Following a government on Govinity is how you build a personalized dashboard around the places whose decisions affect you. Once you follow a government, it shows up on your My Account page for quick access, and if you pick it as your favorite, its upcoming meetings appear front and center every time you sign in.

You can follow as many governments as you like — your home city, the county you live in, your school district, a regional water authority — but only one can be your favorite at a time. The favorite is the one that gets pride of place on your dashboard's Upcoming Meetings panel.

You'll need a Citizen Account. If you haven't created one yet, How to Create a Citizen Account walks you through it in about two minutes.

You'll also need the web address of the government's Govinity portal. Most people get there from a direct link the government has shared — an email newsletter, a link from a meeting announcement, a button on the government's main website — but a quick web search for "[your city name] Govinity" usually works too.

When you arrive on a government's Govinity portal, you'll see its branded homepage: logo at the top, a menu running across the navigation with sections like Meetings, Topics, Boards, Commission, and Actions, and the government's recent activity highlighted on the page. Look for the Follow button — it sits near the top of the portal page and is marked with a small RSS icon.

Click Follow. You'll see a brief confirmation that reads "Government followed," and the button itself changes to Unfollow — that's how you can tell at a glance, on any visit later, that you're already a follower.

That single click is the entire act of following. There's nothing else to configure.

Open your My Account dashboard by clicking your initials or avatar in the top-right corner and choosing Account. The left side of the dashboard shows a panel called Followed Governments — every government you've followed, regardless of which one you happen to be looking at right now.

Each row gives you two quick actions: a star icon for marking that government as your favorite (more on that below), and an external-link icon that opens the government's portal in a new tab so you can jump straight into its agendas, meetings, or boards without leaving the dashboard.

If you follow more than one government, you can mark one of them as your favorite. Doing this matters because the favorite is the government whose upcoming meetings show up in the Upcoming Meetings panel on your dashboard — typically the next five scheduled events with meeting dates, times, bodies, and locations.

To set a favorite, click the outlined star icon next to the government you want as your default. You'll see a confirmation: "Government favorited." The star turns solid yellow, and that government becomes the one driving the Upcoming Meetings panel.

You can switch your favorite anytime by clicking the star next to a different government. Only one favorite at a time — that's what keeps the dashboard focused on a single jurisdiction.

Following a government is light-touch on purpose. Here's what shifts after you do it:

The government appears on your My Account dashboard for one-click access from any device you sign in on. If it's your favorite, the dashboard's Upcoming Meetings panel pulls the next five meetings for that government, formatted with calendar dates and times so you can scan and click into any one of them. If a government has email notifications set up, your subscription is governed separately under Account Settings → Email.

That's it. Following doesn't change what you can see in the public portal (everything there is already public), and it doesn't subscribe you to anything you didn't opt into elsewhere. Think of it as your personal bookmark with a side of "show me what's next."

If you want to stop following a government, go back to that government's portal page and click Unfollow (the button that used to say "Follow"). You'll see a confirmation that reads "Government unfollowed," and the government drops off your dashboard's Followed Governments list immediately.

If the one you just unfollowed happened to be your favorite, no other government inherits the favorite slot automatically — you can pick a new favorite from any government you still follow.

How do I find my government's portal in the first place? The most reliable way is a direct link from your government — their website, newsletter, or a meeting announcement. You can also search the web for "[your city name] Govinity" or check whether your local government's main website has a link to its Govinity Help Center.

Can I follow governments without an account? You can browse any government's public portal without an account — agendas, meetings, video, official actions, all of it is public. Following specifically builds your personalized dashboard, and that requires a Citizen Account.

Will I get email alerts for governments I follow? Not by default. Following primarily builds your dashboard. Email notifications, when a government offers them, are managed separately in your Account Settings → Email tab.

Can I have more than one favorite? Only one at a time. The single-favorite rule is what keeps the Upcoming Meetings panel focused on a single jurisdiction's calendar instead of becoming a firehose.

How to Browse Meetings — once you're following a government, you'll spend most of your time on its Meetings page.

If the Follow button doesn't seem to be working, or your followed governments aren't showing up on your dashboard, try signing out and back in — that often resolves a stale session. If the problem continues, reach out to Govinity support.