Follow the Money — Federal Contracts x Campaign Donations

$700 billion in federal contracts gets awarded every year. This actor shows you who's paying the politicians who control those budgets.

Every government contract has a paper trail. Every campaign donation has a name. Follow the Money cross-references both — and surfaces the connections nobody else is mapping at scale.

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The Problem

Federal contract data lives on USAspending.gov. Campaign donations live on the FEC website. They don't talk to each other.

That gap is where influence hides.

A defense contractor wins a $2B award. Their employees donate to the senator on the Armed Services Committee who approved it. The data is public. The connection is not — until you link the two.

Doing this manually takes an investigative team weeks per contractor. This actor does it in minutes.

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What You Actually Get

Three data layers. Each is useful alone. Together, they tell a story no single dataset can.

Layer 1: Federal Contract Awards

Every contract for your target company — pulled from USAspending.gov with full metadata.

{
  "row_type": "contract",
  "recipient_name": "THE BOEING COMPANY",
  "obligated_amount": 29485980901,
  "awarding_agency": "Department of Defense",
  "awarding_sub_agency": "Department of the Air Force",
  "award_description": "KC-X MODERNIZATION PROGRAM",
  "action_date": "2011-02-24",
  "naics_code": "336411",
  "place_of_performance_state": "WA"
}

Layer 2: Campaign Donations (FEC)

Individual employee contributions linked to the same company — names, amounts, recipients, dates.

{
  "row_type": "donation",
  "contributor_name": "WEST, BRIAN",
  "contributor_employer": "BOEING",
  "contributor_occupation": "MANAGER",
  "contribution_amount": 25812.70,
  "contribution_date": "2024-11-03",
  "committee_name": "HARRIS VICTORY FUND",
  "candidate_name": "Jon Ossoff",
  "candidate_party": "Democrat"
}

Layer 3: The Connections (This Is the Point)

The actor maps donations to committee assignments and produces a scored connection with a plain-language narrative.

{
  "row_type": "connection",
  "company_name": "Boeing",
  "awarding_agency": "Department of Defense",
  "candidate_name": "Tammy Baldwin",
  "oversight_committee": "Senate Committee on Appropriations",
  "total_contract_value": 155509616200,
  "total_donation_value": 5600,
  "donor_count": 1,
  "connection_strength": "moderate",
  "connection_score": 55,
  "temporal_flag": "contracts_preceded_donations",
  "connection_summary": "Boeing employees donated $5,600 to Tammy Baldwin, who sits on Senate Committee on Appropriations which oversees Department of Defense. Department of Defense awarded $155,509,616,200 in contracts to Boeing."
}

That narrative is the product. Not the raw data. The connection.

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Real Output: Boeing

$155 billion in Department of Defense contracts. Here's where the donations went:

Donation Recipient	Committees	Why It Matters
Jon Ossoff (D-GA)	Senate Appropriations	Direct oversight of defense spending — the budget line that funds Boeing's largest contracts
Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)	Appropriations; Commerce/Science/Transportation	Dual committee reach covering DoD procurement and NASA's $32.7B budget — Boeing builds the Space Launch System

Real Output: Lockheed Martin

$529 billion in total federal contracts. The donation map:

Donation Recipient	Committees	Why It Matters
Elissa Slotkin (D-MI)	Armed Services	Authorizes the weapons programs Lockheed builds — F-35, missile defense, classified programs
Deb Fischer (R-NE)	Appropriations; Armed Services; Commerce	Triple committee overlap: authorizes programs, funds them, and oversees the agencies that manage them
Ted Cruz (R-TX)	Commerce/Science/Transportation	Oversees NASA and FAA — Lockheed holds major NASA contracts and builds satellites

These aren't random donations. They're investments mapped to budget authority.

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Who Uses This

Investigative Journalists

You're working a story on defense spending. You need the money trail — fast. This gives you contractor-to-politician links with committee context in one run. No FOIA. No weeks of cross-referencing spreadsheets.

Political Consultants

Your client wants to know which contractors are funding their opponent — and through which budget committees that money flows. Run the contractor name. Get the map.

Government Contractor Competitors

Your rival won the contract. You want to know if their donation patterns align with the committee members who influenced the award. Now you can check in minutes instead of guessing.

Watchdog Organizations

You track corruption patterns across hundreds of contractors. Automate this actor on a schedule and flag new connections as they appear. Build your evidence database continuously.

Lobbyists

You need to know which legislators already have financial ties to your client's industry before you walk into the meeting. This shows you who's already in the ecosystem.

Compliance Teams

Your company donates to political campaigns. You need to ensure those donations don't create the appearance of pay-to-play with your government contracts. This actor maps the overlap so you can address it before a reporter does.

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Input

Parameter	Description
companyName	Company name to investigate (e.g., "Boeing", "Lockheed Martin", "Raytheon")
dateFrom	Start date (YYYY-MM-DD). Defaults to 2 years ago
dateTo	End date (YYYY-MM-DD). Defaults to today
minContractAmount	Minimum contract award to include. Default: $0
minDonationAmount	Minimum FEC donation to include. Default: $200 (FEC itemization threshold)
maxContractResults	Max contract rows to return. Default: 500
maxDonationResults	Max donation rows to return. Default: 500
fecApiKey	Optional. Your own api.data.gov key for higher rate limits. Free at https://api.data.gov/signup/
includeSubawards	Include sub-awards from USAspending. More results, slower run

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Output Fields

Contract Records

Field	Description
recipient_name	Contractor name as listed on the award
obligated_amount	Dollar value of the contract
awarding_agency	Federal agency (DoD, NASA, HHS, etc.)
awarding_sub_agency	Sub-agency (Dept of the Air Force, etc.)
award_description	What the contract covers
action_date	Contract start date
naics_code	Industry classification
place_of_performance_state	State where work is performed
contract_type	Definitive, IDIQ, BPA, etc.

Donation Records

Field	Description
contributor_name	Individual donor name
contributor_employer	Employer (matched to your search company)
contributor_occupation	Job title
contribution_amount	Donation amount
contribution_date	Date of contribution
committee_name	Receiving committee (PAC, Victory Fund, etc.)
candidate_name	Politician receiving the donation
candidate_party	Party affiliation

Connection Records

Field	Description
awarding_agency	Federal agency that awarded contracts
candidate_name	Politician who received donations
oversight_committee	The congressional committee linking them
total_contract_value	Sum of all contracts from this agency to this company
total_donation_value	Sum of all donations from company employees to this politician
donor_count	Number of unique employee donors
connection_strength	strong, moderate, or weak
connection_score	0-100 numeric score
temporal_flag	Whether donations preceded contracts (strongest signal)
connection_summary	Plain-language narrative explaining the link

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How Connection Scoring Works

Not all donations are meaningful. A defense contractor donating to a senator on the Agriculture Committee is noise. The same donation to a senator on Armed Services is a signal.

The scoring engine:

1. Maps committee assignments for every donation recipient in Congress using official legislative data
2. Identifies agency jurisdiction — which committees authorize and fund which agencies
3. Matches contractor agencies to committee oversight — if Boeing's contracts come from DoD, and the senator sits on Armed Services, that's a direct match
4. Scores the overlap:
   • STRONG (70-100) — Recipient sits on a committee with direct budget authority over the contractor's primary agencies, multiple employee donors, high dollar amounts
   • MODERATE (40-69) — Direct committee overlap with smaller dollar amounts or fewer donors
   • WEAK (below 40) — Indirect or partial oversight connection
5. Analyzes timing — donations that precede contract awards are flagged as the strongest signal
6. Generates a narrative explaining the connection in plain language

The narrative is written for a non-expert reader. Drop it into a report, a pitch deck, or a news story without editing.

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Data Sources

• Federal contracts: USAspending.gov API (official U.S. Treasury data, updated daily)
• Campaign donations: FEC API (official Federal Election Commission data)
• Committee assignments: Current Congress committee rosters from the unitedstates/congress-legislators project

All data is public record. This actor combines and interprets it. Nothing is scraped from paywalled or restricted sources.

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FAQ

How current is the data? USAspending.gov updates daily. FEC data updates on filing schedules (quarterly for most, monthly for Senate). Committee rosters reflect the current Congress.

What about state and local contracts? This version covers federal contracts only. Federal is where the big money moves — $700B+ annually.

Does this cover dark money or Super PACs? Direct FEC filings only — individual donations and registered PACs. Super PACs and 501(c)(4) organizations file separately and do not always disclose donors. Those records are not included.

Can I run this on a schedule? Yes. Set it up on Apify Scheduler and monitor new contract awards and donation filings as they appear. Useful for tracking active contractors or politicians over time.

How do I export the results? Download as CSV, JSON, or Excel from the dataset tab. Or connect to Google Sheets, Airtable, or any BI tool through Apify integrations.

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Start Here

1. Enter a company name
2. Optionally narrow the date range and filters
3. Run it
4. Open the Connection Records — that's where the story is

The contracts tell you who gets the money. The donations tell you who gives it back. The connections tell you why it matters.

Follow the money.