The role of money in politics, especially since the 2010 Citizens United decision, can be a difficult thing to navigate.
 
That’s why Nick Rubin decided to create his own tool for transparency — before he was even old enough to vote. Rubin, who’s currently a high school junior, developed Greenhouse after a 7th-grade assignment on money and politics sparked his interest.

“I realized just how bad this issue was and it made me a little angry, knowing that not enough people were paying attention to it," Rubin explains. “While this isn’t usually a kids’ issue, I wanted to change that."

The access to information about the funding behind members of Congress was sometimes confusing, and sometimes inaccessible, Rubin realized.
 
So he designed an app, which instantly reveals where politicians get their funding, to be as simple as possible. You just go to any website – news article, blog, or journal – where a candidate is written about, hover over the candidate’s name, and you’ll see where their campaign donations came from.

Perhaps most surprising for Rubin, the nonpartisan app has even been embraced by people from across the political spectrum.