Influence Explorer
- Logo
Influence Explorer lets you browse those who have contributed to US campaign finances
- URL
- http://influenceexplorer.com/
- Keywords
- lobbies, US, lobbying spenders, lobby tracking, power relationships, political structure, stories, who's who, database, Sunlight Foundation
- Project Current Phase
- Released
- Project Start Date
- 2010
- Launch Date
- N/A
- Most Recent Update
- 2015
- Update Frequency
- Yes but shut down on the 31st of december 2015
- Thematic Focus
- Lobbying
- Issue addressed
- Traceability
- Geographic Focus
- US
Experience
How does a user interact with and navigate the project?
- Narrative
- Query
- Yes
- Geographic Map
- Timelines
- Lists
- Yes
- Network Visualisation
- Other Visualisation
- Raw Data
- Yes
Description
Summary of the project and its approach
Influence Explorer provides an overview of campaign finance, lobbying, earmark, contractor misconduct and federal spending data.
- Approach (How?)
- Influence Explorer helps you browse through real-time data streams containing economic contributions on the federal made my corporations, individuals, etc. It also indexes real-time lobbyies registrations. The website provides an API and bulk downloads.
- Language
- English
- Commissioner
- Sunlight Foundation
- Publisher
- Sunlight Labs (US)
- Partners
- Center for Responsive Politics, the National Institute on Money in State Politics, Taxpayers for Common Sense, the Project On Government Oversight, the EPA and USASpending.gov.
Impact
Indicators of reach and impact of the project
- Target Audience
- Online Audience Reached
- Large Network
- No (N/A followers)
- Publisher's Twitter Followers
- 44.3K
- Online Rank
- Google: 5 Alexa: 523,291 OSE Domain Authority Rank: 67 /100 Marketing Grader Rank: 79/100 ()
- Online Rank (Publisher)
- Google: Alexa:
- News Source
- High
- Offline Audience Reached
- National
- Outcome
- N/A
- Last updated
- 17/10/2015
- Attempts against the project
- N/A /
Technology
What tools and code were used to create the project?
- Tech Best Practices:
- Strong technical ecosystem and standard adoption
- Development of Client Libraries
- Code Repository
- https://github.com/sunlightlabs/influence_explorer
- Tool
- Data Commons
- Brisket
- Read_FEC
- Database
- Frontend
- Backend
- Django
- Python
- Data Format
- CSV
- Data Standard
- CSV
- Technical Documentation URL
- Technical Architecture Documentation
- Schema Documentation
- http://realtime.influenceexplorer.com/about/#data_dictionaries
- Design Documentation
- API Documentation
- http://sunlightlabs.github.io/datacommons/#endpoints
Data Sources
- Data Sources
- http://opensecrets.org/
- http://followthemoney.org/
- http://taxpayers.net/
- http://www.usaspending.gov/data
- http://www.epa-echo.gov/echo/idea_download.html
- http://www.fara.gov/
Team
Team size and expertise
- Team Size
- Large
- Team Experience
- Research
- None
- Data Science
- Dedicated
- Engineering
- Dedicated
- Design
- Dedicated
Project Methodology
What strategies were in place for managing the project?
- Project Methodology
- N/A
- Open Source
- Yes
- Open Data
- No
- Budget
- N/A
- Contracting
- N/A
- Risk Planning
- No planning
- Sustainability Planning
- Updated
Documented Practices
Documentation about project practices
: http://sunlightlabs.github.io/datacommons/
- Collect / Collect Data
- http://influenceexplorer.com/about/methodology
- Organise / Model Data
- http://influenceexplorer.com/about/methodology
Practices
How projects handle different aspects of data management
- Data Modeling
- Complex
- Ethical Collection
- No guidelines
- Ethical Storage
- N/A
- Data Collection
- External Sources
- Data Collection
- Data Verification
- Corroborated
- Data Cleaning
- N/A
- Data Analysis
- Classification / Tagging / Categories / Linking
- Data Description
- Detailed
- Data Licensing
- Public
- Ethical Publishing
- Cited Sources
- Ethical Publishing
- Data Publishing Mode
- API