About the Dashboards
The Ethics Commission’s Campaign Finance Dashboards are a web-based, graphical, interactive tool for exploring the campaign finance disclosures for campaign committees relevant to specific elections. This page details some of the data feeding the dashboards and how to interpret the tabs available.
Which Committees are Represented?
Candidate controlled committees as well as primarily formed committees that support/oppose candidates and ballot measures in the selected election. On this page, these committees are referred to as “Selected Committees”.
General purpose committees which make independent expenditures during the 90 days before an election are also represented on the tabs. A committee is included if it made independent expenditures totaling $1,000 or more during this 24-hour reporting period and filed a FPPC Form 496 with the SFEC.
What Are Committees Required to File and When?
Political Committees must regularly file financial statements disclosing contributions and expenditures using Form 460. This form must be filed semi-annually in January and July, covering the six month period preceding the filing deadline. Selected Committees that had no Form 460 filings as of the latest deadline may not appear. Campaign committees are required to disclose names of contributors for all itemized contributions. During an election year committees must file two additional pre-election Form 460 statements per California state law. Since 2018, San Francisco committees must file an additional third pre-election statement.
The “24-hour reporting period” or “late reporting period” begins 90 days before an election and includes the election day. Certain contributions and expenditures that take place during this period must be disclosed within 24 hours. See about the data for links to the datasets used on the election dashboards.
For a complete listing of committee filing deadlines, refer to the FPPC website of filing schedules.
Looking for information on a Committee not listed?
Some committees may file with the the State of California or another jurisdiction instead of with the San Francisco Ethics Commission. For information on State filers, check the California Secretary of State website Cal-Access.
About The Data
The campaign finance summaries provided on the dashboards are based on disclosure statements filed by campaign committees active in the specific election. The original financial statements are available for review in the campaign finance database.
The unfiltered data behind the dashboards is available from San Francisco’s Open Data portal:
- Campaign Filers – This dataset includes all committees who file with the Ethics Commission
- Campaign Filings Received – This dataset includes all campaign filings received by the Ethics Commission
- Summary Totals – This dataset includes the summary page information from campaign filings
- Transactions – This dataset includes all all transactions from FPPC Forms 460, 461, 496, 497, and 450. It combines all schedules, pages, and includes unitemized totals.
The following datasets are maintained by the Ethics Commission Staff, and are used for the data dashboards:
- Public Funds Disbursed – This dataset includes funds remitted to candidates participating in the public financing program.
- Individual Expenditure Ceilings – This dataset tracks the date and level to which candidates’ IECs were raised.
How To Download Data
To download data from the Tableau dashboard, click on the “Download” button at the bottom of the frame (a small rectangle with an arrow pointing down). The “data” button may be grayed out/unselectable, if this is the case, cancel out of the popover window titled “Download”, click on one of the colored bars on a chart and then click again to highlight and un-highlight, then try the “Download” button again.
About Filing Deadlines
For a complete list of filing deadlines for campaign committees, refer to the California FPPC website, as well as the Ethics Commission’s filing schedule page
Committees are also required to file Form 497 within 24 hours for contributions of $1000 or more made within 90 days of an election. In general, the Form 460 filing deadlines for recent elections are outlined in the following table:
| Election | Deadlines | 24-hour Period Begins |
|---|---|---|
| November 5, 2024 | July 31, Sept 26, Oct 24, Nov 11 2024 | August 7, 2024 |
| March 5, 2024 | Jan 25, Jan 31, Feb 22, March 1, July 31 2024 | December 6, 2023 |
| November 8, 2022 | August 1, Sept 29, Oct 27, Nov 4 | August 10, 2022 |
| June 6, 2022 | January 31, April 28, May 26, and June 3 | March 9, 2022 |
| February 15, 2022 | January 31, and February 3 and 11 | November 17, 2021 |
| November 3, 2020 | July 31, September 24, October 22 and 30, and February 1, 2021 | August 5, 2020 |
| March 3, 2020 | January 23, February 20 and 28, and July 31, 2020 | December 4, 2019 |
| November 5, 2019 | January 31, July 31, September 26, October 24, and November 1 2019 | August 7, 2019 |
| June 5, 2018 | January 31, April 26, May 24, July 31 2018; and January 31, 2019. | March 7, 2018 |
| November 6, 2018 | January 31, July 31, September 27, and October 25, 2018; and January 31, 2019. | August 8, 2018 |
About Public Financing
Candidates for Mayor and Board of Supervisors can be certified to receive public funds for use in their campaign. In order to be certified candidates must, among other things, demonstrate that they have raised a certain amount of contributions from individuals who reside in San Francisco and agree to abide by an Individual Expenditure Ceiling (IEC). To learn more, see the Ethics Commission pages regarding the public finance program and Individual Expenditure Ceilings.
FPPC Form 460 Schedules
Campaign committees disclose their financial activity using the FPPC Form 460, which is organized into Schedules by letter designation as follows:
- A: Monetary Contributions Received
- B1: Loans Received
- B2: Loan Guarantors
- C: Nonmonetary Contributions Received
- D: Summary of Expenditures Supporting/Opposing Other Candidates, Measures and Committees
- E: Payments Made
- F: Accrued Expenses (Unpaid Bills)
- G: Payments Made by an Agent or Independent Contractor (on Behalf of This Committee)
- H: Loans Made to Others
- I: Miscellaneous Increases to Cash
Interpreting Specific Tabs
Funds
Contributions to political committees can be in the form of Monetary, Non-Monetary, or Loans. Itemized contributions and their type are disclosed on a periodic basis leading up to an election. Beginning 90 days before an election, the amount and source –but not type– of contributions exceeding $1,000 must be disclosed within 24-hours (late contributions). The type of contributions made during the late reporting period are not differentiated, thus are shown here as “Late Contributions Report”. The charts on this tab aggregate contributions to committees primarily formed to support/oppose candidates or measures during the 2020 election from contributors giving $100 or more (itemized contributions). Contributions under $100 (unitemized contributions) are represented in aggregate in the summary chart. Most contributions less than $1,000 made after the most recent 460 deadline are not reflected. Contributions reported as late contributions before a pre-election reporting deadline may not appear here after a deadline if the committee failed to file. Late contributions by committees filing with the SFEC by paper are not reflected (Committees can file Form 497 on paper with the SFEC if they are state committees or file with another jurisdiction.) Funds from San Francisco’s Public Finance program received by committees are reported on Form 460-I as “Misc. Increases to Cash”, but on the dashboards, Public Financing funds come from this dataset available on DataSF based on internal Ethics Commission records.
Data from: Form 460 Schedules -A, -B, -C, filed in the election calendar year and prior calendar year, and Form 497 (P1) filed after the most recent 460 deadline
Spending
The charts on the election dashboards aggregate expenditures by candidate controlled committees, primarily formed ballot measure committees, and primarily formed candidate committees. Expenditures can take the form of payments, accrued expenses (unpaid bills), loans, independent expenditures, or payments to another committee during the late reporting period. Loan repayments are included in the Spending calculation for this tab.
Independent Expenditures do not have a payee associated with them and are itemized under the name of the committee making the expenditure.
Expenditures may appear as negative values to avoid double counting when summing across reporting schedules. e.g. an Unpaid Bill is reported as a positive value on Schedule F when incurred, and once paid is reported as a negative value on Schedule F and a positive value on Schedule E.
Data from: Form 460 Schedules -B, -E, -F, and -H filed in the election calendar year and prior calendar year, and Forms 496 (P2) and 497 (P2) filed after the most recent 460 deadline
Estimated Cash
This tab on the election dashboards shows an historic facing estimate of committee funding based on reports filed by the committee. It may not show an accurate day-to-day accounting. Unitemized expenses are subtracted on the final date of the disclosure reporting period, while unitemized incoming-funds are added on the initial date of the disclosure reporting period. Hovering over a line will highlight a filing and display more information about the balances at that point in time. Committees that had no filings as of the latest deadline are not shown. Data shown comes from committees’ Form 460 filings.
Data from: Form 460 filed in the election calendar year and prior calendar year
Contributions Location
The charts on this tab display itemized contributions to candidate controlled and ballot measure committees. Data shown comes from form 460-A, form 460-B1, form 460-C, and Form 497 filings. Committees that had no filings as of the latest deadline are not shown. Contributions under $100 are not represented. Non-individuals are entities such as Political Parties, Recipient Committees, Small Contributor Committees, or Businesses. ZIP code and State are determined by the donor address reported by recipient committees. The data shown shows activities electronically disclosed on Form 460A, 460B1, 460C, and 497 prior to 1am on the date listed on the bottom of the “Election Financials” tab and may not reflect activity since the latest reporting deadline.
Data from: Form 460 Schedules -A, -B1, and -C filed in the election calendar year and prior calendar year , and Form 497 filed after the most recent 460 deadline
Payments
Committees that had no filings as of the latest deadline are not shown. Campaign committees are required to itemize payments of $100 or more. Data shown comes from committees’ form 460-E filings. Committees self-categorize payments that fall under prescribed codes when reporting.
Data from: Form 460 Schedule-E filed in the election calendar year and prior calendar year
Expenses – Credit
This tab on the election dashboards shows committee expenses that were made on credit. Data shown comes from committees’ form 460-F filings. Expenses shown may have since been paid.
Data from: Form 460 Schedule-F filed in the election calendar year and prior calendar year
Vendor Payments
This tab on the election dashboards shows expenditures of $500 or more made on behalf of a committee by an agent or independent contractor. Data shown comes from committees’ form 460-G filings.
Data from: Form 460 Schedule-G filed in the election calendar year and prior calendar year
Occupations
This tab on the election dashboards groups contributions by the reported occupation of the contributor and presents the top 10 occupations (by dollar amount) of contributors to each committee. The bottom chart shows the names and contribution amounts for all contributors, grouped by occupation.
Data from: Form 460 Schedule A filed in the election calendar year and prior calendar year
Employers
This tab on the election dashboards groups contributions by the reported employer of the contributor and presents the top 10 employers (by dollar amount) of contributors to each committee. The bottom chart shows the names and contribution amounts for all contributors, grouped by employer.
Data from: Form 460 Schedule A filed in the election calendar year and prior calendar year