Who paid for the research behind the headline? Now you can just look.
Everyone says follow the money. Nobody shows you how. The receipts already exist: lobbying filings, tax records, campaign money, grant data. They're just scattered across a dozen government sites in language nobody reads. Daylight puts them in one place, in plain English, so you can follow the money from the funder to the study to the expert to the law.
We don't investigate and we don't accuse. We re-organize records the government already publishes so you can read them yourself, and every figure links to the actual filing.
EIN •••••••• · "CARBON MITIGATION INIT" · $15,000,000
FORM 990 PG 41 LN 1 · ACK. SCIENCE 2004 FN. †
Why this matters
Type the name. Read the whole money story on one page.
A study, a funder, a think tank, an expert, a bill: name it and Daylight assembles the picture the footnotes left out, in four passes, with every step linked to its source.
Resolve
Match the entity across funders, grants, 990s, lobbying registries, and the research record.
OPENSECRETS · FEC · IRS 990 · OPENALEXTrace
Draw the money path from funder to institution to expert or study to lobbying to legislation to media.
DIRECTED MONEY GRAPHReconcile
Compare what was disclosed against what's discoverable in the record. Flag the gaps.
DISCLOSED vs. DISCOVEREDSee the picture
A plain-language Capture Score with a full drill-down, plus a map of where the idea spread.
CAPTURE SCORE · PROPAGATIONThe Capture Score
One readable number for how much a finding leans toward the money behind it, built from the funder's stake, how completely the tie was disclosed, how close the relationship is, whether the conclusion bends toward the funder, and how far the funded idea spread. Every point drills down to the public record it came from.
Disclosure gaps
See side by side the ties a paper, witness, or filing declared vs. the ones the public record reveals. The footnote that should have been a headline.
Money-flow trace
The path from dollar to outcome, every edge linked to a public filing, across oil, pharma, tobacco, and any industry with a stake.
Propagation map
Watch a funded idea travel from paper to citations to IPCC and agency reports to bills to media, hop by hop.
Plain-language dossiers
A readable card for any expert, institution, or bill: what the public record says about who funded it, with the source for every line.
Preview of the live demo
Fully interactive, built from illustrative figures drawn from published reporting and filings. Look it up yourself →
We don't have secret data. We have public data, finally readable.
Daylight only ever shows you records the government and academic publishers already release. Every figure links back to the original filing.
We re-organize, not allege
Daylight rearranges published records into a readable view. It surfaces the gap between what was disclosed and what's on file. It doesn't accuse anyone.
Every claim is sourced
Each node and figure links to the exact filing it came from. If you can't trace it to a public record, it isn't in Daylight.
Open by default
Free to use with no account. The methodology is published, the data is downloadable, and corrections are public.
A public good, paid for by the public.
Daylight has no paywall and never sells your data. Like the investigative journalism it supports, it runs on grants and reader donations, so the people who need it most never hit a price tag. Get notified when it opens, and chip in if you can.
Donations open at launch. Pick a tier and we'll note the pledge with your signup.
Fair questions.
Is this really free? +
Yes, free for everyone, no account and no card. Daylight is run as a public good, funded by grants and voluntary reader donations, not subscriptions. Donating is optional and never changes what you can see.
Aren't these records already public? +
They are, and that's the point. The data lives across Senate, FEC, IRS, agency, and journal systems in formats most people can't easily use. Daylight's only job is to pull it together and make it readable. We add no secret data.
Does Daylight accuse anyone of wrongdoing? +
No. It re-organizes published records and shows the gap between what was disclosed and what's on file. Disclosed funding with no hidden ties is shown as exactly that. It's a reading tool, not a verdict.
Can I check or download the underlying records? +
Every figure links to the original filing, the methodology is published, and the data is downloadable. Anyone can verify a trace or flag a record for correction.