Category: Philanthropy, Voluntarism, and Public Benefit

National Institute on Money in State Politics

Helena, MT

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Physical Address:: Helena, MT 59601
EIN:: 81-0526651
Web URL:: www.FollowTheMoney.org
Blog URL:: The Money Tale: www....
Leadership:: Mr. Edwin Bender, Chief Executive

GuideStar Seal	Committed to transparency
Registered with IRS	Legitimacy information is available
Financial Data	Annual Revenue and Expense data reported
Forms 990	2010, 2009, and 2008 Forms 990 filed with the IRS
Mission Objectives	Mission Statement is available
Impact Statement	Impact Statement from nonprofit is available

Legitimacy Information

This organization is registered with the IRS.
This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.

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Forms 990 from IRS IRS Form 990 is an annual document used by approximately one-third of all public charities to report information about their finances and operations to the federal government. GuideStar uses data from Form 990 to populate its database with financial information about nonprofit organizations. Posting Form 990 images on the GuideStar Web site is an ongoing process.

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Fiscal Year Starting: Jul 01, 2009
Fiscal Year Ending: Jun 30, 2010

Revenue
Total Revenue	$827,039

Expenses
Total Expenses	$1,329,515

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Printable PDF Report: Provides a complete analysis of the organization for your records. The full report tells you what to look for and why it matters.
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Basic Organization Information

National Institute on Money in State Politics

Physical Address:: Helena, MT 59601
EIN:: 81-0526651
Web URL:: www.FollowTheMoney.org
Blog URL:: The Money Tale: www....
NTEE Category:: V Social Science Research Institutes; V05 Research Institutes and/or Public Policy Analysis; R Civil Rights, Social Action, Advocacy; R05 Research Institutes and/or Public Policy Analysis; W Public, Society Benefit; W24 Citizen Participation
Year Founded:: 1999
Ruling Year:: 1999
How This Organization Is Funded:: Open Society Institute - $345,000; Ford Foundation - $292,500; Sunlight Foundation - $250,000

Mission Statement

The National Institute on Money in State Politics is the only nonpartisan, nonprofit organization revealing the influence of campaign money on state-level elections and public policy in all 50 states. Our comprehensive and verifiable campaign-finance database and relevant issue analyses are available for free through our Web site FollowTheMoney.org. We encourage transparency and promote independent investigation of state-level campaign contributions by journalists, academic researchers, public-interest groups, government agencies, policymakers, students and the public at large.

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Impact Statement from Nonprofit

The Institute was cited on average once a day in 2010, and the Institute's data has been cited in three prominent U.S. Supreme Court cases: Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal, 2009; Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right To Life, 2007; Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 2010.

New Work in 2011 includes:

Making available all the outside-spending records submitted to 22 states with laws requiring meaningful information to be reported. We’ll compare pre-v. post- Citizens United v. FEC effects on independent expenditures in state elections.

Making available all lobbying expenditure reports submitted to 5 target states and assessing the quality of lobbying information made available by laws in 50 states.

The Institute’s Best Practice guides offer blueprints to agencies working to expand public access to information they collect; and fuel advocacy to challenge states to strive harder.

Personal Reviews

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Financial Health Dashboard: Highlights key financial trends and ratios for a selected nonprofit organization over a period of up to five years.
Peer Comparison Dashboard: Compares the organization's financials with up to five peer nonprofits that you select.
Graphical Analysis: Provides multi-year graphs and an interpretive guide in a format ready to present to your clients.
Printable PDF Report: Provides a complete analysis of the organization for your records. The full report tells you what to look for and why it matters.
Advanced Search: Allows you to search by EIN (Employer Identification Number), organization name, city, state, revenue, expenses, and assets.

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FAQs on Financial Data | Digitizing IRS Form 990 Data

Financial Data

Revenue and Expenses

Balance Sheet

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Key Financial SCAN Features

Financial Health Dashboard: Highlights key financial trends and ratios for a selected nonprofit organization over a period of up to five years.
Peer Comparison Dashboard: Compares the organization's financials with up to five peer nonprofits that you select.
Graphical Analysis: Provides multi-year graphs and an interpretive guide in a format ready to present to your clients.
Printable PDF Report: Provides a complete analysis of the organization for your records. The full report tells you what to look for and why it matters.
Advanced Search: Allows you to search by EIN (Employer Identification Number), organization name, city, state, revenue, expenses, and assets.

View Sample Report

More Information

Forms 990 Received from the IRS IRS Form 990 is an annual document used by approximately one-third of all public charities to report information about their finances and operations to the federal government. GuideStar uses data from Form 990 to populate its database with financial information about nonprofit organizations. Posting Form 990 images on the GuideStar Web site is an ongoing process.

Forms 990 Provided by the Nonprofit

Financial Statements

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Annual Reports

Formation Documents A Letter of Determination is a letter from the IRS to a nonprofit organization stating that the organization has successfully applied for tax-exempt status. In this document the IRS indicates under which section of the Internal Revenue Code an organization is qualified.

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Organizational Statistics

Chief Executive

Mr. Edwin Bender

Term:

Since Aug 2003

Chief Executive Profile:

A founding incorporator for the Institute, Edwin Bender was named Executive Director in 2003, and also serves on its board of directors. He coordinates organizational policy-making, serves as spokesperson, and provides financial oversight in addition to his key role in fundraising. Ed has assigned priority to speeding online posting of contribution records, developing projects in partnership with academic researchers and other organizations, and increasing training and technical assistance to Web site user groups. A graduate of the University of Montana School of Journalism, he was an award-winning reporter and editor at newspapers in Montana, Alaska and Washington.

CEO/Executive Director Statement:

"Every election cycle around 16,000 candidates run for office. We collect hundreds of thousands of reports, generate over 3 million records and code over $3 billion in campaign contributions. It is very difficult, in a word it is a nightmare. What started as a one year project 8 years ago has since become an indispensable and comprehensive resource for the public. We hope to create a citizen army that is really interested in tracking legislators and holding them accountable, which in turn will create a more responsive government."

Edwin Bender-Executive Director (2011)

Board Chair

Board of Directors

Officers for Fiscal Year

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Highest Paid Employees & Their Compensation

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Program: Transparency to Who’s Lobbying and Who’s Providing Campaign-Finance Funds in All 50 States

Budget:: --
Category:: Public, Society Benefit
Population Served:: General Public/Unspecified

Program Description:

Our web site, www.followthemoney.org, provides unparalleled, open-source access to political donor and lobbying information from all 50 states -- data otherwise not available in one place. It fuels investigations by news reporters, policy/advocacy organizations, college professors, high school teachers and students, and individuals in every state.

To achieve this, every two years, the Institute collects all 100,000 reports filed by 16,000 candidates, political parties and ballot measure committees,
documenting over $3 billion spent on state elections. Our highly-credentialed
database is complete for 2000 to 2009 elections and already nearly complete for 2010.

And every year, we identify all 37,000 lobbyists and their 48,000 clients required to register with the states. We make their names and affiliations available to the public. Our database is complete for 2006 to 2009; and we mid-stream in collecting 2010 now.

The Institute also develops user-friendly cutting-edge data-analysis and visualization tools to speed research and navigation at the site; and we provide free training to introduce our resources to new groups.

Program Long-Term Success:

Transparent information on state elections: contribution records for all candidates in all 50 states; researchers code the funds to 400 business categories; election outcomes; research reports, news articles, free programming for APIs on websites, civic education, etc.

Program Short-Term Success:

Total website visitors will continue to steadily increase (or decrease where appropriate) in 2011, surpassing all associated numbers for the same time periods in 2010.

Program Success Monitored by:

Website analytics monitored daily and enhancements made as necessary.

Program Success Examples:

In 2009, 169,414 total unique visitors made 224,309 visits to www.FollowTheMoney.org. In 2010 a total of 270,483 unique visitors made 361,164 visits to the site (an increase of 63%).

Program: Custom research projects and donor profile enhancements

Budget:: --
Category:
Population Served:: General Public/Unspecified

Program Description:

Services to individual customers or organizations: custom research projects, tailored data sets, data licensing agreements, list enhancement projects, and technical assistance and training,

Program Long-Term Success:

Program Short-Term Success:

Program Success Monitored by:

Program Success Examples:

Program: Institute blog and presence in social media

Budget:: --
Category:: Public, Society Benefit
Population Served:: General Public/Unspecified

Program Description:

The Institute staff invites you to visit their blog, The Money Tale, where they will share their unique perspective on campaign finances and money in politics to complement political news reports and issue analysis. Through this blog we hope to foster thoughtful and productive debate surrounding issues of transparency and disclosure in the political process, while providing reliable, accurate and easily attainable information to the public.

The Institute is also operating on both Twitter and Facebook, actively engaging users and promoting Institute research findings.

Program Long-Term Success:

The Money Tale blog will have a consistent and devoted readership by the end of 2012, including journalists who cite the blog in their work. Twitter followers will reach 2,000 and Facebook fans will increase by 5% (or 33 people) in the same 1 year period.

Program Short-Term Success:

Blog visits by unique IP's from the end of December 2010 to increase by 15% (or 211 unique IP addresses) by the end of December 2011. Followers on Twitter to reach 1,800 by the end of 2011, and fans on Facebook to increase by 2.5% (or 16 people) in the same time period.

Program Success Monitored by:

Ability to meet or exceed projected goals.

Program Success Examples:

Between October 2010 and January 2011, Twitter followers have increased from 1,400 to 1,605.

In that same time period the Institute's Facebook page has acquired three more fans, a .4% increase.

From November 24-December 23 2010, the average time spent on the blog was 1:18. From December 24-January 24 the average time went up to 1:24.

Program: Researcher Reports

Budget:: --
Category:: Education
Population Served:: General Public/Unspecified

Program Description:

The Institute's perceptive researchers make sense of contribution data and put those figures into context for the general public, journalists and academics alike. Reports are published on the website and access is free. Journalists are notified of new reports via press release and report notifications are published on both Twitter and Facebook.

Program Long-Term Success:

In the next two years the Institute will continue to issue reports and engage the media. The Communications team aspires to have the Institute included in a feature story for a major news outlet.

Program Short-Term Success:

Issue more reports in 2011 than in 2010, establish more media contacts and be cited in the news and in blogs double than in previous years.

Program Success Monitored by:

Daily monitoring of press releases and news cites regarding Institute reports.

Program Success Examples:

From July-December 2009 the Institute was cited in a combined 215 news sources, including both new and traditional media. In that same time period for 2010, the Institute was cited 420 times in both types of news sources (an overall increase of 51%).

Funding Needs

Contributions; Grants

Volunteer Needs

Request for In-Kind Contributions

News

Chicago Tribune: Law dean: Bar could've done more on retention vote

January 13, 2011

IOWA CITY, Iowa —

Leaders of Iowa's legal community were surprised by the successful campaign to oust three Supreme Court justices who backed a ruling to legalize gay marriage, and didn't do enough to counter it, the new dean of the University of Iowa law school said.

"We have not done as much as we could have and should have to educate the electorate about judicial independence, the importance of an impartial judiciary, the role of judges, and the general purpose of a retention election," College of Law Dean Gail Agrawal said in an interview. "I think the bar didn't fully appreciate the need to be more assertive, more aggressive about getting that information out broadly in a way that was intended to reach the right audiences."

Agrawal said she personally was "caught unawares" by the push from social conservatives to oust then-Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and Justices David Baker and Michael Streit, because she had just started her job as dean last July.

Five groups spent nearly $1 million persuading voters to throw out the justices for supporting the unanimous 2009 ruling that excluding gays and lesbians from marriage rights violated the Iowa constitution, according to a report released this week by the National Institute on Money in State Politics. By contrast, a group supporting the court called Justice, Not Politics didn't form until August and had a budget of about $10,000, a spokeswoman said.

Bob Vander Plaats, who led the campaign to oust the justices, said their supporters did do a lot to try to keep them on the bench. He noted the justices toured Iowa, former Supreme Court justices spoke out in favor of their retention, and others debated him at forums.

"I think Iowans became very well informed," he said. "I don't think it was that they need to hear one side more than another side. I think they heard both sides. Iowans are very discerning in their vote and they voted in record numbers in a historic election to vote the justices off the court."

Agrawal said she didn't vote in the November election because she hadn't registered in Iowa. She cast a ballot in Kansas, where she had spent the last four years as dean of the University of Kansas law school.

"I certainly would have voted to retain," she said. "In my mind, an unpopular decision is not grounds for nonretention. In my mind, a retention vote is a vote taken to determine whether the judge is fulfilling his responsibilities and acting in a proper manner, but not a referendum on a single position, whatever the position is."

Looking forward, she said she expected Iowa's legal leaders to educate the public about the need to reject calls for the resignation or impeachment of the other four justices who took part in the ruling. She said resigning would be a breach of their duties as justices, and impeachment would be an inappropriate response since that step is historically reserved for misconduct. And she said Iowa's merit system for selecting judges has worked well, is seen as a national model and should be protected.

Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Cady defended the court's ruling in a speech about the judiciary to lawmakers on Wednesday, calling it the latest in a tradition of controversial but pioneering civil rights decisions in Iowa.

Agrawal spoke with The Associated Press in her office at the Boyd Law Building on Monday as she reflected on her first semester as dean. She said she hoped the voters' decision to oust the justices would not have a long-lasting impact on Iowa's legal system, but it will take "enough judges of conscience and courage" to ensure that doesn't happen.

"The worst thing that could happen in my mind for a fair and impartial judiciary is for people to be on the bench and deciding cases in a way that is driven by their fear of personal consequences rather than their sense of duty to the rule of law and their obligation as judges," she said. "I think that would be a tragedy."

Agrawal once clerked under former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has made protecting judicial independence from powerful special interest groups a cause after her retirement from the bench.

"I share her views on many things, probably most things, and certainly on this thing," she said.

Fortune: The big political player you've never heard of

January 10, 2011

Opponents of President Obama's health care overhaul landed a chin shot last month when a federal judge found the law's requirement that citizens buy health insurance unconstitutional. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli argued that there was a conflict between a state law that made it illegal to force people to buy coverage and the new federal law.

But the Virginia law itself wasn't thought up in the Old Dominion. Rather, it was the product of a 2008 huddle in Washington. Conservative state legislators from across the country, along with industry lobbyists, hashed out the bill at the annual gathering of a little-known group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. The organization, founded in 1973 and funded mostly by corporations and conservative foundations, exists to bring business-friendly state lawmakers together with lobbyists for corporations, including AT&T (T), Exxon Mobil (XOM), Wal-Mart (WMT), and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). It drafts model bills related to its goals of free markets and limited government. Issues that ALEC has influenced include Arizona's anti-immigration law, tort reform in Mississippi, and the opposition to Net neutrality.

Despite the intimate involvement of lobbyists, ALEC officials insist the organization is not a lobbying group, since it doesn't follow lawmakers to try to advance their bills. Instead, ALEC is a charity, a status it justifies because of its educational mission. The designation allows the group to collect tax-deductible contributions, and it eases lawmaker travel to ALEC events. Says Edwin Bender of the National Institute on Money in State Politics: "Corporations can implement their agendas very effectively using ALEC."

In the 2009 legislative session, by ALEC's reckoning, state lawmakers introduced 826 bills the group conceived -- 115 of which made it into law. That's quite a record, and it's going to get stronger. One overlooked aspect of the Republican resurgence has been its revolution at the state level. The GOP picked up more than 700 seats in state legislatures and now controls 25 of those bodies outright, from 14 before November.

While ALEC is officially nonpartisan, the outcome is clearly a boon; attendance at its December policy summit was the highest in a decade. "Voters want less government spending, less government involvement, and economic growth," says Louisiana state representative Noble Ellington, ALEC's national chairman.

ALEC is already plotting how to make the most of its new leverage, starting with the Environmental Protection Agency's plans to regulate greenhouse gases. Among ALEC's approaches is a resolution pressuring Congress to block new rules. "It's pay to play, and they're not shy," said Adam Schafer of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators.

The Christian Science Monitor: Behind the meteoric rise in campaign spending

November 14, 2010

The crucial subtext in the 2010 midterm elections is money – hundreds of millions of dollars spent in record-breaking amounts. Actually, that should be “billions” – probably topping $4 billion this year.

And it’s not just on the well-known races for the US House of Representatives and the US Senate, several of which featured humongous personal sums from the pockets of wealthy candidates. (More records broken.)

At the state level, campaign spending topped $2 billion – or to be precise $2,075,394,657 on statewide races across the country.

The figure comes from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization in Helena, Montana.

It’s a terrific resource which collects reports submitted to agencies by all candidates for statewide office, including legislatures, state supreme courts, major political party committees, non-bond ballot measure committees, and lobbyists. Check out your own state or legislative district at FollowTheMoney.org.

With the reporting barely complete for 2010 (and some very close races yet to be decided) it seems certain that the 2012 presidential election year will be another record buster, topping the $5.3 billion spent in 2008. Or as the headline on an Associated Press story puts it, “Too much money in politics? Ain't seen nothing yet.”

There’s another way to look at it, and that’s how much candidates spent to win each vote.

The record here was set by tea party favorite Republican Sharron Angle in Nevada, who attracted much of her campaign money from outside the state. It cost her $97 per vote to lose to Senate majority leader Harry Reid (who spent a paltry $69 for each of his votes), according to a Washington Post analysis of campaign finance filings and election results.

Being a millionaire or billionaire doesn’t guarantee success. Just ask Meg Whitman ($144 million) and Carly Fiorina ($17 million) in California or Linda McMahon ($42 million) in Connecticut. All three lost.

This was the first election in which the US Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” ruling had a major impact, striking down limits on corporation and labor union spending and leading the way for newly-created outside groups to donate huge sums without detailing their donors

"[Citizens United] had a disastrous impact on the 2010 elections and this is just the beginning," campaign finance watchdog Fred Wertheimer, who heads the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization Democracy 21, told The Hill magazine. "You could easily have secret money doubled in 2012."

Given the new campaign finance landscape, both major political parties are angling for advantage in 2012. This is especially true of Republican presidential hopefuls.

“In recent months, many of the candidates-in-waiting have been actively cultivating the kinds of major donors needed to finance expensive presidential bids,” reports the New York Times. “[Mitt] Romney has been by far the most assertive, according to interviews with a half-dozen top Republican fund-raisers, already pushing for commitments from major donors should he formally decide to run.”

Democrats (and the Obama White House) are just as eager to take advantage here.

“The White House is bracing for an onslaught of $500 million or more in spending by outside Republican groups opposed to President Barack Obama's 2012 reelection, prompting Obama advisers to give the green light to big Democratic donors to set up similar outside groups to counter the GOP’s effort,” according to Politico.com. “That posture marks a significant shift by a White House that had discouraged outside players in the political arena in 2008.”

Politico also reports that major liberal donors will meet in Washington this coming week to discuss fundraising strategies following the “shellacking” Democrats suffered in the midterm elections.