WhatDoTheyKnow is run by the charity mySociety, and we believe information should be accessible to everyone. 

WhatDoTheyKnow is the UK’s largest online Freedom of Information (FOI) platform, helping people to submit an FOI request, and storing the information released in a searchable public archive. WDTK enables citizens to realise their right to information and enhances transparency of public institutions. 

Through our work we have demonstrated that technology can be used to prise open closed doors, and make decision-making more transparent. We have empowered those working for openness inside and outside the system – now we want to go further.

WhatDoTheyKnow is one of mySociety’s innovative projects – to support this and other similar work you can donate here:


Why does mySociety need donations for these sites?

Running WhatDoTheyKnow needs attention every day. We need to do work to:

  • Support users with FOI requests (we help approx 10,000 user support requests per month)
  • Manage risk and respond to potential data breaches 
  • Offer training & resources to new FOI users, with a focus on supporting users from marginalised communities
  • Work on new features for the site to make it more accessible 
  • Provide support for the other countries using our open source code to run their own FOI site – from Jordan to Ukraine
  • Maintaining all the servers behind the scenes that help us manage the storage of over 1 million public requests!

Read our 20 year Impact Report here

I want to be a mySociety supporter…

There are three key ways you can support mySociety, and our work on projects like WhatDoTheyKnow.

I want to make a substantial contribution…

We’re looking for generous supporters to help us build our supporter network.

For instance, we’re looking for donations to:

  • Match fund to help supporter’s money go further (e.g. you give us £1,000 to make 100 people’s £10 into £20)
  • Support ‘Knowledge is Power’ projects that empower marginalised communities with access to information

If you’re interested in working with us to make this happen, please get in touch with Alice, our Head of Fundraising at supporters@mysociety.org.

I am a representative of a trust or foundation…

We have a variety of project ideas we’d love to discuss, and are especially interested in developing new relationships around improving our public education role. Please get in touch with Alice, our Head of Fundraising at supporters@mysociety.org.

I work for an organisation that uses your service already…

There’s three things you can do to help us:

  • Share your usage of FOI with us, so we can help make a stronger case for our impact.
  • Sign up for our WhatDoTheyKnow Pro service – providing advanced features
  • Share our campaigns with your supporters and networks – and tell them how supporting us supports you.
  • Corporate donations can help us with match funding.

Sign up to our mailing list here to keep in touch, or contact team@whatdotheyknow.com

Disclaimer: Donations from individuals to mySociety are classified as unrestricted for accounting purposes unless otherwise specified by the donor.