Making government & politics more accountable & transparent
Spotlight
A tactical data toolkit will help nonprofits in Madison, WI make the case for their work - Today we are incredibly proud to present the result of our Tactical Data Engagement project with the City of Madison, WI. The final product is a data toolkit designed to help nonprofit organizations working to reduce youth violence on Madison’s Northside find and use open data to better contextualize their work and goals in grant Read The Full Story
Our latest blog posts
- Cities should be smart about smart cities agreements May 24, 2018 03:28 PM
- Today in OpenGov: California clawbacks May 24, 2018 09:34 AM
- This Week in Conflicts: “Lobbying” gets more literal, a Qatari-backed bailout for Kushner, and what you might have missed in the president’s financial disclosure May 23, 2018 04:14 PM
- How could open data help Austin, Texas better serve people experiencing homelessness? May 23, 2018 01:15 PM
- Today in OpenGov: Impediments May 23, 2018 08:48 AM
Open government in real-time
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, 2017, Sunlight began maintaining an ongoing list of confirmed reports of conflicts of interest, where Trump business has clearly mixed with public business. [Read more]
Web Integrity Project
The Web Integrity Project’s mission is to monitor changes to government websites, holding our government accountable by revealing shifts in public information and access to Web resources, as well as changes in stated policies and priorities. [Read more]
Tracking the Trump Administration’s Record on Transparency
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.
Sunlight’s 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 and legislative action. Our tools were used to strip problematic measures from bills. Our advocacy has led to legislative and agency reforms, from a major victory 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 Act, the most significant open data law in United States history. Today, we are pushing for more reforms, defending transparency and ethics in government, helping open up cities with their communities, and holding government accountable.
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