Federal Allocation of Funding Threatens Federally Funded Non-Profits Focused on Literacy

The NewYork Times recently reported that the new federal plan for allocating fundingto fight illiteracy may have some unfortunate results.  The federal budget proposed for 2011 providesfor the pooling of all federal money that is now directly granted toorganizations like Reading Is Fundamental (RIF)and the National Writing Project  (NWP), and distributing that money to stateand local governments for allocation. The Department of Education argues that this change will enable agenciesto focus on the areas of greatest need to improve student performance.

This pooling,however, will mean that groups like RIF and NWP will face an abrupt increase intheir administrative costs.  Presently,RIF and NWP deal directly with the federal government.  Going forward, they will have to partner withindividual state and local governments to get access to funding.  This will require hiring people to writegrant applications specifically tailored to the requirements of each state,resulting in a diversion of limited resources away from providing books tochildren, and towards covering added administrative costs.  The threat to RIF and NWP highlights a largerproblem in the non-profit sector.  Wheninnovation becomes a goal in itself, it can hurt effective, establishedprograms, especially when innovation is not coupled with new funding to supportit.  RIF and NWP have built their institutionsand positive impact on continued federal funding. 

SS