We Need Your Help to Get Session Video Online

The legislature refuses to put video of their sessions online for you to download. But they will sell it on DVD. So, in years past, Richmond Sunlight has spent nearly a thousand dollars each year to buy many dozens of DVDs, rip the video, and provide it on our website, free of charge. It’s even indexed by bill number and legislator—an incredibly powerful feature. But if you want the video for the 2010 session, you’re out of luck. We didn’t have the money, so we have no video.

Don’t let another year go by without video. We need your help. We’ve done the math, and it costs us, on average, $18/day to buy the DVDs for the House and the Senate. That’s exactly what we’re asking you for—no money for overhead, no money for processing the videos, only the exact cost of the DVDs. Donate $18 and sponsor one day’s video. Free one day’s video from the legislative archives and let us make them available to anybody in the world. We’ll put your name on that day’s page as the sponsor. If you sponsor at least five days of video—$90—we’ll display your organization’s logo and link to your website.

Richmond Sunlight has a $0 budget. This whole website was created and is operated entirely on a volunteer basis. There are no “dollars to be shifted around,” no priorities to be changed—there’s simply no money. So if we don’t raise enough money to cover the whole session, then we can’t put that video online.

Please, donate to an open democracy. Let’s pour sunlight into the General Assembly.

January 31 Update: You did it!