Fast Company: Government has perfected awarding grants

This week, Fast Company published an article by Roundtable co-founder and CEO Madeleine Smith about why agencies have strong systems for awarding grants but few for helping grantees succeed after the award, and what better post-award support could look like. Below is an excerpt.

State agencies are simultaneously grantees and grantors, often from the same desk in the same week. They receive federal funds with requirements attached, then distribute them to their partners with a layer of state requirements added. Every fracture repeats at every tier. The state waiting on federal clarification has subrecipients waiting on it. Questions travel up the chain slowly and answers come back slower, and the organization at the bottom absorbs the accumulated latency of the entire structure.

Why it matters

The chain Madeleine describes moves a lot of money. In FY2022, the federal government sent state and local governments $1.258 trillion, and states provided $662.3 billion to local governments, some of it federal pass-through funding, according to the Congressional Research Service. That same year, at least 93,114 nonprofits reported a combined $294 billion in government grants, per the Urban Institute. GAO has found that smaller localities, often with fewer staff, can struggle to keep up with compliance and reporting requirements. Those are often the organizations at the end of the chain.

Read the full article on Fast Company here: https://www.fastcompany.com/91622986/government-has-perfected-awarding-grants

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