First, there was Black Friday. Then Cyber Monday. Now there is #GivingTuesday! It’s a day dedicated to inspiring individuals, families, communities and businesses to give back and to raise awareness about charitable activities. Since the first annual #GivingTuesday, held the Tuesday after Thanksgiving in 2012, it has since become a global movement with millions of people participating across thousands of nonprofit organizations worldwide.

With the holiday season truly underway, there is no better way to put the “giving” back in the giving season than by supporting nonprofits that you care about most.

Looking back at this year in Sunlight, we have a lot to be proud of in advancing our mission toward a more open and transparent government.

• We solidified our role as a capacity builder for the open data movement by launching a new community page to house our application programming interfaces (APIs) and projects. Our APIs served more than 562 million calls this year alone and pushed us beyond 1 billion total API calls in October.
• We built innovative civic tools to empower citizens, such as Open States, our comprehensive database of legislative information, and Docket Wrench, an influence-tracking tool that uncovers trends in the federal rulemaking process.
• We continued to fight dark money and influence in politics through our aggressive pursuit of Senate e-filing and deep-diving into the implications of the pending McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) case. We also identified and calculated the impact of the political 1% of the 1% – the elite class of donors that essentially serve as the gatekeepers of public office.

These are just a few of our accomplishments – and we have even more planned for 2014.

So, in the midst of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, don’t forget to give back! Donate $10, $25, $50 or more to Sunlight! Whether it’s a little or a lot, participating in #GivingTuesday will bring us closer to the open government we seek while raising awareness about philanthropic activity worldwide.

Once you’ve donated, your participation doesn’t have to stop there. Spread the message of #GivingTuesday by sharing your action with friends and family on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Together we can support the movement around good will and action for a great cause this holiday season. Participate in #GivingTuesday by making a donation to Sunlight today.

As always, thank you for your support!