, and leaders who are shaping this vision into reality.

Within Reach specializes in building meaningful relationships, facilitating long-term collaboration, and organizing immersive on-site visits to some of Europe’s most innovative and progressive cities.

With a decade of policy expertise and 6 years of experience in international policy collaboration, Within Reach is not just your liaison to your counterparts abroad, but also your on-the-ground policy lab.

Through collaboration, we can advance policy where you live that promotes social housing, cultivates social cohesion, advances non-driver mobility, and lays the foundation for 15-minute cities that truly work for everyone.

Let’s build this future, together.

Meet who's working with you.

Devin Silvernail
Strategic Policy Advisor

Over the past decade, Devin has successfully developed an extensive list of social and solidarity-based policy, working with community members, as well as partners abroad, to craft groundbreaking policies in the United States.

Devin served for four years as Policy Director and District Director for former Seattle City Councilmember Tammy J. Morales, where he piloted the conception of over 30 policies - ranging from tenant rights, to small business support, equitable mobility, homelessness services, and land use reform - through an extensive resident dialogue process and ongoing international collaboration. In this role, he also advised on a $7 billion City budget and led the process appointing the board to the nation's first municipal social housing developer.

He also served as Co-Chair of the City of Seattle Renters’ Commission, successfully winning two of the nation’s strongest tenant protections. Devin additionally founded the unhoused and tenant advocacy non-profit, Be:Seattle and he has launched a YouTube channel promoting urbanism through the lens of solidarity. Prior to that, he served on the San Francisco Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee. He also built and ran the Constituent Services team for former San Francisco Supervisor David Campos and consulted on seven municipal campaigns in San Francisco.

How we can work together.

Building genuine resident dialogue & action on policy.

Project length: 2-3 months

The most meaningful policy reflects the needs and wishes of the constituents who will benefit from it. Likewise, the policies that most genuinely reflect the needs of residents are developed with residents themselves.

Cities engage with residents to varying degrees, but very few meaningfully engage with them on an ongoing basis to develop policy. The ones that do, not only pass enviable policies, but they also develop strong bonds with their constituents through democratizing access to power.

Your constituents are experts in what they need. Together, we can build a genuine resident dialogue process that you can use to create policies that improve their lives.

Building international connections for long-term policy collaboration.

Project length: 4 months

All over the world, there are creative policymakers working with their communities to create policy that improves their everyday wellbeing.

International solidarity through policy collaboration can help you expand your toolbox and help you co-create with your community to build policies that meet their needs.

Within Reach can help you research policies that respond to your constituent requests, establish relationships with leaders in cities implementing those policies, and help you build a roadmap to implement innovative policies in your hometown, inspired by your international collaboration, but wholly tailored to your community.

Organizing on-the-ground research missions.

Project length: 6 months. Mission length: 1-2 weeks.

Today, small and medium-sized cities all across France are implementing some of the most quietly innovative policies in Europe to reform the 15-minute city concept into something that goes beyond proximity by integrating the ideas of solidarity and social cohesion into the philosophy.

It’s a simple notion that everyone deserves the same access to services, the same level of comfort, to have a city that works for them. So what are these cities doing differently and how are they doing it?

We’ll take you on-site to find out, and we’ll help you build a policy roadmap for you to adapt and implement back home.

Creating video content that tells the story of your movement.

Project length: Negotiable

Storytelling is a powerful method for building your movement and for engaging with your community. Oftentimes, we can get stuck in the weeds on policy creation without actually being able to talk directly about what a given policy or program can do to improve peoples’ lives.

We’ll work with you to make your policy, your research, or your movement accessible to your audience through narrative storytelling that speaks to how your work meets their needs.

This kind of video content works well for promoting the work that you’re doing through your resident dialogue process, related to international policy collaboration, or following your on-the-ground research mission.

Get in touch.

Let's talk about what your community needs and how we can work together to build policies that reflect the world they want to live in.