MapLight
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Mission Statement
MapLight, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, reveals money's influence on politics. With our groundbreaking transparency database and innovative transparency tools, influence connections that once required days or weeks of research to uncover are now available at the click of a mouse.
About This Cause
MapLight reveals money’s influence on politics. Our groundbreaking transparency website combines timely, in-depth information about lawmakers, votes, interest groups, and more to reveal patterns of influence never before possible to see. Influence connections that once required days or weeks of research to uncover are now available at the click of a mouse. MapLight connects our broken money and politics system to the specific issues people care about in order to build public pressure to advance reform. We distribute our findings through the media and provide free data and tools to journalists, advocacy groups, and citizens so they can effectively hold government accountable. We work to create a more accountable, transparent, and democratic society where lawmakers are responsive to citizen concerns, rather than the interests of large campaign donors. Toward these ends, our work aims to: 1. Support the money and politics reform movement by educating citizens about who influences government and how, revealing money’s role in politics so that citizens can better understand the influences on their government and intervene on behalf of a stronger democracy. 2. Give more power to the groups that hold government accountable and work for a more democratic society, including journalists, issue-oriented groups (such as environmental groups), activist organizations, and other citizen leaders. MapLight has proven itself to be a powerful force in the government transparency and accountability movement. As a relatively young organization, founded in 2005, MapLight has: - Reached over 240 million people with our with data highlighting the impact of political influence via 8,300 stories on CNN, Marketplace, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the CBS Evening News, and hundreds of other national, state, and local outlets across the country. - Launched database-driven transparency sites for U.S. Congress, California, and Wisconsin. - Launched Voter’s Edge (http://votersedge.org), a free online voter guide helping citizens decide their votes on ballot measures more quickly and easily than was ever before possible, including funding information, editorials, articles, campaign ads, and more, plus daily updates reflecting breaking developments. - Launched Politicash, a free mobile app shining a light on presidential campaign fundraising. - Highlighted the super PAC money in the 2012 elections with interactive visualizations that make the scope of super PAC influence easier to see, analyze, and share. - Launched, in partnership with WIRED.com, our Influence Tracker widget, which ranked federal candidates by their relative fundraising prowess, revealing the total number of dollars raised by each contender in the past two years and their top 10 contributors. - Galvanized civic action: our data and web tools have empowered journalists, activists, and advocacy groups to call out undue influence from defense contractors, banks, oil companies, the pharmaceutical industry, and more and fueled victories on issues ranging from copyright policy to payday lending to foreclosure reform. - Successfully settled our freedom of information lawsuit against the state of California, winning public access to the state’s database of legislative votes. - Spearheaded a successful campaign to win daily online downloads of California campaign finance data from the California Secretary of State. - Won a James Madison Freedom of Information Award, a Knight-Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism, a Library Journal Best Reference Award, an American Library Association MARS: Best Free Reference Web Site Award, and a Webby Award nomination. Select testimonials: "Once you’ve experienced this, it’s hard to be satisfied with the old, disconnected data. It’s like getting a first taste of salt." -Evan Hansen, Editor-in-Chief, WIRED Magazine "Nobody has ever revealed the relationship between money given and votes cast to quite such a startling effect." -David Pogue, New York Times "Every taxpayer should take a hard look at this site. Never before have citizens been able to so easily track the influences on their elected officials." -Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism "This is the most extraordinary use of technology I believe I have seen when it comes to politics." -Dylan Ratigan, MSNBC “MapLight’s work and research is indispensable for groups like 350.org. By exposing the influence that corporations and special interests have over our politicians, MapLight gives advocates the information and data we need to fight on behalf of the public good.” -Jamie Henn, Communications Director, 350.org