MorrisonGrants

By now you've heard about the “The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009” (ARRA) or its more popular name, the “Stimulus Package.” If you’ll recall, the Stimulus Package was an act of legislation that was passed by Congress and signed into law by the President on February 17, 2009. The stated purposes (abbreviated) of the bill are to:

1. Preserve and create jobs
2. Assist those impacted by the recession
3. Provide investments needed to increase economic efficiency
4. Invest in transportation, environmental protection, and other infrastructure
5. Stabilize state and local government budgets.

The bill itself is 407 pages long and highlights the ways in which the $787 billion in spending was to be divvied up, which works out to just shy of $2 billion per page. Congress didn’t waste any time spending the money; in just the first 1,019 words they spent nearly $16.5 billion in grants and loans. Now, who says the government can’t be efficient?! There are also other little treasures in the bill as well, like the one buried on page 252, Section 1604.

As part of the bill, a website was created, Recovery.gov. The interactive tools on the website are pretty impressive, and I imagine that President Obama’s mantra of transparency was part of the inspiration. On the site you can see:

1. Who is getting money
2. Where they are located
3. How many jobs were saved or created
4. Whether or not they have filed the proper reports detailing the status of their projects.

As of October 31, 2009 (the latest info available), almost $159 billion has been awarded and over 640,000 jobs have been “created/saved.” I can hear some of you rushing to your calculators now, so let me save you the trouble – that’s $247,849 per job. The interesting thing is that the Executive Office of the President, Council of Economic Affairs published their own estimate of how much it would cost to save or create a job back in May 2009. By their best estimate (page 5) it would take $92,136 of stimulus spending to save or create a job, so I guess they are close enough, as long as your definition of “close enough” is the same as what’s used in nuclear warfare.

So where does all the spending go? Well, it’s divided up into three general categories: Tax Benefits ($288B); Contracts, Grants and Loans ($275B); and Entitlements ($224). Most of the website appears to be dedicated to detail on the Contracts, Grants and Loans. For example, I see that my home zip code (95928) has been awarded four contracts and seventeen grants for a little over $27 million. And I also see that almost 18 jobs have been saved or created with that money (psst, that’s a touch over $1.5 million per job).

Now, there still is a lot of work to be done. As I’ve said, only $159 billion has been awarded (as of 10/31/09), leaving another $628 billion yet to be spent. Before you get all lathered up about getting your piece of the pie, take a deep breath. Most of these funds are dispersed to various Federal agencies which will then make the awards directly or, in some cases, give the money to the States to award. Grants are coming out all the time. The key is to be watching for the grant that makes a good fit for your organization. You should budget an hour or two every day for your search, or as an alternative (WARNING: Shameless plug coming!) you could just hire us to do it for you; see how here. Remember to do your part; by the time we have our 8,275^th subscriber you’ll have created a new job!