It was a busy campaign season for us at FactCheck.org.
We wrote 154 articles tagged “Election 2014.” We covered contested House races from Nebraska to West Virginia, Senate races from Alaska to Louisiana, and gubernatorial campaigns from Florida to Wisconsin. That doesn’t include 31 articles we wrote for “Players Guide 2014,” our biennial feature on special interest groups that spend heavily to influence elections.
We also collaborated with other organizations to reach as many voters as possible.
We wrote an eight-part “Senate Battle 2014” series that was featured on Politico. Our campaign articles also appeared on USA Today’s Political Ad Tracker iTunes app and U.S. Vote Foundation’s “My Voter Account,” as well as on the websites of numerous news organizations that are free (and encouraged) to republish our work.
We were able to do this with your help, and we are asking for your help again as we gear up for the 2016 campaign cycle.
We pay for an ad tracking service that provides us with digital copies of new TV campaign ads and email alerts when they first appear on the air. The service, which is provided by Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, allows us to stay on top of the latest ads in races across the country.
In 2013-2014, CMAG provided us with TV ads in House, Senate and gubernatorial campaigns. For an additional cost, CMAG will provide us with presidential campaign ads in the 2016 cycle.
As of Sept. 30, 2014, the first quarter of our 2015 fiscal year, we had raised $1,995 in individual donations. We hope to raise $100,000 this fiscal year to help pay for this service and other expenses related to our work.
In addition to helping us pay for the ad tracking service, your donations also help defray the cost of hosting our website and an undergraduate fellowship program for Penn students.
Your donations are very important to us. We accept only individual donations. We do not accept donations from business corporations, labor unions, political parties or advocacy groups. Our policy is to disclose the identity of any individual donor giving $1,000 or more. We also do not accept advertising.
FactCheck.org is a project of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center. The University of Pennsylvania is a 501(c)(3) organization, and your contribution is deductible from U.S. federal income taxes to the full extent allowed by law.
You can find our annual and quarterly financial disclosure reports on our About Us page. You can make an online donation or, if you prefer, send a check to FactCheck.org, 202 South 36th Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104.
We thank you for your past support and look forward to serving you in 2015.
— Eugene Kiely
P.S. We will periodically update this post to let you know how close we are toward reaching our $100,000 goal.
Update, June 18: We have raised $53,873 in contributions from individual donors so far in fiscal year 2015, which ends June 30. Thank you.