My name is Solomon Kahn, and I built Explore Campaign Finance to help citizens and journalists explore how much money is given to politicial candidates and by whom.

An overwhelming percentage of Americans believe there is too much money in politics, but even educated people have a lack of basic understanding about the facts of how much money is in politics. This project will arm them with information about any politician they are interested in.

This project takes the last 25 years of campaign finance data and puts it online in a user friendly way. People can explore who gave money to their favorite politicians with more context than ever before, and then dig into the details with more power than ever before.

In addition, we are crowdsourcing research into the funding of every single politician. Due to the massive amount of campaign finance data, it has been impossible for journalists to look at it all. With the power of the internet, we will be able to overcome the time limitation, and research the funding for every single federal politician.

This project would not have been possible without the support of many people and organizations. I would like to particularly thank all the backers of the Kickstarter , who have humbled me with their outpouring of support. All the individual supporters are listed on this special kickstarter thank you page.

Thanks also to Donny Shaw for his work in helping to publicize this site, and the kickstarter campaign.

In addition, I would like to thank the Harvard University Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, the Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, the Sunlight Foundation, the Center for Responsive Politics and 18F.

Saving the best for last, I would like to thank my amazing wife Kelly. Without her support, this project would never have happened.