Sunlight Foundation

During the budget debate in 2011, the Sunlight Foundation discovered that major cuts were being proposed for Electronic Government Fund – the crucial backbone of many transparency and accountability programs. Data.gov, USASpending.gov, the IT Dashboard and other federal data transparency and government accountability programs faced a cut from their previous $34 million level to just $2 million, despite only being a tiny fraction of the national budget.

The Sunlight Foundation launched the ‘Save the Data‘ campaign to convince politicians that Americans value these programs. Thousands of citizens voiced their support by signing on to Sunlight’s letter, contacting their members of Congress, writing blogs posts or just tweeting #savethedata. In addition to a dozen organizations the Save the Data campaign included civic leaders such as Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web, Tim O’Reilly, publisher and web guru, and Clay Shirky, author and prominent thinker. The successful campaign resulted in acknowledgement from politicians that these programs should be saved and funding was raised to $8 million, though the debate continues.

• Sunlight's Position

  • Open Letter: Congress Must Protect Transparency Programs in Budget Negotiations

  • The Way Forward to Save the Data

    The Sunlight Foundation’s policy counsel Daniel Schuman lays out next steps in the Save the Data campaign.

  • Data.gov and the Developer

    Sunlight Labs developer Luigi Montanez gives the technical perspective on why the e-Gov budget is worth saving.

• Reporting

  • Sunlight Blog Posts on Save the Data

  • Budget Technopocalypse: Proposed Congressional Budgets Slash Funding for Data Transparency

    Sunlight’s policy counsel Daniel Schuman first writes about the proposed budget cuts.

• Editorials

  • Mashable: Why the U.S. Should Stand Behind its Commitment to Open Government Data

    An opinion piece supporting the Save the Data campaign written by the World Wide Web Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

• Articles

  • Marketplace: Government transparency websites targeted in budget cuts

    Marketplace interviews the Sunlight Foundation’s policy counsel Daniel Schuman about the cuts to the e-Gov fund.

  • Washington Post: Budget cuts could close the door on Obama’s ‘open government’ goal

  • The Hill: Issa pledges to save transparency sites