The Center for Responsive Politics tracks political donations and their influence on public policy. It keeps an exhaustive database of all federally disclosed donations received by presidential and congressional candidates. Visitors may find, for example, how much the tobacco industry or the pharmaceutical industry has donated in a given election and to whom.

 

The organization accepts no money from political parties or corporations. Funding comes from the Ford, Carnegie, Joyce and Sunlight foundations and the Pew Charitable Trusts, along with individual contributions. The records maintained on the Web site are searchable by donor, recipient, state, industry, locality, year and election cycle. Visitors can find campaign finance profiles for all elected officials, which include top contributors and campaign expenditures, as well as personal financial disclosures for all election cycles in which the official participated. Visitors may also enter a ZIP code or state to see how much people who live there have donated and to whom.