Making government & politics more accountable & transparent
Spotlight
Think globally, act locally: How open data can be a force in city diplomacy - Globally, inter-city collaboration poses a huge opportunity to strengthen international relations, as municipal governments can work together and exchange best-practices across sectors, including building and implementing robust open government reforms.
Latest from the blog
- Today in OpenGov: City diplomacy Aug 22, 2017 12:03 PM
- Today in OpenGov: On Eclipse Day, sunshine in government matters more than ever Aug 21, 2017 11:29 AM
- Think globally, act locally: How open data can be a force in city diplomacy Aug 21, 2017 10:10 AM
- Making the case for human-centered design for open data Aug 18, 2017 09:30 AM
- On cities, open data, and storytelling: Meet Alex Dodds, our new Open Cities Storyteller Aug 17, 2017 02:20 PM
Our Projects
What Works Cities
Through the generous support of Bloomberg Philanthropies, Sunlight’s Open Cities team provides direct technical assistance to dozens of mid-sized American cities participating in the What Works Cities Initiative, helping improve public information disclosure and reuse.
Tracking Trump’s Conflicts of Interest
On November 28, Sunlight began maintaining an ongoing list of confirmed reports of conflicts of interest, where Trump business has clearly mixed with public business. [Read more]
Tracking U.S. Government Data Takedowns
Sunlight and our open government allies are tracking confirmed news reports of the Trump administration removing open government data from the Internet and links to where data has been archived. [Read more]
Tracking the Trump Administration’s Record on Transparency
In March, Sunlight joined C-SPAN to make sense of the Trump administration’s record on open government during Sunshine Week. We continue to add to a long list of examples that offer insight. [Read more]
Our MissionThe Sunlight Foundation is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that uses the tools of civic tech, open data, policy analysis and journalism to make our government and politics more accountable and transparent to all. Our vision is for modern technology to enable more complete, equitable and effective democratic participation. Our overarching goal is to achieve changes in the law to require real-time, online transparency for government information. And, our work focuses on the local, state, federal and international levels.
These efforts have produced real results. Over the past decade, we served more than 4.2 billion API calls, indicating how much the data we liberated has been needed. Our reporting and analysis is frequently cited by the world’s preeminent journalists. Our research has led to congressional hearings. Our tools were used to strip problematic measures from bills. Our advocacy has led to legislative and agency reforms, from a major victor when, at our urging, the federal government agreed to begin the process of releasing all data sets held by federal agencies, to the enactment and implementation of the DATA the most significant open data law in United States history. Today, we are pushing for more reforms, defending transparency, helping open up cities with their communities, and holding government accountable.
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