Sunlight Foundation and Helium Partner to Promote Transparency in Politics

Business Wire, July 26, 2007

Hot Issues on the Hill Debated at Helium.com

ANDOVER, Mass. -- Helium, a directory of real-world knowledge, powered by people like you, and the Sunlight Foundation, an organization dedicated to leveraging the Internet to increase transparency in Congress, today announced a strategic partnership. Issues raised by the Sunlight Foundation can now be debated live at Helium.

The Sunlight Foundation promotes transparency in politics by providing citizens with hands-on information about Congress and elected representatives. Its goal is to help reduce corruption and ensure greater accountability by the government to encourage public trust in democratic institutions. Helium is the leading destination for debate online where users can offer their opinions and gain new insight.

"Sunlight's partnership with Helium leverages the power of the Internet to strengthen citizen engagement in the democratic process," said Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation. "Bloggers and citizen journalists will have a new haven at Helium to participate in conversations about the importance of transparency in promoting greater accountability in Congress."

Helium harnesses the power of user-contributed content and provides a fair environment for people to debate any issue online. Now, anyone with an opinion can write an article for either the pro or con side of any issue. Today, titles provided by The Sunlight Foundation such as "Should former members of Congress be able to work as lobbyists after leaving Congress?" are available for debate at Helium.

"Helium is pleased to help further The Sunlight Foundation's goal to keep citizens informed by using the power of the Internet to make information available to all," said Mark Ranalli, president and CEO of Helium. "This partnership will shed light on vital issues that impact America today because Helium provides a fair and trusted place for any person to share their point of view and read perspectives provided by others, too."

To learn more, visit http://Sunlightfoundation.helium.com.

About the Sunlight Foundation

Founded in January, 2006, the mission of the Sunlight Foundation is to strengthen the relationship between lawmakers and their constituents. Sunlight puts information and tools in citizens' hands so they can learn more about what Congress and their elected representatives are doing.

Its ultimate goal is full transparency by Congress, its members and staff to help reduce corruption, ensure greater accountability, and foster public trust in this vital institution of democracy. Since its founding, the Sunlight Foundation has issued nearly $2 million to groups to digitize existing information about Congress and those that use Internet technology to further Sunlight's goals. Additionally, the Sunlight Foundation has fostered its own projects such as Congresspedia, OpenCongress.org and Congress' Family Business.

About Helium

Helium is a directory of real-world knowledge, powered by people like you. Helium goes beyond search, bringing together real advice from real people on a wide variety of topics. Helium combines user-created content with a simple yet highly effective peer-rating process which pushes the best content to the top, whether there are 5 or 500 articles on a topic. Described as "About, Yahoo Answers and Wikipedia all rolled into one," by Search Engine Journal, Helium is a fun place for people who are passionate about a topic read, write and rate articles and be rewarded for their efforts. Try it now at http://www.Helium.com.