We are making two annoucements this afternoon: a second round of grants for 2007 (including two grants from our Mini-grant program), and a new member of the Board of Directors -- Craig Newmark. Craig is the founder and customer service representative for Craigslist, and one of the initial members of our Advisory Board. Craig is a visionary, and he has an understanding of power of the Internet technology that is nearly unrivaled. We couldn't be happier to have him assume a more formal role in guiding the Sunlight Foundation.
We are also very excited about the grant making opportunities that have come our way. Continue readingRole of “Soft Money” in 2006…Implications for 2008
There's a new study out this morning from the Campaign Finance Research Institute that reminds us -- for all the talk of how much small money Sen. Barack Obama has raised on the Internet -- of the role of big money in politics. It should be sobering to those who think that small donor money obviates the need for fundamental reform of the campaign finance system.
This study just looked at one path of big money: the broad array of nonprofits active in the 2006 election: 527 political organizations, Section 501(c)(4) social welfare groups, (c)(5) labor unions and (c)(6) trade associations, and "taxable" entities that operate as nonprofits. Check it out.
Continue readingGetting Some Answers
From TechPresident this morning...
Following in the footsteps of Leonardo DiCaprio, Oprah Winfrey, and Al Gore, Barack Obama has posed a question on Yahoo! Answers, reports the Chicago Tribune. His question? "How can we engage more people in the democratic process?" . . . The Tribune notes that Obama isn't the first candidate to use the forum; Hillary Clinton and John McCain have been there, done that.
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The Wisdom of Crowds: Political Reporting Style
Arianna Huffington is entering the world of citizen journalism with her announcement of a new project: The Wisdom of Crowds Hits the Campaign Trail. It's got the makings of a great effort: she's recruiting citizen journalists from around the country to cover the major presidential candidates and asking each of them to contribute to a candidate-specific group blog -- offering written updates, campaign tidbits, on-the-scene observations, photos, or original video. The goal is to provide more sources of information, and more outside-the-mainstream voices on the upcoming presidential campaign. She's got the readership to make it happen.
Continue readingChanges Afoot
If last year -- Sunlight's first year of operation -- was a little like being shot out of a cannon, it's hard to describe what the first quarter of this year has been like. Suffice it to say, we are moving at something beyond warp speed.
As a result we have some dramatic growth underway. Here's what's happening.
Our Sunlight Labs has become a core element of our work and we will dramatically expand its capacity this year. It started as an experiment in mid-2006 as a way to both support our grantees and experiment with technology ourselves. After an amazingly successful first year under the co-directorship of consultants Greg Elin and Micah Sifry, the Labs has become part of our cutting edge as our technology and software development arm, well beyond its original mandate. It's now evolving further to better support its expanded internal and external activities.
Greg Elin is becoming our consulting Chief Data Architect with responsibilities that include managing all API development with our partner organizations (a very high priority for us this year) and our own internal data products. He'll also be tackling the "names standardization" problem with other Labs staff. Micah Sifry and Andrew Rasiej of Personal Democracy Forum will continue in their valued role as strategic consultants to the Foundation and to the Labs.
Three New Grants
Just before I left town for a two-week break, Sunlight announced its first round of grants for 2007, totaling just over $200,000. On my return, I realized that we hadn't posted anything about them -- other than a press release -- and so our readers might have missed the news. We are staying the course in terms of the kind of investments were are making with the money going to organizations that are using new "Web 2.0" technology to further the organization's mission of putting information into citizens' hands to increase transparency in Congress. We believe that our grantees are on the cutting edge of work that will open up our legislative branch.
Continue readingOpenCongress.org
Sunlight is launching a new project this morning -- OpenCongress.org -- that we are very excited about. This is is joint effort with the amazing team from the Participatory Politics Foundation -- a group based in Worcester, Mass. that builds open-source software and web tools for civic engagement.
Think of this as a user-friendly Thomas, on steriods. We've brought together critically important information about what is happening in Congress --legislation and issue focused -- and combined that with what bloggers and the mainstream media are most talking about. We've added a component of social wisdom tracking what's hot and what's most-viewed on the site itself, along with what others are writing about. There are lots of links to other Sunlight projects like Congresspedia and Sunlight grantees like OpenSecrets.org. We are aiming to to offer a comprehensive, understandable, user-friendly snapshot of every bill and Member of Congress.
Sunlight’s Catching
Imitation is the highest form of flattery.
Yesterday New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo announced "Project Sunlight," New York State's first-ever comprehensive Internet database that will track donors, lobbyists, special interests, state contracts, and elected officials, and the links between them.
Seems like the situation with information about New York politics is not unlike the federal scenario:
While many databases are currently public domain, they are difficult to navigate. Additionally, the current process of accessing public information can be burdensome and time consuming. Project Sunlight goes well beyond the existing systems in making public information accessible. By combining multiple databases into a single, easy-to-use Internet resource, New Yorkers will be able to quickly examine elected officials' voting records and campaign contributors, and find outwhich entities may have benefited from their actions
A long-time public interest advocate -- Blair Horner -- a 25 year veteran of NYPIRG and an authority on government ethics and reform will head the project.
Continue readingOpen House Project is Well Underway
I spent part of the weekend following the very smart conversation that has already begun on the listserv that is forming the core of the collaborative effort for our new Open House Project. I used to consider myself a kind of Congressional process geek (to wit I spent part o the weekend reading the many posts on this listserv), but the folks participating in this collaborative bipartisan effort to study how the House currently integrates the Internet into its operations, so it can make recommendations to the leadership on how to do it better, have an amazing breadth of knowledge.
Continue readingNew Sunlight Advisors
We are very excited to annouce today that we are expanding our Board of Directors and our Advisory Board, adding some extraordinary people -- Esther Dyson, Jimmy Wales, Charles Lewis, Yochai Benkler -- to an already distinguished group that includes Craig Newmark and Kim Malone. As Sunlight moves into our second year of operation we are pleased to be joined by some who are most on the cutting edge of technology and investigative journalism.
Esther Dyson (www.edventure.com) has been elected to serve a one-year term on the Board of Directors. Dyson is a leading expert on emerging digital technology and business models. She is the author of “Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age,” (1997) which explores the impact of information technology on people’s lives, and produced the Release 1.0 newsletter for more than 20 years. Currently, she is an active investor in start-ups around the world and blogs for Huffington Post as Release 0.9.
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