About fifteen years ago, in November 2005, Ellen Miller and I created the Sunlight Foundation in an effort to demonstrate that the then emerging tools of computer technology could have a positive impact on citizen understanding and oversight of government and the political spheres, using the internet and API’s we would develop and employ to implement Louis Brandeis’ mantra “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants, electric light the best policeman.”  Over the years that followed, the staff and supporters of the Sunlight Foundation led the way in demonstrating those possibilities, facilitating many improvements in oversight, transparency and citizen participation. Best of all, that activity encouraged and facilitated a generation of others – so many that Sunlight’s leadership came to be overtaken by a flood of other effective innovators and advocates, many of which we are proud to have supported. We have now reached the point at which Sunlight’s board has determined that its role is no longer essential to its original central mission. All good things come to an end. And so it is with the Sunlight Foundation.

Over the past months, virtually all of the activities and staff of Sunlight have been transferred to other engaged institutions, or closed.  What remains, Sunlight’s name, IP and it’s records have been transferred to the Internet Archive and to the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard, one of the stellar organizations continuing to assess and address the more important societal implications of information technology .

With appreciation for all any of you have contributed to this and related efforts, we therefore say thank you, good bye and good luck.

Michael R. Klein

Chairman of the Board and Co-Founder

The Sunlight Foundation