Sunlight Foundation to announce new campaign March 18

WASHINGTON, DC – The Sunlight Foundation will kick off a national campaign for transparent government this THURSDAY, March 18, 2010. The “Public=Online” campaign will be an ongoing effort by the Sunlight Foundation to harness public support for accountability and transparency to build a grassroots movement that works to hold elected officials accountable on the local, state and federal level.

The campaign will be launched at a panel discussion that will include some of the leading names in government, the media, think tanks, the political parties and citizen activism groups. The panel will be held at Google’s Washington, D.C. offices located at 1101 New York Avenue, N.W. starting at 2:00 PM.

Where:
Google D.C.
Second Floor
1101 New York Avenue, N.W. (Entrance on Eye Street)
Washington, DC 20005

When:
Thursday, March 18, 2:00 – 3:30 p.m.

Who:
Guest speakers include:
Jake Brewer, engagement director of the Sunlight Foundation
Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor of the Washington Examiner
Jose Antonio Vargas, Technology & Innovations Editor at the Huffington Post
Ginny Hunt, Head of Google’s Public Sector Lab
Ryan Hopkins, Public Square Project
And a representative from the federal government
The Sunlight Foundation is a non-partisan non-profit that uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Visit http://SunlightFoundation.com to learn more about Sunlight’s projects, including http://PoliticalPartyTime.org and http://OpenCongress.org.

BGA awarded $60,000 from Chicago Community Trust

More to come…..

Better Government Association
Nonprofit
$60,000
To train volunteer “reporter monitors” to report on government meetings downtown and in Chicago’s neighborhoods for a new “Good Government Virtual Town Hall” Web site.

The Community News Matters program was spurred by a lead grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Knight Community Information Challenge and is jointly funded by The Chicago Community Trust, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. It seeks to increase the flow of truthful, accurate and insightful news and information in the region and spur development of new business models for news.

Here’s the press release from the CCT