Follow the economic stimulus money to your community

Yesterday San Francisco launched RecoverySF.org to highlight the progress of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in the City and County of San Francisco. The idea is to build transparency so communities can track grants that San Francisco has applied for and won, view official correspondence with federal and state agencies and learn about upcoming public meetings.

While it might appear that the City has received awards of close to $300 million for projects ranging from transportation to work force development, these are only projections. The City must apply for and win the competitive grant awards before the money can be channeled to local projects.

The City promises to post announcements when ARRA funds have been fully awarded and obligated to San Francisco.

California and the federal government have also set up Web sites to track stimulus dollars.

The federal site is: www.recovery.gov.

The state site is recovery.ca.gov

For a complete list of all Recovery Act programs, visit Grants.gov.

See my previous blog post on the Recovery Act for more resources.

Nonprofit Strategies for Tough Times: Economic Stimulus Act FAQ (Philanthropy News Digest blog- PhilanTopic)

Updates:
5/21/09: Recovery.org, run by a private company, might make searching and tracking federal stimulus projects easier to follow than the federal government site Recovery.gov, as recently reported in the Washington Post.

5/22/09: The City of Oakland recently set up www.oaklandstimulus.com for tracking the status of the city’s requests for federal stimulus funds.