Inside SAM.gov: An Open Data Demo for Journalists

Why It Matters

SAM.gov’s open, searchable data equips journalists to scrutinize federal spending and corporate ties, fostering transparency and accountability in government procurement.

Key Takeaways

• SAM.gov provides searchable data on 730k active entities.
• Unique Entity ID (UEI) is primary identifier for tracking contracts.
• Entity records reveal ownership hierarchies and exclusion statuses.
• Contract awards display obligation, total value, and procurement instrument ID.
• Journalists can access most data publicly after simple sign‑in.

Summary

The webinar walked journalists through SAM.gov, the federal System for Award Management, showing how the platform catalogs contracts, grants and the entities that receive them. After a brief intro to the presenter’s background, the demo focused on the searchable entity database, highlighting that roughly 730,000 active and 1.7 million inactive entities are listed, each identified by a Unique Entity ID (UEI) and, for defense contracts, a CAGE code.

Key functionalities demonstrated included locating an entity’s UEI, tracing corporate ownership trees via immediate and highest‑level owners, and checking exclusion or responsibility determinations that flag entities barred from federal work. The session also explored the contract‑award module, where users can see award descriptions, product‑service codes, procurement instrument identifiers (PID), and financial metrics such as obligated amount, total contract value, and outlay.

Illustrative examples featured the Elizabeth Faulk Foundation’s grant‑only status, Booz Allen Hamilton’s multi‑level corporate hierarchy, an OFAC‑listed Russian firm flagged in the exclusions tab, and a Tote Services LLC award for a dry‑dock facility management contract, complete with a $1 million obligation and PID reference to an IDIQ vehicle.

For journalists, the demo underscored that most SAM.gov data is publicly accessible after a simple sign‑in, enabling investigative reporting on federal spending, corporate relationships, and compliance issues without special clearance. Mastery of UEIs, PIDs and exclusion data can turn opaque procurement records into actionable stories about government accountability and market dynamics.

Original Description

SAM.gov — the federal government’s System for Award Management — is one of the most underused databases in public-interest journalism. It tracks hundreds of billions of dollars in federal contracts and grants, the companies and organizations that receive them, and entities barred or suspended from doing business with the government. If you cover federal spending, government contractors, nonprofits, or public accountability, this data is for you.

This session is a hands-on demo, not a panel discussion. We walk through what’s in SAM.gov’s open data, how to access and navigate it, and how to start asking it real questions.

Viewers will come away knowing:

- What data SAM.gov makes publicly available and how it’s structured.

How to download and work with the bulk data versus the API.

- What federal contracts, grants, exclusions and entity registration data look like.

- Common pitfalls journalists run into and how to avoid them.

- How to match SAM.gov data against other federal datasets to build richer investigations.

David Zvenyach leads the demo. He’s a software developer, lawyer and product strategist who has held executive-level roles in three presidential administrations, including as Director of the Government Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services and Executive Director of 18F. He is also the author of GovContrActually, a newsletter on procurement policy, and has spent much of his career making government data more open and usable. He is a founder and principal at TandemGov and CEO of MakeGov, where he builds software and data products focused on federal procurement and grants.

Clark Merrefield, senior editor at The Journalist’s Resource, moderates.