Adam Andrzejewski’s Remarkable Legacy R.I.P.
Adam, founder of Open the Books was a friend and most admirable person. rsk
One-of-a-kind. Relentless optimist. Fearless visionary.
These are a few of the descriptors I’ve heard over and over again in the days since we lost our founder and CEO, Adam Andrzejewski.
It’s with a heavy heart that I tell you he passed unexpectedly last weekend, but he leaves behind a tremendous legacy.
Adam was a leader in business, a family man, a marathon runner, and unmatched in his advocacy on behalf of taxpayers. We’ll miss him for his good nature, his ability to motivate, his optimism, his collaborative spirit, and so much more.
His dream was to spark a “Transparency Revolution” – to help taxpayers understand how every bit of their money was spent and hold government officials accountable – not just in Washington, DC, but in their own backyards, too.
Since 2009, he was unerring as we worked together to build a well-oiled machine to shine a spotlight on spending. The result is OpenTheBooks.com: 55,000 open records requests filed every year; tens of trillions in spending captured and reported at the federal, state, and local levels; dozens of citations in Congress; and tens of thousands of media citations from the New York Times to the Washington Examiner to your local morning newscast.
One glance at social media this past week will confirm: Adam’s impact has been immeasurable. He didn’t do it alone, though. He surrounded himself with a dedicated team that shares his vision for transparent government.
As Adam’s co-founder, I built the system that captures all 50 state checkbooks, the salaries of every federal employee, spending data from 17,000 towns across the country, and plenty in between. And it’s not going anywhere.
The best way to honor Adam’s legacy is to ensure the work continues until his vision is fully realized: every dime, online, in real time. He’d be proud to see us all come together to accomplish it.
In the coming days, you’ll hear more from the team that keeps our transparency machine humming — from Substack investigations to major reports to Waste of the Day spending examples. We will continue to make news as we work to uncover waste, fraud and abuse.
You’ll also hear more about how you can help honor Adam’s legacy and keep his life’s work going strong for years to come.
Until then, I’ll leave you with just a few excerpts from all that’s been written about him this week.
And here you can watch his address to Hillsdale College students, in which he lays out our vision. It has been viewed more than 4 million times because the message is simple and universal!
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