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SourceLineThe Black Civic Data Platform

Our mission is to make sure Black communities are not simply informed about the decisions shaping our future, but equipped to help make those decisions. An informed community is a powerful community.

How it works

Type one address. Follow every decision that reaches your door.

Most decisions that shape your day are made by people you can name, at meetings you can attend, with money you help pay for. SourceLine pulls that record together in one place, for any address in the country, so you can see it, weigh in and be counted.

Start with your address

What we put together

  • Who represents youFrom your city council and school board to Congress, with how to reach them.
  • How they votedFrom official minutes and roll calls.
  • What is being decided nowAnd when you can weigh in.
  • Where the money goesFederal, state and local, at each stage, never added together.
  • How Black residents are doingWhere you live, beside your state and the nation.

Every figure comes from an official source, like the Census Bureau, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Education, state election offices and each council's own minutes. Each figure shows its year and its source. Research estimates are labeled as estimates. Local votes are being added place by place. Where they aren't loaded yet, the page says so.

Find your way: eleven chapters

Your address opens these in order, from your street up to Congress and back to you.

Your own place comes first everywhere: your city, then your county, your state and the nation. National actions, like a White House order on HBCUs, appear under the topic they touch, so you find them where they matter to you.

  1. Your streetWhat is working where you live, and what needs work?

  2. Who decidesWho decides what happens on your street?

  3. Being decided nowWhat are they deciding for you right now?

  4. How they votedHow did the people who represent you vote?

  5. The moneyWho pays, and where does the money go?

  6. Your schoolsWhat are your schools doing for the children near you?

  7. Justice and safetyIs your community kept safe, and treated fairly when the law steps in?

  8. Your environmentIs the air, water and land around you cared for?

  9. Your vote’s powerHow much power does your vote hold?

  10. Your voiceWhat do you want your officials to hear from you?

  11. What changedWhat changed after people spoke up?

How your voice gets heard

  • On any decision still open, answer "Where do you stand?" No is always a choice.
  • Only residents of the area it affects are counted, and names are never shared.
  • Once enough neighbors answer, the count shows on the page, and SourceLine shares the totals with the body that decides.
  • Email or call your officials from the same page.
  • Tell your officials what you want them to hear in Your voice. Then follow what happened in What changed.
  • Share any page with the buttons at the bottom.

Start with your address

About these figures

Every figure on this page shows the year it describes. Public agencies release their numbers on their own schedules, often a year or more after the work of counting is done. The Census Bureau, for example, publishes its five year community survey each December, and the national reading test is given every two years. That is why some figures are not from this year. SourceLine updates each one as soon as the agency publishes it.

For some counties and small towns, SourceLine has not found meeting records online. Where it has not, we add them as they become available. A page that says SourceLine hasn’t updated a record yet means exactly that.