Lucy Burns Institute

The Lucy Burns Institute (LBI) is an American nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization. Founded in 2006, LBI publishes Ballotpedia, an online wiki-style encyclopedia about the U.S. political and judicial systems. The organization reported revenue of just over $3 million in 2014.

Organization

LBI was founded in December 2006 by the group's current president, Leslie Graves. The group is named after Lucy Burns, co-founder of the National Woman's Party. The group is headquartered in Middleton, Wisconsin.

LBI publishes Ballotpedia, an encyclopedia about American politics and elections. It covers the U.S. Congress, state executive officials, state legislatures, ballot measures, recall elections, school board elections, candidate ballot access, public policy, municipal government, and the federal and state judiciaries. Ballotpedia has been referenced in Politico, the Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Bloomberg Businessweek.

The Wall Street Journal described Ballotpedia as "a nonpartisan organization that collects election data." According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, Ballotpedia publishes "nonprofit wiki encyclopedias that use nonpartisan collaboration to gather political info for sharing." The Las Vegas Review-Journal described LBI as "a Wisconsin-based nonprofit that promotes education about local government."

Projects

In 2012, LBI published a study analyzing the quality of official state voter guides based on six criteria. According to the study, only nine states were rated “excellent” or “very good," while 24 states received a “fair” or “poor” rating.

In May 2014, the Center for American Progress used Ballotpedia data to analyze the immigration policy stances of Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

External links

• Lucy Burns Institute website
• Ballotpedia

• Organizational Profile – National Center for Charitable Statistics (Urban Institute)