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This paper explores the effects of a state-financed training grant program for manufacturing firms in Michigan. Using a three-year panel of data from a unique survey of firms that applied for these grants, the authors estimate the effects of receipt of a grant on total hours of training in the firm and the product scrap rate. They find that receipt of these grants is associated with a large and significant, though one-time, increase in training hours, and with a more lasting reduction in scrap rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article determines the extent of unemployment insurance benefits which contributed to the maintainance of aggregate purchasing power during periods of economic recession. To explain the insured unemployment rate and covered employment, time-series regressions where utilized. These regression analysis models were used to estimate total benefits at actual unemployment rates. During the periods 1958 and 1961, federal loan and grant programs were established to support state programs. The permanent extended benefit provisions were enacted in 1970.

This article presents information on a program of research contracts and grants administered by the U.S. Department of Labor, Manpower Administration, Office of Manpower Policy, Evaluation and Research as of April 1968. The Secretary of Labor was directed to establish a comprehensive manpower research program to evaluate the impact of changes in the structure of production and demand on the use of the nation's resources. The studies include "An evaluation of the skill demands of manufacturing and service processes at various levels of technology," by E. R. F. W. Crossman and Stephen Laner, "A study of employer policies in a large metropolitan labor market area," by Lloyd Ulman, Margaret S. Gordon, and Harold L. Wilensky.

The article reports on research programs of the Office of Manpower Policy, Evaluation and Research of the U.S. Department of Labor as of July 1966. The research programs operate under the authority of the Manpower Development and Training Act. The programs of manpower research conducted by the Department of Labor include grants to public and other non-profit academic institutions, grants to public and other non-profit academic institutions and research organizations and scholars and grants to academic institutions. A four-year-old research program of the Office of Manpower Policy Evaluation and Research aims to expand research in four areas including imbalances between resources and requirements, means of achieving full manpower potential, manpower account and technological change.

The article presents news and notes related to industrial and labor relations in the U.S. as of July 1964. A major development at the Institute of Industrial Relations at the University of California in Berkeley, California has been the preparation of plans for a substantial expansion of the off-campus program. The scope of the research program reflects the impact of several significant developments within the last few years, particularly the formation of the Research and Training Program in Comparative Developmental Studies and the large grant from the Ford Foundation for a program of research and policy evaluation on Unemployment and the American Economy. In other news, the Community Service division of the Institute of Industrial Relations at the University of California in Los Angeles has expanded its staff and the scope of its activity. In response to suggestions from the California labor movement that the Institute could be of more service by providing facilities for action-oriented research in non-adversary areas, Fred Schmidt has been added to the staff.

Fiscal disparities occur when economic resources and public service needs are not evenly distributed across localities. There are equity concerns associated with fiscal disparities. Using a cost-capacity gap framework and a newly assembled data set, this article is the first study to quantify nonschool fiscal disparities across Connecticut municipalities. It finds significant nonschool fiscal disparities, driven primarily by the uneven distribution of the property tax base while cost differentials also play an important role. State nonschool grants are found to have a relatively small effect in offsetting municipal fiscal disparities. Unlike previous research focused on a single state, this article also conducts a cross-state comparison. It finds that nonschool fiscal disparities in Connecticut are more severe than those in Massachusetts, and nonschool grants in Connecticut are less equalizing than those in Massachusetts. This article’s conceptual framework and empirical approach are generalizable to other states and other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to explore the intergovernmental finance framework with an emphasis on the impacts of the current administration’s proposals on cities, including not just direct financial transfers but also changes to the federal tax code that have implications for municipal finance. In particular, we examine the impacts of two policies—reduced funding of community development block grant and federal income tax reform—to illustrate the effects of federal reform on local governments in the context of American federalism. We contend that the resiliency of local governments to exogenous shocks such as changes in federal policy is contingent on economic resources and institutional constraints imposed by state governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When programs are grants to states, federal funds will be used to meet both the national objectives and the local priorities of the state or local government recipients. This article examines the decision to design new federal programs as either a grant to states or as administered by federal agencies. We predict that Congress will choose either the states or the federal bureaucracy based on which agent is more likely to manage the program consistent with the preferences of the Congressional majority. We examine the political and economic conditions present in the year before Congress created a program. We find that Congress’s perception of a government agency’s partisan orientation matters: A perceived divergence in partisan orientation between the Congress and federal agency increases the likelihood of a grant design. In addition, we see evidence that a grant design is preferred when the president is not a co-partisan of Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on some of the operations undertaken by the Industrial Relations Center of the Iowa State University of Science and Technology. It is heavily supported by a three-year manpower institutional grant awarded by the U. S. Department of Labor's Office of Manpower Policy. A unique feature of the Center's research and teaching function is a cooperative arrangement with colleges and universities in a six-state region. Major research has been launched in health manpower, job vacancy studies, leadership-managerial behavior and special studies are under way on the decision-making process involved in entry into and withdrawal from the labor force. Professor Edward Jakubauskas is continuing research on the development of a system of national manpower accounts under a grant from the Iowa State University Foundation. The Industrial Relations Center has been cooperating closely with state and local action-agencies in the development of a statewide Manpower Information Committee to assist the emerging area vocational schools in developing training programs and curricula in relation to emerging employment needs of Iowa's employers and career interests of new labor force entrants.

This study examines the contribution of the federal government to community and regional economic development by exclusively analyzing data on intergovernmental transfers to state and local governments. The study covers the years 1940 through 2010. The intent is to explore and define the patterns and trends within the community and regional development data and establish the extent to which incrementalism served as a basis for setting aside resources for accomplishing economic development objectives. Our findings indicate that the data patterns, trends, and relationships are nonlinear and unsupportive of the “incrementalist” perspective to resource allocation commonly found in major funds within the public sector. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the influence of federal grants on nonprofit expenditure decisions. The topic is of particular concern for governments who wish to stimulate private provision of public services. Recent research shows that grants may inadvertently reduce private sector provision by causing a reduction in fund-raising effort. This study extends line of inquiry by examining the influence of conditional versus lump-sum-style grants. The article draws detailed grant data from the Federal Assistance Award Data System (FAADS), which includes structural characteristics of the grant. FAADS grant information is combined with a panel of nonprofit financial data. Empirical results demonstrate that, though relatively uncommon in the data, conditional grants are particularly effective at stimulating both additional fund-raising activity and output of the firm. Block-Formula grants appear to significantly reduce both fund-raising and output decisions. The study implies that the use of conditional grants could mitigate crowd-out due to nonprofit management decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we present the findings of a study on the electoral use of intergovernmental grants for municipal infrastructure. The study adds to the body of work on redistributive politics by showing that both federal and provincial governments use intergovernmental grants for electoral purposes. The study also shows that grant distribution seems to be skewed toward electoral districts hold by governing party and by legislators who are influential in their party because they have more seniority or they fill ministerial positions. Therefore, this finding does not match the predictions of McGillivray’s model according to which in a political system like Canada’s, grant distribution would benefit to swing districts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study investigates the short-term effects of state-highway EARs (EARs) and federal-grant expenditure on present-year state revenue sources and highway investment, when another state-highway source, general revenue, is controlled for. In the dynamic framework, this article argues that general revenue interacts with highway EAR and federal-grant reimbursements since these revenue sources are substitutable. The results from the panel vector auto regression (PVAR) indicate that (a) EAR and federal grants are inversely related to general revenues used in highway programs, (b) when controlled for simultaneity, autocorrelation, and omitted-variable bias, EAR and federal grants are not significant for state-investment decisions, and (c) general revenue inversely relates to state investment because there is competition for public resources between highway and general-revenue programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the author's argument that the quality of external evaluation required under the terms of a grant received depends on the continued involving of funding agencies. It indicates that the best evaluations are those where key stakeholders have methodological understanding and see the importance of evaluation to identify nuances missed. It suggests for funding agencies to work with grantees and their collaborators and evaluators contracted to ensure a valid program evaluation.

Although communication program faculty have traditionally not enjoyed large grants for research, administrators are pressuring them to garner external funding. This article examines the success rate of securing external funding that communication administrators reported for their units. Results show that while the pressure has increased on most communication programs, the success rate for getting those grants has not. In addition, support for seeking grants is not growing with the pressure, and there seems to be little difference in support between high research-oriented programs and those in lower Carnegie classifications, with the exception of help from graduate students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For more than 20 years, the efficacy of using the wraparound approach to support high-risk youth has been examined in educational and community settings. Few studies show the value of wraparound service from either a school- or community-based agency as a dropout prevention strategy. Findings from a federal research grant project suggest that many high-risk teens reconnect with educational goals once their lives become more stable after receiving wraparound support. A discussion of the barriers that prevent the most needy school-age youth from accessing wraparound service is offered, with suggestions for how school personnel can increase high school graduation rates for their students with the highest needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the donor–recipient1 relationship in a sports development aid context, and identifies potential dilemmas occurring when aiming to give aid on the recipient’s terms. Using the case of the Norwegian sports development aid project Sport for All, it is argued that the Norwegian Confederation of Sports was clearly in control of the project throughout its various phases, and thus a contradiction between the discourse of equality and the actual practice was evident. It is demonstrated in the article that donor–recipient relationships are power relationships that are complex and unclear to the involved parties, and shown that the Confederation’s role is shaped through a web of power relationships. The article questions the assumption that civil society organizations such as the Norwegian Confederation are more apt to provide aid on equal terms than government agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines whether there has been an increase in nonprofit commercial revenue and if so whether declines in government grants and private contributions were behind the rise. A number of nonprofit scholars have held that nonprofit commercial activity increased significantly during the 1980s and 1990s. Following on resource dependency theory, they suggest that nonprofits use commercial income as a replacement for lost government grant and private revenue. However, authors for and against this thesis have provided little empirical evidence to test these claims. This study uses the Internal Revenue Services’ Statistics of Income database to track sources of revenue for charitable nonprofit organizations from 1982 to 2002. Trend and panel analysis show that although there was a large increase in commercial revenue, there is little evidence the increase was associated with declines in government grants and private contributions. Findings point to institutional theory and have important implications for policymakers and nonprofit practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the UK, pubs are often the nodes and centres of the local social network. Particularly in villages and rural areas, pubs play an important role in stimulating community cohesion and social capital by enhancing socioeconomic activities, such as communal initiatives and business activities, within communities. Despite this, there has been a constant decline in the number of British pubs during the past decades. The factors influencing this decline are many and diverse: the rise of pub chains and theme pubs which target a more commercial type of custom, the result of progressively tougher drink-driving laws, rising prices and alcohol duties, the increased popularity of home entertainment, and the smoking ban. Since village pubs work as a network tier for the entire area, their disappearance often means the disappearance of major centres of social aggregation. This also has a significant impact on rural economies, given the importance of these businesses for local supply chains. The creation of Industrial and Provident Societies (l&PSs) in villages and small communities may represent a valid way to rescue a number of village pubs from closure. An l&PS is an organisation carrying on an industry, business, or trade, either as a cooperative or for the benefit of the community. This paper discusses the functioning of I&PSs and their potential with regard to pubs in rural areas by presenting original data obtained from primary research, including interviews held with owners, managers, and customers of village pubs. In addition, the paper provides case studies of communities who used an I&PS to save their local pubs and assets, and explores how this solution may help villagers to keep their centres of social aggregation economically viable and sustainable. It is concluded that l&PSs can represent a valuable solution for many rural communities, It is also concluded that the level of community cohesion among villagers, the investment required for setting up the I&PS, and the availability of financial grants and public sector support all have an important impact on their development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using event history modeling, this study explored to what extent loans, grants, institutional aid, and work-study affect timing to first departure for Latino college students. The goal is to understand more about how aid promotes or perturbs success for Latino students as well as how those effects vary over time. Federal grants and targeted loans reduced likelihood of departure (attrition). Findings suggest that aid is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While most police chiefs might be willing to make such a claim that there is a positive relationship between COPS grants and police arrests, empirical research on this topic is very limited. Following from an earlier study by Zhao, Scheider, and Thurman (2003), this research makes several contributions to the current literature. First, it includes additional years of data from police agencies receiving federal funding to examine the effects of additional resources on arrests. Second, making use of the two waves of census data (1990 and 2000) allowed time-varying analysis of the relationship between police arrests and demographics. Finally, a hierarchical statistical method for longitudinal analysis (HMLM) was used in the analysis of police arrest data from 5,871 cities during 1993 and 2000 when the involvement of federal government for promoting community policing or quality of life policing was unprecedented. Our primary findings suggest a positive relationship between COPS hiring grants and all four types of police arrests during the period of study though COPS funding usually accounted for only a small percentage of the total budget in a police department (GAO, 2005). More specifically, the hiring grant, the largest part of the COPS funding project, had consistently significant impact on police arrests after controlling for the socioeconomic variables and crimes. In addition, the hiring grant was significant predictor of all four categories of arrests, indicating that additional manpower did have a direct casual relationship with number of police arrests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This case describes dilemmas faced by a second-year principal whose urban school received a major grant to encourage teacher leadership, expand decision making, and promote school-based autonomy. This case focuses on the principal's efforts to negotiate his work with multiple stakeholders, including the coach, teachers, and district leadership. The principal struggles to balance his desire to cede authority to teachers and foster teacher leadership with his responsibility to raise student performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the student research program established by the University of South Florida's College of Public Health (COPH) in 2009. It states that the research program was created to encourage student participation in research of grant writing and presentation at conferences. It cites that the student research program's concepts and the comprehensive evaluation method applied by COPH will guarantee its commitment to student research.

Qualitative research has to market itself aggressively, both because academic publishers face more pressures to sell books, and because of the competitive funding climate where one often has to demonstrate methodological innovation as a condition for obtaining a grant. This article considers how social theorists have understood the issue of 'newness' and the pursuit of innovation as a cultural problem. It explores the issue in qualitative research through examining how we accomplish and recognize 'newness' in the texts we read and produce as academics, which include publisher's catalogues and grant applications, and through considering technological advances such as internet ethnography and video analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Department of Health and Human Services initiated a pilot "microgrant" or small grants program in 2001 to promote Healthy People 2010 (HP 2010) implemented by the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center. This article describes the 103 agencies funded under this initiative and 67 control group agencies. It evaluates the HP 2010 focus areas targeted and the effectiveness of promoting HP 2010 objectives through microgrants. Forty-four percent of the grant recipients and 79% of the control group agencies indicated low levels of familiarity with HP 2010 goals. Changes in knowledge of HP 2010 goals for the microgrant group increased significantly from 5.24 ± 3.67 to 7.83 ± 1.86 (p < .05). The results suggest that microgrants can be a useful mechanism to plant the seeds for developing community and organizational capacity to define local health priorities, practice and test new initiatives or expand existing programs and promote knowledge about HP 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares two federal grants, both from the same agency and both utilizing a national "boundary organization," to assess how and why one was better able than the other to integrate divergent perspectives and produce new approaches to juvenile justice in multiple local jurisdictions. Results confirm the utility of boundary organizations but also show that not all organizations that bring together divergent perspectives necessarily result in anything new or better. Four factors stand out: (a) a different philosophy of evaluation research, (b) the grassroots emergence of an inclusive rationale for the program that was orthogonal to the traditional "treatment versus punishment" ideology, (c) management strategies and agenda-setting arrangements at meetings that facilitated horizontal, upward, and downward information exchange, and (d) a different approach to knowledge and knowledge production that emphasized userdefined knowledge needs and diverse research methods. The case studies provide a wide range of insights for collaborative management practices, research—practitioner relationships, and implementation success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local areas, consisting of governments, special districts, and nonprofits, benefit from the receipt and use of federal funds in support of local programs and projects. This study examines the combined effects of political and administrative capacity factors that influence flows of federal grant funds into local areas. The effects of these capacity dimensions are measured and tested using pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis. The results indicate clearly that institutional measures of capacity must take into account not only political dimensions but also administrative and need/demand dimensions. These results help to explain the disparity observed between high- and low-capacity areas and provide some general lessons for enhancing local grant-getting capacity under differing conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the complexities of aid-giving using the example of early childhood policies in Namibia. It supports a critical view of aid processes and of World Bank endeavours in particular. Using an analysis of the World Bank funded education sector-wide improvement plan (ETSIP) in Namibia and three Namibian local case studies, it shows how the local circumstances of young children and their parents are ignored in order to fit in with donor preconceptions, and how senior officials come to adopt those views. It argues that universally derived policies on early childhood development are misapplied, and poverty and inequality are ignored in the search for technocratic solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This article serves as a conclusion to a TCR special issue devoted to understanding the impact of the Spencer Foundation's Research Training Grant (RTG) initiative. We examine four case reports prepared by scholars at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and Michigan State University, as well as the introductory article prepared by Lauren Jones Young of the Spencer Foundation. Objective: To identify a set of principles that might guide the construction and ongoing operation of researcher preparation programs in graduate schools of education, both in the four institutions that generously scrutinized the successes and failures of their own efforts, and in other institutions concerned with preparing education researchers. Research Design: Analytic essay Conclusions: We recommend that academic leaders not count on researcher preparation programs to drive broader efforts to change their organizations. Second, we place more stock in initiatives that allow students to construct a "personal core" of curricular knowledge that draws on institutional resources rather than a "common core" of knowledge that will carry all students throughout their doctoral studies. Third, we caution that providing some students with differential financial, intellectual, and social resources poses risks for many faculty and students around questions of status and autonomy. And finally, because organizational (bureaucratic) boundaries may not be isomorphic with the boundaries that define meaningful communities of research practice, academic leaders should recognize the strengths and limitations of such boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: In the early 1990s, the Spencer Foundation instituted an Institutional Research Training Grant (RTG) program to improve the preparation of the next generation of education researchers. UCLA received an RTG in the first round of competition. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: UCLA's Spencer RTG program sought to develop excellent researchers focused on educational issues associated with urban students of color and students with special needs. An evaluation was conducted to learn more about the experiences and career paths of participating Spencer students, the value added by RTG program participation, and institutional changes associated with the RTG program. Population/Participants/Subjects: Participants were all 52 UCLA education PhD students who received a Spencer RTG Fellowship in the first 9 years of the program, 52 matched comparison students, and 10 Department of Education faculty. Intervention/Program/Practice: Spencer and comparison students participated in the same PhD program courses and requirements, mentoring/apprenticeship model, research practica, and research apprenticeship courses. Spencer students in addition had 3 years of full financial support, came from all areas of the Department of Education, participated in a special seminar every 2 weeks for 3 years, had a personal professional development fund, and were offered many opportunities to network with students and faculty from other Spencer programs. Research Design: This in-house evaluation employed multiple approaches. Institutional data provided information about RTG program goals and activities and student characteristics and performance. A Web-based questionnaire and individual interviews provided quantitative and qualitative data about the performance and opinions of all 52 Spencer students and 52 comparison students. Dissertations were scored for engagement with Spencer program areas of emphasis. Individual faculty interviews provided opinions about the RTG program itself and its implications for the PhD program. Findings/Results: Nearly all students were successful and benefited from courses, mentorship, and opportunities. Spencer students benefited particularly from financial freedom to pursue specific research interests and opportunities for networking and support. They valued highly interacting with PhD students from the Department of Education's entire range of epistemologies and research traditions. They were seen as an elite group, particularly groomed for academic positions. Significantly more Spencer than comparison graduates were in professional positions in which engaging in education research was highly valued. Conclusions/Recommendations: The study underlines the following contributions: value of the apprenticeship/mentoring model; strengthening of sites for exploring diverse research traditions and epistemologies; value of belonging to local and national communities of practice; utility of multiyear funding packages; and enhanced faculty interaction around improved research preparation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: The Research Training Grant (RTG) program at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education aimed to create strong research training experiences for predissertation fellows through generous financial aid, mentored research apprenticeships, and cocurricular experiences. Collectively these offerings sought to broaden knowledge of urban education and exposure to diverse research methods. Initiated in a context of significant institutional growth and change, the RTG also sought to improve the research training experiences of PhD students outside the RTG program, making broader discussions of urban education, educational research, and social research more integral to the general PhD student experience and to the life of the school. This was attempted with the launch of a schoolwide seminar series on educational research, the introduction of an annual student research symposium administered by the RTG fellows, and continuing faculty attention to policies affecting doctoral student mentoring and research training. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: The article describes the aims and organization of the program and discusses strengths and challenges identified by students and faculty. Research Design: This is a qualitative case study. Conclusions/Recommendations: The operation of the RTG program at Penn offers several insights into how education schools might get the most out of their investments in doctoral students and doctoral education: (1) Its support of rigorous, discipline-based research training complemented by opportunities for interdisciplinary exposure seems to be important. Further, such initiatives are systematically supported with investments by the faculty and the administration. (2) The opportunity for students to approach research and problems of practice from multiple disciplinary perspectives was a significant perceived benefit of the RTG program's operation at Penn. (3) A flexible model of research apprenticeship, creative seminars, and symposia all helped to illuminate the strengths and limitations of discipline-based research. (4) Penn GSE PhD students who engaged in discussions that promoted epistemological diversity were better off for it. This sort of work is unlikely to occur at the level of the individual degree program, so engagement and support from the whole faculty are implied. (5) "Institutionalizing" these sorts of experiences and opportunities for students may mean consideration of structures and supports for doctoral student training that are unconventional, multidisciplinary, and collaborative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charitable giving in the United States provides a major source of funding for nonprofit organizations, but it is also a highly variable source of funding. A possible explanation for the substantial variability in giving lies in the measurement of income. In addition to permanent and transitory income, this article introduces the variability of income as a factor affecting charitable donations. The variability of income increases with the level of household income and varies by the source of income. In distinguishing types of income the authors are also able to shed some light on decision making by married couples. The effect of changes in permanent household income on charitable giving is significantly larger than that of transitory household income. Greater variability in the flow of annual household income has a negative effect on total giving. In addition, the authors find some significant differences in the impact on giving between the husband's and wife's earnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a data set corresponding to Spanish municipalities is used to test asymmetries in the effects of increases and decreases in grants on total spending, with political and financial factors included as possible explanations of them. Estimation results strongly support the hypothesis of asymmetry. Recipients compensate part of the loss in grants by increasing other revenues. This fiscal replacement form of asymmetry is explained by two factors: incumbent's ideology and financial capacity of getting into debt. The relationship between deficits and ideology is studied. While increases in deficits because of reductions in grants are statistically significant only in the case of leftist incumbents, there are other causal mechanisms relating ideology and propensity toward deficits. These differences play in opposite directions, and the net result is that the relationship between ideology and deficit size is not statistically significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a view to improving public sector efficiency many governments now make public sector bodies competitively bid for funding. We model the bidding process as a game of spatial competition. Using Monte Carlo simulations we show that in efficient equilibria many bidding groups will not be under competitive pressure. The model suggests that this is because their ideal projects are inherently valuable for the funding agency and other groups cannot match this without departing so far from their ideal that they would rather not be successful. We test the hypothesis that competition will be limited largely to groups whose preferred projects are of medium quality on data from the UK Single Regeneration Budget. Using resubmitted bids to track the impact of competition, we find evidence consistent with this hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although drug courts are local programs, many were established using federal grant dollars from the U.S. Department of Justice. As these federal grants run their course and overall federal funding for drug courts declines, drug court programs are increasingly relying on state funding for long-term sustainability. Based on prior research and interviews with state drug court directors, this article delineates the three basic models that have emerged for funding and management of these programs at the state level. There is no one best model-each has its strengths and weaknesses. States contemplating a centralization of their drug court activity are urged to carefully consider the executive, judicial, and collaborative models in light of their respective state bureaucratic structures. Whatever decision is made, it must reflect input from the important state-level stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Losses due to fraudulent activities are particularly troublesome in the nonprofit sector because they directly reduce resources available to address tax-exempt purposes. The ensuing bad publicity also may reduce contributions and grants in subsequent periods. This article uses data provided by Certified Fraud Examiners to report on the types of fraud they identified in nonprofit organizations and the characteristics of both the victims and the perpetrators of the fraudulent activities. Based on the analysis of the data, the authors suggest ways that fraud losses can be prevented or mitigated. In particular, governing boards are urged to consider important controls in addition to the annual financial statement audit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the South Central Farm, in Los Angeles, California. The 14-acre community garden is also called the South Los Angeles Community Garden and the Urban Gardening Program of the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. The farm is in the news because of its contested closure and destruction. Apart from receiving initial funding from individuals, foundations and public agencies, the garden also got a U.S. Department of Agriculture's Urban Resource Partnership Program Grant.

The article discusses the concept of "Project RESTART: Recruitment and Retention: Students on Alternative Routes to Teacher Training," a U.S. Department of Education personnel preparation grant for high incidence disabilities, which has worked to address the shortage of special education teachers in North Carolina. The project focused on nontraditional adults as teacher education candidates. Participant satisfaction, graduation rates and participants' employment data from "Project RESTART" show a successful effort to recruit and retain a diverse pool of highly qualified special education teacher candidates.

We map the distribution of environmental grants provided by selected California foundations in 2000 and the degree of dependency of the grantees on foundation support to test theoretical claims about foundations' role in contemporary environmentalism. Contrary to assertions by critics of elitism, there is no consistent favoritism of the so-called ‘mainstream’ ‘flagship’, national environmental organizations as recipients of foundations' grants. Instead, donors support a variety of causes with varying levels of funding based on recipients' perceived expertise and needs–a finding consistent with pluralist and resource-dependency arguments. On the receiving end, we find that the non- governmental organizations (NGOs) that have greater reliance on foundation money are those which are younger, have fewer paying members, and are not involved in local-level or toxics issues. Overall, we find that no single theory can adequately explain the trends in giving and in dependency. Future research building on these findings can proceed along two directions: a theoretical path in search of a more universal theory of foundation giving; or an empirical path focusing on clarifying different types of NGO grantees, the longitudinal patterns of environmental giving, and the impact of foundation funding on NGO grantees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our objective was to evaluate changes in curriculum and culture within a research non-intensive dental school after implementation of programs supported by the NIH-NIDCR R25 Oral Health Research Curriculum Grant. We designed new curricular elements to foster an appreciation of research/discovery, an interest in academic/research careers, and application of biomedical/clinical advances to patient care. Funding was utilized to develop, implement, and assess a dedicated curricular track of continuous student research/scholarly activity throughout the four years of dental education. This track represented mandatory hours of didactic time exposing students to topics not traditionally included in dental curricula. Additionally, students were provided with customized flexible schedules to participate in elective "hands-on" mentored research/scholarly experiences at local, national, and international sites, including linkages to certificate, MS, and PhD programs. Funding was also used to support a wide array of faculty development activities that provided skill sets required to deliver integrated biomedical/clinical content, research-oriented evidence-based approaches to dental education, and translational case-based teaching methods emphasizing the application of new science/technologies to patient care. We measured changes in student, faculty, and institutional profiles/attitudes using traditional benchmarks, surveys, and focus groups. Comparisons were made between baseline data prior to R25 program initiation and data collected after years 3-4 of program implementation. Significant increases were demonstrated in: (1) student participation in research/scholarship, attendance at national meetings, research awards, publication of manuscripts, pursuit of advanced training/degrees, and expressions of interest in academic/research careers; (2) faculty participation in development activities, publication of manuscripts, and mentoring of students; and (3) increased institutional credibility within the university, supportive infrastructure for research/scholarship, and cultural expectations for academic excellence. Thus, we believe that the R25 programming changed the culture of our dental school, creating a supportive environment for research/scholarship, increasing academic productivity, and altering the attitudes of faculty/students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on previously developed land is a top priority in Dutch compact-city policies. During the 1980s government grants supported building on these locations. In 1990 nonsubsidised housing accounted for only 5% of the housing programme for these inner-city sites. In 1995, as a result of the transformation of the welfare state in the Netherlands, the government abolished grants for the construction of social housing. This had a massive impact on the housing programme; and subsidies, as a proportion of the cost of infrastructure provision, dropped from 68% in 1990 to 30% in 2000. These changes have had a major impact on the role of municipalities and the powers they need to provide new housing on previously developed land. The municipalities' lack of powers and the new market conditions are contributing to the present stagnation of housebuilding in the Netherlands, and both of these factors influence Dutch compact-city policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homeland security preparedness is largely a local government activity. A fall 2005 survey of Florida city and county finance/budget officials evaluates the fairness and adequacy of available federal and state homeland security funding from a local government perspective. Local officials were asked to evaluate federal and state funding allocations, competing approaches to the distribution of homeland security grant funding, the balance between response and prevention funding, and various approaches to intergovernmental organization for emergency management activities. We find that finance officials from small counties and cities are more likely than their larger counterparts to indicate a need for greater access to federal funding; but city officials from all sizes of jurisdictions are more likely than their county counterparts to report an interest in greater state funding. There is general consensus among small and large cities and counties that both population and risk-based factors should guide federal funding decisions, but city officials are more divided regarding this issue. Most of Florida's finance officials report satisfaction with the balance of prevention versus response grant offerings, but many would like to see more monies earmarked specifically for response activities. As to the best intergovernmental approach to emergency management, Florida's local officials are divided. Many see value in an approach that emphasizes either a predominantly local or state organizational structure, but they are in agreement that they do not want a centralized topdown federal structure. We find that the intergovernmental dynamics present in homeland security grant funding are the same as in previous grants-in-aid--even in the state ranked as the most prepared in the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social workers in academic and agency settings have the opportunity to do funded research using the National institutes of Health (NIH) R03 small grant mechanism designed for discrete, clearly defined projects that can be completed within a 1- to 2-year time period with limited funding. This article describes the R03 mechanism and provides a guide for the developmental steps in writing a successful grant application. it identifies the recent N/H program announcements titled Research on Social Work Practice and Concepts in Health as an extraordinary opportunity for social work researchers seeking R03 funding. The R03 is ideal for new researchers, and the experience of one of the authors illustrates the decision-making and skill-development processes involved in submitting a successful grant proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2003, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) provided Florida's Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) with a $3.5 million grant to design and implement a faith- and community-based program for incarcerated juveniles. Florida's experience developing a completely new program has provided valuable lessons regarding important issues to consider and address before clients are referred to the program. This article enumerates 10 key lessons from Florida's experience that can provide important guidance to other sites across the country hoping to develop faith-related services for youths in institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Safe drinking water is the most capital intensive of all utility services. Paying for water infrastructure improvements is a particular problem for small, rural communities, such as those on Native American reservations. These communities often rely on federal grant programs for capital improvements; however granting agencies face difficulties deciding who to fund. By evaluating water infrastructure projects for 10 Native American communities, the authors show advantages and limitations of three methods for awarding grants—traditional benefit-cost analysis, social benefit-cost analysis, and funding criteria used for the Tribal Set-Aside grants program. Results suggest that the choice of prioritization method leads to very different results. As an example, fire protection benefits can change the viability of a water system project, but the Environmental Protection Agency does not directly consider these benefits for statutory reasons. From a life cycle perspective, mission agencies may want to reevaluate their decision-making methods to more holistically consider risk when allocating infrastructure funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of observers have speculated that a ‘new’ style of emergency management has emerged in the United States in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001. To date, there has been relatively little empirical evidence marshaled to assess this claim. This article reports the results of an on-going project designed to track how the staff of an office of emergency management in a large urban region allocate their time on a routine basis. This project began in the late 1990s allowing for a year-by-year comparison of time allotted to different emergency management functions. Among the findings reported here are that prior to 2002 emergency management staff spent the majority of their time on hazard preparedness projects but this time allocation shifted dramatically when a variety of federal homeland security grants became available to state and local governments. This shift in responsibilities may be a sign that domestic security concerns have supplanted the all-hazards approach to emergency management at the local level. But this paper argues that it may also be a product of the manner in which federal homeland security grants are administered and the dynamics of the intergovernmental structure of emergency management in the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lack of support for mental health-related projects by private philanthropy even among those that express an interest in mental health, is due in large part to the subjectivity of the grant review process. To address this problem, Whaley Rodriguez, and Alexander developed the Grant Proposal Rating Form (GPRF) to make the grant review process more objective at the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. The purpose of the current study is to establish the ecological validity of the GPRF by a pilot study of its implementation in the actual grant review process of the foundation. The overall results of this pilot study did not yield consistently favorable psychometric outcomes as the original study by Whaley et al. The implications of these results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as a potential funding source for social work doctoral students. HUD's two doctoral research grant programs (i.e., the Early Doctoral Students Research Grant and the Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant) are nontraditional, largely untapped funding sources for social work doctoral students. The author provides an overview of both programs, describes the application requirements, the selection criteria, and the review process. Based on her experience as a social work student awarded both an Early Doctoral Students Research Grant and a Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant, the author provides tips, advice, and examples for preparing a strong application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the State Action for Education Leadership Project (SAELP) II, a state-level educational leadership initiative by the Wallace Foundation, which gives grants focused on enhancing educational leadership in data-based decision-making, in the U.S. The SAELP II initiative in Ohio trains school-leadership teams to access, interpret and apply value-added information obtained from the statewide accountability system.

As of 2005, 15 states had adopted a broad-based merit aid program, providing a combined $1.2 billion for college students on the basis of academic qualifications. This represents a shift away from a long tradition of need-based aid at the state and federal levels. This article utilizes a Cox proportional hazards model to analyze states' characteristics that are associated with their probability of adopting a merit aid program. Lower levels of college continuation and educational attainment are found to increase the hazard for a state's adoption of a merit aid program, whereas higher levels of student out-migration decrease the proportional hazard for a state's adoption of such a program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]