About

The California Civic Data Coalition is an open-source network of journalists and computer programmers from news organizations across America.

History

The coalition was formed in 2014 by Ben Welsh and Agustin Armendariz to lead the development of open-source software that makes California's public data easier to access and analyze. The effort has drawn hundreds of contributions from developers and journalists at dozens of news organizations.

Our primary focus is refining CAL-ACCESS, the jumbled, dirty and difficult government database that tracks campaign finance and lobbying activity in California politics.

In 2015 the coalition was named a winner of the Knight News Challenge and awarded $250,000 in philanthropic funding from the Knight Foundation, the Democracy Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Rita Allen Foundation.

Leadership

Jennifer LaFleur

Jennifer LaFleur

Cheryl Phillips

Cheryl Phillips

Ben Welsh

Ben Welsh

Aaron Williams

Aaron Williams

Developers

Contact

Events

Development has been advanced by a series of code sprints and training events.

What others are saying

“A terrific idea.” The Huffington Post
“This is important work.” Joyce Terhaar, Executive Editor, Sacramento Bee
“Turns ugly government data into something useful for reporters.” Ryan Pitts, OpenNews
“These folks are the best in the business.” Brian Boyer, Editor, NPR Visuals
“One of the journalism projects I talk about most often. So smart.” Anjanette Delgado, Gannett
“Que coisa foda!” Rodolfo Viana, Freelance journalist
“Amazing #opendata work” Simon Rogers, Data Editor, Google
“Sets a new, high bar for publishing campaign and election data.” Derek Eder, Partner, DataMade
“This is dank af.” Michael Rosenberg, HH Civic Hackers

Logo

The coalition's official logo is known as the geobear. It was created by Aaron Williams based on Bennett Kowald's design for the Noun Project.

California Civic Data Coalition logo