Transforming: Services

Follow the Money: Help Watchdogs, Whistleblowers, and Our Communities Find and Understand Financial Trails and Organizational Relationships

On Demand

ALA Unit/Subunit: RUSA

Moderator(s)

Alice Kalinowski

Public Services Manager
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Stanford, California

Slides Handouts Slides

Speaker(s)

Justin Mayo

Data Journalist
Big Local News, Stanford University
Kelly Janousek

Librarian
California State University, Long Beach, California
AP

Andrew Perez

Senior Editor
Daily Poster
JR

Julia Rock

Reporter
The Daily Poster

Moderator(s)

KL

Kelly LaVoice

“Follow the money” presents research and reference strategies to assist patrons in uncovering financial trails and organizational relationships. It will help librarians develop strategies to answer questions such as:

Which individuals or companies are financially backing a ballot measure?
How did lobbyists affect government decisions around when businesses could reopen?
Who sits on boards of nonprofits - U.S. IRS 501(c)(3) - and how are the nonprofit’s funds being used?
Who are the major donors to an academic institution?
How can the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Public Records Acts, and Sunshine Laws be used to uncover hard to find information?

This program will help librarians assist patrons looking for financial and relationship information from open and subscription sources. The panelists (including a librarian and an investigative journalist) will use storytelling as they describe cases from their own work that will reveal strategies for digging deep into this type of information. Attendees will be better able to navigate the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request process and will be provided with a quick reference handout and a research guide with tips, tricks, and available resources. Participants will walk away with new strategies, new resources, and new perspectives.

Resources available at https://brass.libguides.com/followthemoney.

Learning Objectives:

Participants will be able to help patrons differentiate between the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Public Records Acts, and Sunshine Laws to determine if they are applicable.
Participants will be able to identify resources for finding financial trails and organizational relationships for nonprofits, government organizations, and corporations.
Participants will develop new strategies for locating difficult to access information that may not be readily available in library subscription databases or on the open web.