Sunlight Foundation

==Background==
* http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/
The Sunlight Foundation was founded in 2006 with the goal of increasing transparency in American politics. Sunlight is actively making good on the potential of the internet to empower citizens and improve the quality of public discourse. The foundation encourages citizen participation by aggregating information about candidates, bills, campaign contributions, and other legislative data. Sunlight also lobbies to demand changes in how and what Congress makes publicly available online. Thanks to organizations like Sunlight, we may be heading toward a future in which many Little Brothers keep a watchful eye on Big Brother.
Sunlight understands that openness and transparency are key to fostering good government. One of Sunlight’s key projects is the Sunlight Labs API, a toolset that developers can use for their own projects to retrieve basic information about legislators and their activities. This data can be mashed with other data and presented in new and interesting ways—a civic instance of the phenomenon of remixing! Sunlight also supports Metavid, a public domain archive of legislative video from both houses of the U.S. Congress.
Other Sunlight projects include the Open House Project, a study of how the House of Representatives uses the Internet in its daily operations, and OpenCongress, a joint project with Participatory Politics Foundation to document the evolution of bills as they make their way through the legislative process. For a full list of Sunlight projects, click here.
Sunlight shares our concern for free expression and healthy public discourse in the age of the internet, and we’re very excited to have them on board. Join us June 19-20 to explore the ways openness can lead to better governance.
==Changing Directions in 2016==
===Sunlight Foundation board seeks "alliance," declines to hire new ED===
: by Steven Clift
* Discuss https://www.facebook.com​/groups​/opengovgroup​/permalink​/1823621267869461
 
* The release: http://sunlightfoundation.com​/blog​/2016​/09​/20​/statement​-from​-sunlight​-foundations​-board​-chairman​/
 
====Statement from Sunlight Foundation's board chairman====
 
: by Mike Klein SEPT. 20, 2016
 
The board of directors of the Sunlight Foundation has reached some
important conclusions about our future. We want to share them with our
friends, funders, employees, partners, and everyone who has been a
part of our work over the last decade.
 
In July, we officially launched a search for a new executive director.
As we noted in the position description, we sought “a leader who will
closely collaborate with board, staff and funders to shape a coherent,
forward-thinking strategy to maximize the Foundation’s impact.”
Finding a candidate with a compelling strategic vision and a promising
capacity to execute it was our lodestar.
 
We searched far and wide. Our search consultant, m/Oppenheim, reached
out to a list of well over 100, a number of whom became candidates
while others were sources into other potential candidates. They came
from the fields of journalism, public policy, government, and
technology. We ultimately received and considered approximately two
dozen applications. Of those, the Search Committee ultimately chose to
interview five candidates. Last week we met as a board to interview
two final candidates and consider their visions for the organization.
 
As I wrote earlier this year, Sunlight has successfully catalyzed a
movement. While we are enormously proud of what Sunlight has
accomplished over the past decade, and has come to stand for, we are
also aware of the changes time has wrought.
 
We are aware that the robust maturation of technology over the past
decade has — happily but substantially — reduced the urgency of
Sunlight’s early role as a leading transparency innovator. In
addition, the board had to recognize that Sunlight’s initiating
objective— to build support for better legislation against and
regulation of the power of money in politics— has been significantly
limited by the US Supreme Court’s 5-4 Citizens United decision.
 
Those factors required a rethinking of what, if anything, can most
effectively be done with the resources available to continue the
technology/transparency cause and Sunlight’s role in it. We’ve done
that work, and here is what we have determined.
 
The board has not found a candidate for executive director who
persuaded us of both a compelling new strategic vision and of their
capacity to lead Sunlight to its achievement. Accordingly, we have
determined to explore alliances with other organizations similarly
motivated, perhaps merging with one of them, in an arrangement that
advances and preserves Sunlight’s mission and identity with increased
efficiency and effectiveness.
 
During this time period, we will deliver on all existing obligations
to funders and partners, making certain that we continue the great
work we’re doing in the What Work Cities initiative, for instance. We
are making necessary adjustments to staff in accordance with this
direction.
 
We will discontinue our tool building and database maintenance
activities, and encourage others to continue our most promising
projects. The decision to retire OpenCongress is an example.
 
In reaching these conclusions, the board recognizes and honors what
the Sunlight Foundation has achieved. Thanks to the efforts of
hundreds, we have compiled a record of pioneering innovation in
policy, governance, and technology. We have built a deep well of
institutional knowledge; a remarkable portfolio of initiatives,
programs, products, experiments, reporting, and infrastructures; and
an unmatched network of staff and alumni who are among the most
accomplished experts, activists, advocates and technologists in their
fields. These are important and valuable elements of a broader
movement to revitalize our democratic institutions. We aim to find the
right alliance or arrangement that will carry them forward.
 
I helped start this organization hoping it would play an active role
as a monitor and constructive critic of government policies and
practices affecting transparency. As we explore potential alliances
with other organizations over the next few weeks, I look forward to
continuing that work.
 
Source: Steven Clift - Executive Director, E-Democracy.org
 clift@e-democracy.org - +1 612 234 7072
 @democracy - http://linkedin.com/in/netclift
 http://1radionews.com - My radio app
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