MAPLight.org won first prize at NetSquared's second conference for online social change.

• What project is the most likely to take off and succeed?
• What project will achieve the greatest impact?
• What project will be best leveraged by the social change community?

These were the three criteria N2Y2 Participants were asked to use when choosing which of the 21 Featured Projects should receive the $25,000 First Prize.

The winner, MAPLight.org illuminates the connection between money and politics. Thanks to Advomatic, MAPLight connects campaign contributions and votes for U.S. Congress, providing groundbreaking transparency so that bloggers, journalists, and citizens can hold legislators accountable.

The MAPLight.org database brings together information on campaign contributions and votes in the California legislature. The first of its kind in the nation, MAPLight provides an unprecedented window into the connections between money and politics.

MAPLight.org includes complete data for the 2003-2004 California legislative session and Advomatic is processing data from 2005-2006 and expanding MAPLight.org to include the U.S. Congress.

The site pulls data from FEC databases, and scrapes data from Thomas.loc.gov in order to directly show the monies' related legislative outcome. This transparency can lead to a more informed public and spur vital election reform.