Lucy Burns Institute
The Lucy Burns Institute (LBI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Middleton, Wisconsin. It was founded in December 2006 and sponsors Ballotpedia. Since 2016, the Lucy Burns Institute does business using the name Ballotpedia.
About the Lucy Burns Institute
Mission
The mission of the Lucy Burns Institute is to empower our audience to engage in democracy by delivering exceptionally high quality information. Informed voters are the foundation of democracy and positive change starts with them. We believe that in the online environment, we have an extraordinary opportunity to reach voters with comprehensive facts, information, and context. With your help, we have created and continue to build Ballotpedia, the online encyclopedia of American politics and elections. With over 300,000 original articles, Ballotpedia’s goal is to inform people about politics by providing accurate and objective information about politics at all levels of government. We are firmly committed to neutrality. Ballotpedia’s articles are 100 percent written by our professional staff. We thoroughly vet and carefully curate all information we publish, aggregating from news and government sources, down to the most obscure public record.
History
In late 2006, in an effort to gain a better understanding of local government activity, Wisconsin resident Leslie Graves filed a number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. She encountered several roadblocks along the way, including a number of officials who ignored her FOIA requests. Frustrated with how difficult it was to learn more about her local government, Graves wondered if perhaps other citizens had experienced similar obstacles. Friends and family suggested that Graves create a resource devoted to helping citizens navigate the laws surrounding government transparency.
In December 2006, the Lucy Burns Institute was incorporated as a nonprofit organization in Madison, Wisconsin. In 2007, the Lucy Burns Institute launched WikiFOIA, a collaborative, crowd-sourced approach to understanding state-level FOIA laws. The goal of WikiFOIA was to harness local knowledge in an effort to empower citizens seeking information from governmental entities.
Later in 2007, inspired by the success of WikiFOIA, Graves started thinking about other areas of government that can be difficult to navigate due to a lack of easily accessible information. She came up with the idea for user-driven online platforms dedicated to sharing information about statewide and local ballot measures and the laws governing them; state and local recall elections and the laws governing them; federal and state court judges, their appointments and elections, and the intricate laws governing judicial selection; and state court judicial administration. Ballotpedia and Judgepedia were born.
Because the Lucy Burns Institute was still a young nonprofit in 2007, Leslie asked the Sam Adams Alliance, another nonprofit organization, to incubate Ballotpedia and Judgepedia. In July 2009, LBI took over sponsorship of Ballotpedia and Judgepedia. Under LBI’s guidance, Ballotpedia has grown to include information on state legislators and state legislative elections; statewide executive officials and their elections and appointments; presidential elections; U.S. Congressional candidates and elections; school board candidates and elections; and city and municipal elections.
In March 2015, LBI merged its two flagship websites, Ballotpedia and Judgepedia. All pages on Judgepedia were transferred to Ballotpedia in order to provide readers with a more fluid, user-friendly experience (Press release: Ballotpedia to absorb Judgepedia).
LBI seeks to provide comprehensive coverage of the over 507,000 elected officials in the United States, as well as the laws that govern every kind of election.
The organization's namesake
The Institute is named in honor of Lucy Burns, a suffragette who helped to organize the National Woman’s Party in 1916. In her work to advocate the cause of “votes for women,” she organized, lobbied, wrote, edited, traveled, marched, spoke, rallied and picketed. When she was eventually arrested for her activities, she led a hunger strike in prison and was ultimately force-fed. She knew that being able to participate in a democracy by voting was an essential way to express our human dignity. For this goal, she was willing to fight and suffer.
According to the LBI website: "In a small way, we like to think our work carries on the spirit of Lucy Burns. In modern America, the barriers to full participation in our democracy aren’t as concrete as the ability to cast a vote. What can prevent people from fully engaging in today’s political process is when it is difficult to find accurate, comprehensive information about election laws, politicians, candidates and elections. LBI’s goal is to help solve that problem for all three branches of government, at all three levels of government."
Annual reports
- 2020 Ballotpedia Annual Report
- 2019 Ballotpedia Annual Report
- 2018 Ballotpedia Annual Report
- 2017 Ballotpedia Annual Report
- 2016 Ballotpedia Annual Report
- 2015 Ballotpedia Annual Report
- 2014 Lucy Burns Institute Annual Report
- 2013 Lucy Burns Institute Annual Report
Funding
The Lucy Burns Institute/Ballotpedia is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by donations from individuals and foundations. We also provide Premium Research Services; sell access to our election and political information (such as candidate lists, information about ballot measures, and more) via our API; and receive revenue through digital ad sales.
Governance
The Lucy Burns Institute is governed by a board of directors. The current members of the board are:
- Mike Barnhart, Chair
- Tim Dunn
- Dan Liljenquist
- Todd Graves
- Steven Nemerovski
- Jack McHugh, Board Member Emeritus
Contact
The Lucy Burns Institute can be reached via mail at the following address:
- 8383 Greenway Blvd.
- Suite 600
- Middleton, WI 53562
By email at info@lucyburns.org.
See also
- Support the Lucy Burns Institute
- About Ballotpedia
- Job opportunities
- Staff members
- Press releases
- Privacy policy
External links
