Filing public records requests is much harder than it should be. At all levels of government, various agencies have their own rules, requirements and fees -- making it hard even for professional journalists to navigate. Ultimately, this problem bogs down democracy, justice, and other key aspects of how the U.S. is supposed to function. Now you can help solve this problem through a crowdfunding campaign to help develop a useful online tool.

In 2012 the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation awarded a prototype grant to fund the initial development of FOIA Machine -- an online service to streamline the process of filing and tracking public record requests (including those made under the federal Freedom of Information Act).

FOIA Machine aims to be a central resource listing all public records request steps, rules, exceptions and best practices. It also will help users track requests on dashboards, receive alerts, share request blueprints and access social support and expertise.

To give this project a needed extra boost, the Center for Investigative Reporting has launched a Kickstarter campaign for FOIA Machine. This campaign quickly met its initial crowdfunding goal of $17,500, and now is pursuing a "stretch" goal of $50,000.

What will this extra funding yield? According to CIR, "If we reach our stretch goal of $50,000, we will host five open-records training and 'data-thon' sessions in five different states. During those events, we will show how the platform works, improve local contacts and legal knowledge in FOIA Machine for those states, and start a conversation about the best way to improve government access in those states. Think of it like a hackathon, but with a focus on building knowledge and not just tools."

Also the additional funding will help the team implement more features, such as more support for social interactions, an interface to expose and search the database of documents that result from public FOIA requests, making statistics for agency response times and public records laws available to external applications, and more.

This crowdfunding campaign runs through Aug. 16, with expected project deployment in September 2013.

Matching grant challenge. The Knight Foundation is offering CIR an additional $10,000 grant if the campaign attracts at least 2,000 backers. These backers are a crucial element of the FOIA Machine community -- the larger that community, the more resources of all kinds (including public use and support) this project is likely to ultimately attract.

Donate now to the FOIA Machine campaign on Kickstarter.