National Institute on Money in State Politics

The Institute calls attention to the value of the data for investigative reporting, academic research, policy debates, and civic engagement by publishing research findings and connect-the-dots stories.

Intended outcomes from the Institute's work are as follows:
● Illustrate how the Institute's resources contribute to a healthy democracy, such as tracing the influence of its Best Practices recommendations on state disclosure laws and reporting systems.
● Build on the Institute's solid technological foundation with open source programming, updated database management, and cloud storage capabilities.
● Ensure that the board of directors includes representatives from key target audiences and stakeholders to help guide marketing, outreach, and usability of the resources.

The Institute will continue to provide a unique, single-site, verifiable campaign-finance database covering state elections from 2000 forward, and federal elections from 2010 forward, plus independent spending and lobbying expenditures in selected states as well. The data will continue to be made available, for free, to encourage transparency and promote independent investigation by journalists, academic researchers, public-interest groups, government agencies, policymakers, students and the public at large.

The Institute will also continue publishing reports on how campaign contributions correlate with important policy decisions. The Institute's Best Practices disclosure reports show how well each of the 50 state disclosure and ethics agencies rate in specific categories, from timely and informative disclosure to availability of electronic downloads.

The Institute forges the tools needed to make a difference in 21st century policy battles: accurate and complete data, tools for investigative journalism, and a strong focus on government transparency and accountability. No matter the issue, the Institute's decade of 50-state political contribution records and its identification of over 100,000 lobbyists and clients registered with the states each year, and its independent spending and lobbying expenditure data – combine to provide powerful background information on lawmakers debating public policy in legislative sessions. To ensure the resources are effectively used, we reach out to journalists, policy groups, scholars, and legal advocates navigating a variety of complex issues.

National Advisors and Officers Convening. The Institute's most significant outreach effort is the annual formation and convening of national advisors and foundation officers uniquely matched to topics for intensive roundtable discussions.

The Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) became a division of the Institute in early July 2018, after a year of hard work by both organizations to make that happen. The Institute's entity resolution system and revolutionary data architecture have catapulted search capacity into a new platform for an expanded trajectory. Website usability of FollowTheMoney.org remains a challenge, and the Institute is investing additional resources to ensure the data is available in an intuitive, accessible manner. The Legislative Committee Analysis Tool (L-CAT) identifies the members of all 500+ state legislative committees and gives an instant view of the political contributions of each committee member or of each committee as a whole. A 20-state Lobbying Expenditures database documents tens of million of dollars spent lobbying state lawmakers. See who donated to state legislators, organized by the committees they serve on.