The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan (economic stimulus plan) calls for “shovel ready” projects that will make an immediate economic impact. The projected date to move legislation through the U.S. Senate is mid-February. Will the stimulus plan deliver the impact needed to jump start local economies? And will the procurement process be quick enough to initiate projects for the needed immediate impact?

R.A. Smith National is introducing a new service to further assist you in locating and understanding grants and funding resources for your community and projects. This service takes our online Grants Directory a step further. It’s our GRANTS BLOG. Everywhere you look on the Internet, people are looking to exchange ideas or opinions with others. And they are doing so with blogs. Our new Grants Blog will enable local government, funding agency representatives and others to share ideas regarding available funding programs to meet specific needs, grant success stories, challenges, new or overlooked resources and more.

Join the conversation! To get the blog started, we will be posting questions we recently received from communities as well as other information regarding grants and funding. We hope you find this service useful. You will need your password to leave a comment in the blog, so if you haven’t registered for the online Grants and Funding Directory, now is a great time to register and join the conversation.

We are looking for ways to make grants information more accessible with a way to share it among all interested. We welcome ideas and suggestions, and greatly appreciate your comments. Please let us know what you think.