In June 2003, the Foundation approved a four-year grant of over $1.5 million to Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) to continue support and aid in the institutionalization of InsideSchools.org, an internet-based forum for citizen-based performance assessment of and information about New York City's public schools. It was anticipated to be the final grant and that AFC would develop other funding to keep the project going. Usage of the InsideSchools.org website has far exceeded expectations and continues to grow. Due to the unexpected death of the person primarily responsible for fundraising for AFC and InsideSchools, some fundraising projects were delayed and the financial viability of InsideSchools has not yet been assured. With help from a team assembled by the Harvard Business School Club, AFC has developed an extensive plan for marketing, fundraising from individuals and foundations, generating revenue from its website, and possibly from the sale of some of its data. This grant will supply additional time and funding to allow this project to continue after Sloan support ends. Project Director: Elisa Hyman, Executive Director.

Governing is a monthly magazine with about 85,000 subscribers who work for governments at the state, county, city and district levels. Several thousands in corporations, nonprofit organizations, and the media are also subscribers. The magazine's website, www.governing.com, has about 63,000 different users monthly. A number of meetings and two large conferences attended mostly by government professional are convened by the magazine. A 2005 Foundation grant to Congressional Quarterly, Inc. enabled Governing to launch a multimedia publishing program focused on government performance measurement and reporting. During the past year, Governing produced and published four articles and organized a special panel discussion at its fall 2006 conference. This grant renews support for another 18 months. Project Director: Elder Witt, Deputy Publisher and General Manager, Governing Magazine.

The Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) is one of the largest professional organizations in the country serving local and state employees. It promotes and provides technical assistance to governments who do or want to begin doing performance measurement. In recent years, it has included public involvement concepts and tools into its best practice information on performance measurement. This grant to GFOA will fund the preparation of a State and Local Performance Measurement Sourcebook and associated materials. The Sourcebook will include a complete database of the performance measurement efforts of state and local governments in the United States and Canada and of such efforts being carried out by non-government organizations, including Foundation grantees. It will also include a glossary of terms and an annotated bibliography of publications in this field. GFOA will prepare and publish at least three related research reports, including one devoted to practices of citizen involvement in performance measurement and reporting. In addition to being printed in hard copy, materials will be made available on GFOA's website. Their dissemination by GFOA will contribute to making citizen-oriented performance measurement better understood and more widely used. Project Director: Anne Kinney, Director, Research and Consulting Center.

A 2002 officer grant to the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) supported a study of the various roles that government auditors play in performance measurement and reporting in selected jurisdictions around the country. Auditor Roles in Government Performance Measurement: A Guide to Exemplary Practices at the Local, State and Provincial Levels, a book published by IIA in 2004, is based on this work. The current grant supports two activities by IIA. One is the design and offering over the next two years of five new courses, in partnership with the Association of Local Government Auditors and the National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers, and Treasurers, covering the many roles that government auditors can and do play in performance measurement and reporting. By the third year, IIA expects about 250 enrollments and will make the courses available online. As the second activity under this grant, IIA will create and maintain a website focused on performance measurement and reporting from the perspective of auditors and will make presentations on the subject at its own and its partners' annual conferences and at other large gatherings of government auditors. A series of dialogues will be organized by IIA between government auditors and other government officials to promote understanding of how auditors can contribute to government performance measurement and reporting. Project Director: Albert G. Holzinger, Chief Operating Officer.

The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) is interested in helping its members and its members' jurisdictions adopt 311 and other customer service technology, including online systems, that allow local governments to receive and respond to citizens' requests for information and services and provide feedback to citizens on the status of their service requests. A 2006 Foundation officer grant to ICMA supported a case study of the 311 and related systems in San Antonio, TX. This grant enables ICMA to extend the project by surveying via mail all cities, towns, townships, villages, and boroughs in the United States with population of at least 25,000 and counties with appointed administrators or elected executives. (A response rate of at least 30% is anticipated.) Survey data will be made available free to all on the ICMA website. Case studies of at least four communities with an operating 311 system, in addition to San Antonio, will be conducted. A short profile of each will be prepared and made available on the website and as handouts at conference workshops where the results will be presented. A final report, including recommendations on how jurisdictions can move forward with 311 and related systems, will also be widely disseminated on the website, through the ICMA newsletter, by presentations at conferences, with a feature article in Public Management, and will serve as the basis for a course at ICMA University to be offered first at the 2007 ICMA Annual Conference. Project Director: Cory Fleming, Senior Project Manager.

The Government Performance Reporting Demonstration Grant Project was launched by the National Center for Civic Innovation (NCCI) with a Foundation grant in 2003. This project encouraged governments around the country to follow the suggested criteria for performance reporting published by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB). This new grant will support a small grants project by NCCI that will encourage governments to obtain citizen input to their performance measurement and reporting. Thirty jurisdictions from around the country, ten of which were part of the earlier Demonstration Grant Project, will be recruited as participants. They will receive small grants, averaging about $10,000, and agree to consult with representative members of their public about their current performance measurement and reporting practices. The aim is to seek the public's reactions, input, and recommendations concerning the performance measures that are and should be used and reported, the format and style of the government's performance reports, and ways reports are disseminated to the public. Each grantee will produce at least one revised annual performance report that takes into account the public's point of view and applies the latest version of GASB's suggested criteria. Project Director: Barbara Cohn, Vice President.

Although many cities in North Carolina have been engaged in performance measurement for years, most have not obtained input from their citizens and results have not been reported publicly. With this grant, the North Carolina League of Municipalities (NCLM) will introduce the perspectives of citizens to cities' performance measurement and encourage cities to report publicly on their performance. The project will involve six demonstration cities, all having experience with performance measurement. An outside consultant will convene a team of city government staff and a group of interested citizens to create useful performance measures that reflect citizens' perspectives. Each demonstration city is committed to collect data for each new performance measure and report it publicly. Each demonstration city will be paired with and serve as mentor to one of six other cities selected for the project. Representatives of each of these cities would attend its mentor's meetings with citizens to learn how citizen inputs can be solicited for the purpose of designing new measures. They will participate in lessons-learned workshops. Their city staff will be provided guidance and support to help implement citizen-informed performance measurement and reporting in their cities. NCLM staff will assist the staff of all twelve cities to institutionalize citizen-informed performance measurement and reporting. Presentations about citizen-informed performance measurement and reporting are planned for state and national meetings of relevant professional organizations and articles will be produced for their publications. Personnel from the University of North Carolina's School of Government will participate in the project and include its results in their instructional programs for government officials, graduate students, and others. Project Director: Owen Franklin, Research Analyst.

With this grant, Rutgers University-Newark will launch a network of practitioners of performance measurement and reporting and serve as its secretariat. Guided by a steering committee of national and local leaders in the performance measurement movement, the network will offer an online newsletter, an annual conference, regional conferences, workshops, special interest listservs, a roster of consultants, a speakers bureau, and an online depository of best practices, reports, and other publications. Excellence Awards for Citizen-Based Performance Measurement will be made. During the first year, the steering committee will develop a consensus statement on the value and utility of citizen-based performance measurement, the advantages of measurement efforts conducted by external groups, and the value of cooperation between governments and non-government organizations in conducting and reporting performance measurement. Project Director: Marc Holzer, Professor of Public Administration and Executive Director, National Center for Public Productivity.

The following grants were made from an appropriation approved by the Board of Trustees to fund start-up grants, small projects, and community building activities in the Foundation's program for citizen-based performance assessment of municipal governments.

To determine ways to increase use of citizen-driven performance measurement in local governments in the Southeast United States. Project Director: David R. Eichenthal, President and Chief Executive Officer.

To fund a professional exchange focused on performance measurement and management between GFOA and its United Kingdom counterpart, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountability. Project Director: Anne Kinney, Director, Research and Consulting Center.

To initiate a project focused on 311 and customer service systems with a case study of San Antonio, TX. Project Director: Cory Fleming, Senior Project Manager.

To produce a special issue of National Civic Review addressing citizen-informed and citizen-based performance measurement and reporting. Project Director: Derek Okubo, Vice President.

To study how best to implement a citizen-based performance measurement and reporting project in New England. Project Director: Lisa R. Parker, Finance Director, City of Saco, Maine.

To enable the Abbott Leadership Institute to launch Inside Schools Newark. Project Director: Junius Williams, Director, Abbott Leadership Institute, Department of Urban Education.

To help launch a network of performance measurement and reporting practitioners in the states of Iowa and Minnesota. Project Director: Jim Chrisinger, Team Leader, Accountability and Results, Iowa Department of Management.

To develop a plan to launch a project for public reporting of comparative performance information of state agencies. Project Director: Harry Hatry, Director, Public Management Program.

The following grants were funded from an appropriation to support the initial stages of website improvement by grantees in the Foundation's program to make municipal governments more responsive to their citizens.

Project Director: Michael Eastman, Executive Director.

Project Director: David R. Eichenthal, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Project Director: Lisa R. Parker, Finance Director, City of Saco, Maine.

To create training materials and initiate training on 311 - Citizen Relationship Management Systems. Project Director: Anne Kinney, Director, Research and Consulting Center.

To enable the National Center for Public Productivity to investigate options for a state-wide 311 system in New Jersey. Project Director: Marc Holzer, Executive Director, National Center for Public Productivity.