Jimmy Wales, Yochai Benkler, Charles Lewis, Lawrence Lessig, Kim Scott, and Mitch Kapor later joined as advisors, with Newmark and Dyson moving to the board.

[19] In May 2018, the Huffington Post reported that Clay Johnson, former director of Sunlight Labs, had been accused of sexual misconduct and mistreatment by multiple women during his employment there.

[21] In February 2019, Sunlight's board announced the conclusion of the review, publishing a report which found significant problems that led to institutional failures.

He wrote that the organization was no longer necessary because “Virtually all of the activities and staff of Sunlight have been transferred to other engaged institutions, or closed.”[24] Another open-government advocate suggested that a decline in donations was the ultimate cause.

"[32][33] The organization supported the DISCLOSE Act, a congressional bill that would have enacted stricter campaign finance regulations by requiring increased disclosure of political spending in federal elections.

[11] The Sunlight Foundation's initiatives included investigative journalism, lobbying, activism and software development at Sunlight Labs, which was an open source community that collected and organized public data;[35] Influence Explorer, which was an online tool for tracking money in politics;[36] and Foreign Influence Explorer, which tracked lobbyists who represent foreign clients in Washington D.C.[37] In 2006, the Sunlight Foundation provided funding to OpenSecrets to improve its campaign finance and lobbying listings and to the Center for Media and Democracy to oversee a joint project called Congresspedia.

[38] In January 2007, the Sunlight Foundation launched the Open House Project, a working group designed to make congressional procedures more transparent.

"[42] In October 2007, the Sunlight Foundation joined Taxpayers for Common Sense to launch EarmarkWatch.org, a project that asked citizens to research over 3,000 earmarks and identify the sponsors and recipients.

[44] Scout was a tool to create customized keyword alerts that notify users whenever the subscribed issue or bill is talked about in Congress, mentioned in the Federal Register or comes up in state legislation.

The project prompted Rep. Jeff Miller to delete his Twitter account after his tweet questioning President Barack Obama's citizenship was made public.

[49][50] Other incidents covered by Politwoops include a number of Republican politicians reacting to incorrect news of the ruling in the Supreme Court's case about health care reform,[51] violations of the social media policies of the House of Representatives' Congressional Handbook by tweeting campaign information[52] and six politicians who deleted tweets praising and welcoming home Taliban prisoner Sgt.

In April 2012, the Sunlight Foundation released Upwardly Mobile, a web application to research where in the United States individuals could enjoy financial security and an improved quality of life.

The relocation search tool was mostly powered by publicly available federal economic data that includes employment, salaries, average rents, and local medical and transportation costs.

[65] In March 2010, the Sunlight Foundation announced the Design for America contest to encourage visualizations to make complex government information more understandable to citizens.