Dear friend of OpenSecrets, 

There’s no quid pro quo. It’s our birthday so we are calling upon the millions of OpenSecrets followers—from power users that consume our data to engaged citizens who monitor and share our original reports—to send a gift and help expose money's influence in politics. For the next three weeks through Sunshine Week, our goal is to see 2,020 people make a donation to the Center for Responsive Politics. "Sunshine is the best disinfectant," and our unassailable data and fact-based journalism holds government accountable.

In February 1983, U.S. Senators Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Hugh Scott (R-Pa.) founded the Center for Responsive Politics after retiring—eight years after Congress established the Federal Election Commission (partly in response to Watergate). The phrase "follow the money" became a rallying call to dig deep and find answers, and OpenSecrets has done so for the past 37 years.

Today, new technology simplifies raising money for elections, but shields donors behind political ads influencing your vote. Laws governing donations are being chipped away by court decisions and allow fundraising practices that exploit lack of oversight. As corporations, unions, industry groups and megadonors pour billions of dollars into our elections to skew government decisions in their favor, OpenSecrets remains a beacon of independence and transparency in a muddy political landscape, and is your guide to follow the money, wherever it leads.

OpenSecrets is needed more than ever for what promises to be the most expensive election in American history. Will you become an OpenSecrets donor to power our 2020 election coverage?