Follow The Money

	Follow The Money is a free and verified archive of contributions to political campaigns in the US
Home page	http://www.followthemoney.org
Approach	The National Institute on Money in State Politics uses data from official disclosure agencies, and staff then use research techniques to verify, standardise and code the data for inclusion in the archive.
Phase	Released
Tags	US, corporate interests, lobbying, campaign financing, finance tracking, and elections
Practices	Publish

Project Start Date	2013
Launch Date	2013
Most Recent Update	2015
Update Frequency	true
Thematic Focus	Politics
Issue addressed	Tracking financial influence
Geographic Focus	US

Experience

How does a user interact with and navigate the project?

Narrative	true
Query	true
Lists	true
Other Visualisation	true
Raw Data	true

Description

Summary of the project and its approach

	Follow The Money is a verifiable archive of contributions to political campaigns in all 50 states of the US.
Approach (How?)	The National Institute on Money in State Politics uses data from official disclosure agencies, and staff then use research techniques to verify, standardise and code the data for inclusion in the archive.
Language	English
Commissioner	The Bauman Foundation, The California Endowment, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Energy Foundation, Ford Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, Knight Prototype Fund, Mac Arthur Foundation, Robert Mc Cormick Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Rockfeller Family Fund, Rockfeller Brothers fund, Sunlight Foundation
Publisher	The National Institute on Money in State Politics

Impact

Indicators of reach and impact of the project.

Target Audience : Online Audience Reached : International Twitter : (652 followers) Publisher's Twitter Followers : Online Rank : Google: 6 Alexa: 342430 OSE Domain Authority Rank: 71/100 Marketing Grader Rank: 51/100 () Online Rank (Publisher) : Google: Alexa: News Source : Very High Offline Audience Reached : National Outcome : The National Institute on Money in State Politics is considered the go-to resource to facilitate reporting into campaign contributions (RAND Corporation 2014). They have also been cited in legal proceedings over 1,000 times in the past decade source: http://www.followthemoney.org/our-data/our-data-in-action/) Last updated : 19/10/2015 Attempts against the project : /

Technology

What tools and code were used to create the project?

Tech Best Practices: : : : Code Repository : : Tool : : : : Database : : Frontend : : : : : Backend : : : : : Data Format : : Data Standard : Technical Documentation URL : : Technical Architecture Documentation : Schema Documentation : Design Documentation : API Documentation : http://www.followthemoney.org/our-data/apis/documentation/

Data Sources

Data Sources : http://www.fec.gov/ : https://stations.fcc.gov/ : http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Political-Organizations/Political-Organization-Filing-and-Disclosure%20 : http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/campaign-finance.aspx : http://www.followthemoney.org/resources/state-disclosure-agencies/ :

Team

Team size and expertise

Team Size : Large Team Experience : Research : Dedicated Data Science : Dedicated Engineering : Dedicated Design : Dedicated

Project Methodology

What strategies were in place for managing the project?

Project Methodology : Traditional Open Source : false Open Data : false Budget : Large Project Contracting : false Risk Planning : No planning Sustainability Planning : No planning

Documented Practices

Documentation about project practices

Collect Organise

Practices

How projects handle different aspects of data management

Data Modeling : List Ethical Collection : No guidelines Ethical Storage : Data Collection : Trained Collectors Data Collection : Data Verification : Triangulated Data Cleaning : Validation Data Analysis : Simple Data Description : Basic Data Licensing : Public Ethical Publishing : Cited Sources Ethical Publishing : Data Publishing Mode : API