Our Grantees
We are now offering one-time grants in the range of $5,000 to $10,000 to help you fulfill your vision of making government more transparent and accountable. Discover how an OpenGov Grant will take your project to its next stage of development.
| Recipient | Amount | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Councilmatic 2.0 |
$17,000.00 |
To rebuild a new version of Councilmatic, open-source software for searching municipal legislation, plus some new plugins to extend the software. |
|
596 Acres |
$10,000.00 |
To improve a online vacant public land organizing map, to provide a path to land use. |
|
Ashtracker.org |
$10,000.00 |
To create data input and processing tools to better integrate data (for use by the public) related to groundwater contamination from coal power plant waste. |
|
Ballot Path |
$10,000.00 |
To prepare a website showing all Oregon elected officials, and the steps to run for those offices. |
|
Centros de los Derechos del Migrante |
$10,000.00 |
To make government information (including that acquired though Freedom of Information Act requests) about labor recruitment and visa programs available to migrant laborers, who might otherwise be subject to fraud and abuse. |
|
Committee for a Better New Orleans |
$10,000.00 |
To create a website that provides a short- and long-term picture of the New Orleans city budget, with an education plan for its use. Community stakeholders will be able to navigate where money and resources are going inside their schools. |
|
Datasembly |
$10,000.00 |
To use mapping to tell stories around human settlement by showing historical changes in counties and municipalities, using California as a pilot, and to test the quality of the data itself. |
|
Detroit Ledger |
$10,000.00 |
To build a picture of grant funding in Detroit, focusing on non-profits and civic projects that receive money from governments and foundations through data, APIs, documentation and related visualizations. |
|
|
$10,000.00 |
To collect and digitize local municipal financial information and provide an easy-to-use analytical platform for the non-financially technical user, using New Jersey as a test. |
|
MapStory Foundation |
$10,000.00 |
To make a platform for aggregating and indexing the content of the world’s open data (including campaign finance data) to make it more discoverable and accessible. |
|
mRelief |
$10,000.00 |
To build added capacity for a web tool that makes public services information and other data more useful to Chicagoans. |
|
Open WNC |
$10,000.00 |
To improve public data access in under-served communities in Appalachian western North Carolina, by developing institutional partnerships, creating government data repository and training journalists and engaged members of the public. |
|
OpenElections Local |
$10,000.00 |
To build a pipeline for gathering, analyzing and publishing election data, plus the creation of an API and user documentation. |
|
Platform for Scalable Participatory Democracy |
$10,000.00 |
To improve software infrastructure and integration for two open-source platforms for democratic organizing and citizen deliberation in local communities. |
|
|
$10,000.00 |
To improve the search and usability of the collected documents of Public Record Media, Minnesota-based non-partisan transparency organization, and train Minnesotans on using Freedom of Information laws to uncover data and use their tools. |
|
|
$10,000.00 |
To support the Vault, the open data initiative of the Lens, who will upgrade their existing New Orleans database of 5,300 municipal contracts, linking them to campaign finance and state corporations data. |
|
Vermont Journalism Trust |
$10,000.00 |
To create a searchable campaign finance database for Vermont, with interactive graphics and API integration. |
|
Municipal Threshold Exemption Database |
$9,217.00 |
To support a research and database-building project, to analyze the procurement threshold exemptions in fifty San Francisco Bay municipalities. |
|
Allied Media Projects |
$8,000.00 |
To create a data aggregator and FOIA generator to help teachers, families and community stakeholders navigate where money and resources are going inside Detroit charter schools. |
|
OpenDisclosure Alabama |
$7,000.00 |
For a public demonstration publishing the available campaign finance data sets in the state of Alabama, and identify gaps for further analysis. |
|
Code for America |
$5,000.00 |
To support holding CodeAcross hackathons in about 40 cities. |
|
Legislative Committee Maps Project |
$5,000.00 |
To introduce, through mapping, constituents to congressional committees that cover their concerns. Constituents can see who make up these committees and funds their campaigns. |
|
Campaign Finance Interactive Visualization |
$2,500.00 |
To create an interactive, online visualization so person can more easily ask and answer their own questions about campaign donations. |
|
FAA Beneficial Owner Database project |
$2,033.00 |
To create a database of beneficial owners of the U.S.-flag aircraft using FAA data and publicly available sources. |
| Recipient | Amount | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
|
$10,000.00 |
The project will create custom data analysis related to Puerto Rico and municipal government, budgetary, legislative, and procedural activities. Learn more by reading their OpenGov Voices guest blog, |
|
|
$10,000.00 |
For a site that “human[izes] civic data” for average citizens, using open data APIs to answer civic questions. |
|
Justice Map |
$10,000.00 |
To create high-resolution, open-data map tile layers for race and income data from the 2010 Census and American Community Survey (ACS) for use in Open Street Map, Google Maps, and other online maps. |
|
OpportunitySpace |
$10,000.00 |
To consolidate and standardize data about government-owned land and buildings in three communities in Rhode Island. |
|
RentSpecs |
$10,000.00 |
For a website that combines New York City housing violations, complaints, litigations and emergency repair charges data into a simple letter grade, to understand the quality of service each landlord and rental property provides its tenants. |
|
|
$8,750.00 |
To create an open, transparent, well-documented API, and a publicly accessible data dashboard for all Neighbor.ly projects. |
|
|
$8,000.00 |
To gather financial disclosures for California local governments (typically in PDF form), extract a subset of data from these documents and publish both the location of the documents and standardized data on a free, non-commercial web site. Learn more by reading their OpenGov Voices guest blog. |
|
|
$7,500.00 |
For “like Yelp and Mint.com for cities and towns” which will passively collect data from thousands of municipalities, making it easier to publish useful information online without the towns and cities changing their existing behaviors. |
|
|
$5,000.00 |
For digitizing and hosting about 5 million IRS Form 990s filed by nonprofit organizations, making them searchable, partially extracting structured data from the digitized text, and making bulk data freely available to others for advanced analysis. |
| Recipient | Amount | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Electronic Privacy Information Center |
$50,000.00 |
For the Open Government Project, one of the leading Freedom of Information Act programs in the United States. |
|
Honest Appalachia |
$25,000.00 |
To support technological improvements for open-source whistleblower web software. |
|
Independent Arts and Media |
$15,000.00 |
To support the work of the “Politify” project |
|
|
$10,000.00 |
To improve tech capacity |
|
Oyez Project at Chicago-Kent |
$7,500.00 |
For technological developments related to identification of persons on recorded transcripts. |
|
Internet Archive |
$5,000.00 |
To support the preparation of online instructions and other guidance assisting users of the Internet Archive’s new TV news research service. |
|
|
$5,000.00 Mini-grant |
For development support to the citizen engagement MyMaryland project of the nonprofit MyAmerica, Inc. |
|
Public Justice Foundation of Texas |
$1,200.00 Mini-grant |
For hardware for analyzing and sharing with the media and public the role of campaign money and lobbying expenditures . |
| Recipient | Amount | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
|
$125,000.00 |
To investigate lobbyist expenditures in the states. |
|
Media Standards Trust |
$25,000.00 |
To support an open-source release of the Churnalism project |
|
LittleSis.org |
$20,000.00 |
|
|
New Orleans Coalition on Open Governance |
$10,000.00 |
To live stream and archive meetings of various city working groups. |
|
|
$5,000.00 Mini-grant |
To jumpstart a secure whistleblower website that will allow governmental and corporate employees along with other would-be whistleblowers in the Appalachian region to safely leak information to the public. |
| Recipient | Amount | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
|
$263,970.00 |
To continue support for the OpenCongress project. |
|
|
$75,000.00 |
|
|
|
$70,000.00 |
For its “Will the Agencies Be Open?” project. |
|
Harvard Kennedy School's Science, Technology and Public Policy Program |
$25,000.00 |
To support its Technology and Governance 2.0 Conference. |
|
|
$25,000.00 |
To support their Federal Priorities Data 2.0 Project. |
|
Public Accountability Initiative |
$25,000.00 |
For continuing support of the LittleSis project. |
|
Wesleyan Media Project |
$25,000.00 |
To develop a public database that tracks all advertising by source in the 2010 U.S. Senate and House campaigns. |
|
|
$15,000.00 |
To create a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) search tool for their site. |
|
|
$5,000.00 Mini-grant |
To support its namesake community-powered freedom of information request tool that files, tracks, publishes and helps analyze government documents and data. |
|
DemocracyWorks |
$3,700.00 Mini-grant |
To support the TurboVote project, which will help people keep track of every voting related date or deadline. |
|
|
$3,000.00 Mini-grant |
To develop a data scraper/extractor for City of New Orleans ordinances and its Home Rule Charter, and for technology upgrades for improved user experience. |
| Recipient | Amount | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
|
$1,200,000.00 |
To continue to maintain money-in-politics resources, and convert files to open data that would allow for free access to downloadable archives. It will also create and release new APIs and widgets. |
|
|
$1,000,000.00 |
To move their data on state-level campaign finance to an open source data commons. NIMSP will also participate in Sunlight Data Commons which will include complete access to previous and current data collected on state-level political donors to candidates, political parties and ballot measure committees. |
|
|
$150,000.00 |
To support FedSpending.org, a project that encourages the government to improve the quality, accuracy and consistency of federal spending data that is disclosed. It will also advocate for the use of open source software in disclosing federal spending data. |
|
|
$125,000.00 |
To support their transportation earmarks research project. |
|
Public Accountability Initiative |
$89,800.00 |
For LittleSis, to support further development as well as the creation of a LittleSis API that will allow third parties to access raw data on demand. |
|
|
$63,733.00 |
For continued support of its OpenCRS project. |
|
|
$50,000.00 |
For the Federal Register 2.0 project, which will purchase and repurpose raw data underlying the Code of Federal Regulation. |
|
|
$50,000.00 |
For the Subsidyscope project, an initiative that will research and investigate the federal government’s transportation subsidies. |
|
|
$32,000.00 |
For continued support of their transparency reporting. |
|
|
$10,000.00 |
To get volunteer or stipended developers together with cities to tackle software, leading to greater municipal accessibility and transparency. |
|
|
$5,000.00 Mini-grant |
A non-partisan group of concerned citizens that are pushing for members of Congress to join Twitter to create a more open communication between members of Congress and the public. |
|
University of California Berkeley – School of Information |
$5,000.00 Mini-grant |
To develop specific technical specifications for information services that will enable independent and effective public oversight of Recovery Act money and to rate the effectiveness of Revovery.gov web services actually provided. |
|
|
$5,000.00 Mini-grant |
To support the development of a tool for a distributed project to capture 2010 earmark requests by lawmakers in to a single database. |
|
|
$3,000.00 Mini-grant |
For the Race Tracker wiki project, a non-partisan reporting project on the new OpenCongress wiki to track who is running in each congressional district in the 2010 elections. It will also feature district-speci?c data on the past three presidential elections. |
| Recipient | Amount | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
|
$180,000.00 |
To enable MAPLight.org to redesign its Web site to make it more user friendly, promote strategically more key money/votes stats about significant votes; develop video training and online tutorials; launch widgets of money/vote correlations; develop new “tabs” on its Web site to demonstrate “money near votes” and committee “exposure” highlights; add a sophisticated user comment system and continue its ongoing research on each bill. |
|
|
$164,000.00 |
Metavid to continue to build and improve the infrastructure, with an increased emphasis on developing a community of more collaborators and users to the site. |
|
|
$134,177.00 |
To continue investment in the joint Sunlight Foundation/Center for Media and Democracy wiki on Congress – Congresspedia. |
|
|
$80,000.00 |
For its EDGAR 10-K data mashup/visualization project. The EDGAR database records U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings; this project will create an open database of relationships, with name standardization, of corporations, their subsidiaries and board members. |
|
Public Accountability Initiative |
$72,600.00 |
For the further development of a prototype of online database of information on powerful American individuals and organizations called Little Sis. Visitors can browse and search linked profile pages for current and former members of Congress, other government officials, Fortune 1000 companies and their leadership, top lobbying forms and lobbyists, etc. The profile pages integrate a wide range of public information and could certainly include information from the relevant databases that Sunlight currently funds. |
|
|
$72,000.00 |
To create a site which brings government data — like census data, lobbying disclosures, voting records and campaign disclosures — into a single place. It is distinguished by open-sourcing its software, its data and all the products of this data. |
|
|
$70,397.00 |
To support a project that define a proactive agenda that will modernize and increase public disclosure of government information and the organization’s FedSpending.org Web site. This project combines data from the Federal Procurement Data System and the Federal Assistance Award Data System to create a free, searchable database of federal government contracting and spending. |
|
|
$41,188.00 |
To support its OpenCRS project which harnesses the power of the Internet to promote the distribution of Congressional Research Service reports to the public. |
|
|
$38,000.00 |
For an initiative to investigate the rollback of government transparency and expansion of secrecy, through a special issue of the magazine (January 2009), interactive online content, a public event and an agenda outlining specific steps. |
|
|
$28,000.00 |
For their “Most Wanted” federal information project. It will build a site (with Sunlight) where users can contribute to a list of government data and documents that should be released online. The site both compiles information about often obscure but valuable government records and, using a Digg-like format, lets others vote on the information they would most like to see. |
|
|
$25,000.00 |
A youth-oriented organization, to support grants for young entrepreneurs who will develop ways to use Sunlight-funded databases and new technology to advance a “clean elections” agenda. |
|
|
$19,000.00 |
For work, in collaboration with the Center for Responsive Politics, to create standardized identifiers and a Web site with this information, which will make the data publicly available. |
|
|
$10,000.00 |
To support Open Government Working Group meetings, to discuss and promote open government techniques and activites using the Internet. |
|
|
$10,000.00 |
To support the Preventive Journalism Prize, for journalism that investigates problems before they become crises, new and effective solutions to problems and government responses to these situations. |
|
|
$5,000.00 Mini-grant |
Which provides free address look-up information based on the U.S. Census, so that users can enter any address or intersection and learn the longitude and latitude coordinates for that location. The mini-grant supports the creation of an API to show congressional district boundaries for all U.S. addresses and the improvement of the site’s open source address recognition system. Ultimately, this funding will support the site’s ability to ascertain a congressional district from an address without the need to manually look up a zip+4 code on the U.S. Postal Service Web site. |
|
|
$5,000.00 Mini-grant |
To support the creation of a legislator email management and constituent relations communications system to increase transparency between legislators and their constituents by organizing a more effective form of communication between the two groups. This Web mail service pairs with KAP’s existing legislation-tracking service, giving legislators and their staff the tools necessary to efficiently manage incoming constituent emails and systematize corresponding responses with personalized or automated letters. Sunlight’s mini-grant will support a pilot email management system for one to two congressional offices and the entire Washington State Legislature. |
|
|
$5,000.00 Mini-grant |
Aggregates over 100 political news blogs in the Pacific Northwest and organizes several hundred postings by topic, specifically highlighting coverage by local bloggers of legislative issues and their representatives in Congress. This grant provides funding for Web hosting services for this news aggregator site and its accompanying widgets. |
|
|
$5,000.00 Mini-grant |
To support the creation and maintenance of a Web site that will archive video of key political speeches-including debates, State of the Union addresses, convention speeches congressional testimony and campaign advertisements-and facilitate online public critical analysis. Using Speechology.org, citizens will watch, evaluate and comment on the truthfulness of the speeches. |
|
|
$3,900.00 Mini-grant |
For their work to support a one-time fee for access to the Texas Supreme Court case management database, to allow exploration of the connection between Texas judicial campaign contributors and the rulings of Texas state courts. |
|
|
$3,000.00 Mini-grant |
To support the purchase of the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations for redistribution as a public good, thus upholding the value of making government information available by lowering barriers. |
|
|
$2,500.00 Mini-grant |
The Richmond Sunlight Web site monitors the activity of the Virginia legislature. Sunlight’s mini-grant supports the purchase of an entire session of the Virginia Legislature’s closed circuit video broadcast. The video will be then converted to QuickTime, posted on YouTube on a daily basis and integrated into the Richmond Sunlight Web site. |
|
|
$2,400.00 Mini-grant |
A volunteer, non-profit citizen newspaper for its “i on NH Congress” section, for non-partisan coverage of the New Hampshire congressional delegation. |
|
Utah News Aggregator |
$2,000.00 Mini-grant |
To support the creation of a Web news hub service and email newsletter subscription service for bloggers, political activists, legislators, candidates and concerned citizens of Utah. This forthcoming Web site will provide citizens with a full picture of daily politics in Utah, specifically focusing on local blog and mainstream media coverage of political news; congressional news updates, press releases and votes; a calendar of events including legislative meetings and messaging from all viable political parties and candidates. |
|
|
$1,600.00 Mini-grant |
To create a new, dynamic bill-viewing system for GovTrack.us. |
| Recipient | Amount | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
|
$522,838.00 |
To create databases on lobbyists, 527s, personal financial disclosures and travel, and to expand its campaign finance databases. |
|
|
$222,000.00 |
To enable the organization to develop a comprehensive plan to integrate and advance the use of the Internet and related technologies into their overall work. |
|
|
$200,000.00 |
To provide core funding to support the organization’s federal search engine that interactively exposes the links between dollars donated by interested parties and congressional votes. |
|
|
$157,000.00 |
To create an open, online platform that contains a video archive of public domain U.S. House and Senate proceedings built completely on open source tools. |
|
|
$140,000.00 |
To continue investment in the joint Sunlight Foundation/Center for Media and Democracy wiki on Congress – Congresspedia. |
|
|
$100,000.00 |
To fund an interactive widget that will allow citizens, via public radio stations’ Web sites throughout the country, to ask lawmakers specific questions and get responses. |
|
|
$100,000.00 |
To support an effort to establish a national branch of its New Journalist Program in Washington, DC for training of political news bloggers who will cover Congress, federal agencies, the presidency, Supreme Court and the influence of lobbying, the national press corps and campaign finance. |
|
|
$75,189.00 |
Grants to OMB Watch support a project to define a proactive agenda to modernize and increase public disclosure of government information and the organization’s FedSpending.org Web site. This project combines data from the Federal Procurement Data System and the Federal Assistance Award Data System to create a free, searchable database of federal government contracting and spending. |
|
|
$55,000.00 |
To support its (OpenCRS) project which harnesses the power of the Internet to promote the distribution of Congressional Research Service reports to the public. |
|
The Focus Project's Fueling Democracy |
$50,000.00 |
For the 21st Century RTK Project. |
|
|
$10,000.00 Mini-grant |
To support its work to harness social wisdom to aggregate and highlight quality online journalism about elected representatives, with a focus on accountability, corruption and transparency in Congress. |
|
|
$10,000.00 Mini-grant |
In support of the development of a series of conferences on open government. |
|
|
$5,000.00 Mini-grant |
To create a volunteer moderated Web site system that aggregates news articles, blog coverage and links to Congresspedia articles for every member of Congress. |
|
|
$5,000.00 Mini-grant |
To support its outreach and efforts to determine the average cost, or savings, per individual of each bill introduced in Congress by performing calculations on government estimates compared to the US population. |
| Recipient | Amount | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
|
$405,090.00 |
To create databases on lobbyists, 527s, personal financial disclosures and travel, and to expand its campaign finance databases. |
|
|
$200,000.00 |
To provide initial funding for the public educations efforts of this new organization, the leading advocate for open floor deliberations in the U.S. Congress, to require legislation and conference reports to be posted on the Internet for 72 hours before floor consideration. |
|
|
$199,128.00 |
A project to define a proactive agenda to modernize and increase public disclosure of government information and the organization’s FedSpending.org Web site. This project combines data from the Federal Procurement Data System and the Federal Assistance Award Data System to create a free, searchable database of federal government contracting and spending. |
|
|
$117,000.00 |
To fund the launch of its Open Community Open Document Review System, which provides an online review process that enables people across the Internet to review, tag, comment on and rate the importance of government documents received by CREW through Freedom of Information Act requests. |
|
|
$95,000.00 |
To invest in the joint Sunlight Foundation/Center for Media and Democracy wiki on Congress – Congresspedia. |
|
|
$77,000.00 |
Then TakeBackCA.org, to provide core funding to support the organization’s federal search engine that interactively exposes the links between dollars donated by interested parties and congressional votes. |
|
|
$50,000.00 |
To support the development and implementation of several APIs so programmers can access and display in their own applications the Institute’s data on campaign contributions to political campaigns at the state level. |
|
|
$35,000.00 |
A grant to this blog, which covers New York politics, supported the expansion of its nonpartisan coverage of the 29 New York congressional members, including their legislative and budgetary activities and earmarks. |
|
|
$25,000.00 |
To develop an Election Year Demonstration Project Web site to cover everything that can be reported on a congressional election, with an emphasis on drawing on the talents and ideas of local citizen journalists. |
|
People for the American Way's Young Elected Officials Network |
$25,000.00 |
To support a track on government transparency and accountability at its Young Elected Officials Network annual training and networking conference. |
|
|
$10,000.00 |
To support its launch and work to spur journalistic innovation by grouping veteran journalists and passionate amateurs in online, collaborative reporting efforts. |
|
|
$10,000.00 |
A one-time grant supported its investigative reporting and blogging on the “revolving door” between the government and the private sector. |
|
|
$4,500.00 Mini-grant |
To support its development of a wiki designed to involve the public in creating and collaborating on laws and policy. |
|
BluegrassReport.org |
$2,500.00 Mini-grant |
To fund software upgrades that power its Web site, which educates voters as it highlights the issues of political corruption and transparency in government, particularly in Kentucky. |
|
Arizona Congress Watch |
$1,600.00 Mini-grant |
For the acquisition of polling data and a clipping service to support its work to report on the activities of the Arizona congressional delegation. |
|
Connecticut Local Politics |
$1,600.00 Mini-grant |
For the acquisition of polling data, a video camera and the cost of Web hosting for this nonpartisan, not-for profit blog that covers Connecticut politics from town halls to the state’s delegation in the U.S. Congress. |
