Prepared for Commissioner Chris Gallus · Montana COPP · April 2026
Montana state seal
Montana Commissioner of Political Practices
Concourse Prototype Packet
April 2026 — Prototype Packet

A modern COPP, standing up in days — not years.

Three working prototypes built on real Montana data, showing what a modernized campaign finance and lobbying system could look like — plus an interim backup so public access keeps running even if the legacy system falters before 2028.

By the numbers

Real Montana data, already ingested.

Every prototype below runs on data scraped directly from the COPP public portals. No mock data.

MT Contributions
63,156
1998-2026, Accountability Project
MT Expenditures
129,261
$102M tracked
MT Lobbyist Reports
6,999
2017-2026, 59K payment lines
Lobbying Spend Tracked
$39.8M
Five biennia, all sessions
Unique Lobbyists
1,044
1,201 principals
Prototypes

Three surfaces, one vision.

Click into each to explore. Each runs on a separate Vercel deployment; the demo hub links them together.

Prototype 1

Campaign Finance Explorer

A public-facing explorer for Montana donors and recipients, with the filter-by-city capability you called out on our 4/13 call. Built into our 50-state campaign finance platform, already powering similar searches elsewhere.

  • Top donors by city (Billings, Helena, Missoula, Bozeman)
  • Committee, individual, organization breakdowns
  • Methodology + data lineage surfaced inline
  • Scales to any MT jurisdiction
Open prototype →
Prototype 2

Lobbyist Registry & Filer

Dual-sided app: public search of Montana's 1,044 lobbyists and 1,201 principals (2017-2026), plus a modernized filer wizard that replaces the legacy portal experience.

  • 1,044 lobbyists · 1,201 principals · 6,999 reports
  • Biennial session views (2018 / 2020 / 2022 / 2024 / 2026)
  • Filer wizard: structured categories + bill positions
  • $3,000 threshold + MCA 5-7 inline validation
Open prototype →
Prototype 3

COPP Read-Only Mirror

Live hot-standby of the Sapiens/AdBench registry. If the legacy system goes dark — retirement, defunding, hardware failure — citizens, journalists, and campaigns still have public access.

  • Accepts nightly CSV/XML export from Sapiens
  • Idempotent ingest pipeline (SQLite → Postgres in prod)
  • Read-only public search preserved
  • Zero data migration, zero forklift
Open prototype →
Why Concourse

We build state software the way modern software should be built.

Proven on identical problems

We stood up the Oklahoma Ethics Commission filing system in 10 days after a prior vendor failed — AI-parsed PDFs, staff review workflow, public search. Live today.

30+ states, similar workloads

Arkansas lobbyist portal, Colorado budget tracker, FPISC permitting, CalFire incident intelligence, Illinois open payroll. State software is the job, not a sideline.

Aligned to your timeline

2027 Legislature via House Bill 10 for the full build. Until then, the interim mirror keeps the lights on and protects public access through the 2028 election.

No forklift migration

We meet Sapiens where it is. You keep running the legacy system as long as you want; we ingest its export, publish modern surfaces, retire it on your schedule.

Roadmap

Path to the 2028 election.

Now – Summer 2026

Mirror & pilot

Stand up the read-only mirror behind politicalpractices.mt.gov for public resilience. Pilot the filer wizard with 5-10 friendly lobbyists.

Fall 2026 – 2027 session

HB 10 funding

Joint IT Committee testimony, cost estimates, procurement language. Concourse supports the appropriations cycle from the outside.

2027 – 2028

Build & cutover

Full campaign finance + lobbying replacement, in production for the 2028 election cycle. Legacy retired on your terms.