The underlying power of the internet has always been the connection of ideas and people without regard to temporal, physical, social, or other common restraints. Through this communicative ease provided by the internet, crowd-sourcing is becoming a prominent feature in many aspects of our lives. Crowd-sourcing is essentially the enabling of a mass collaboration of individuals to contribute to a task normally reserved for one individual or a set number of individuals. The most prominent example to date is Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia open to contributions and edits from anyone who chooses to participate.

September can be an important marker for a lot of yearly transitions - students from kindergarten to graduate school return to the classroom, Fall begins, Monday night Football returns. However, for public agencies and nonprofit organizations, it should also herald the start to a new season of grantseeking.

Ever since last November, when Republicans retook the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, the G.O.P. has successfully focused the national policy agenda almost entirely on debt and deficits.

By Vince Siragusa
May 2011

As an indication that federal lawmakers are increasingly committed to deficit reduction and reining in spending, the recent congressional compromise trims $38.5 billion over the remainder of federal fiscal year 2011. Inevitably, those asked to do more with less will continue to be called upon to follow up on this daunting assignment. While thrifty public and private organizations have long ago trimmed the proverbial fat from their operational costs, many homeland security grant programs, no longer exempt from the broader discretionary spending freezes, will now be required to meet the same task. Let us take some look at what we can expect in Department of Homeland Security spending in 2011.

While Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 and FY2012 budget talks will likely continue to dominate the political psyche for the foreseeable future, other important legislative endeavors remain alive - albeit in a much more latent way. Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) has been a standing priority for the Obama administration, as it remains an area of possible bipartisan achievement.

At the heart of the debates in Washington and in state capitals across the country is the ongoing crisis in public finance as politicians, unions, lobbyists, policy wonks, and others debate just what it will take to align revenues to outlays. With the 111^th Congress having left Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 appropriations unfinished, it remains up to the 112^th Congress not only to finish the FY2011 spending bills but also begin work on the budget for FY2012.

Of the two bills signed into law that enacted the historic health care reform effort under President Obama, the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 features one of the least cited yet critically important grant opportunities since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

Many grantseeking organizations can attest all too well to former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil's famous quote that "all politics is local." For many public agencies, nonprofit organizations, schools, and other organizations, the decisions made at the state and federal levels extend far beyond their immediate influence or control, yet ultimately impact them the most. The annual budget and appropriations processes at the Federal level exemplify O'Neil's point, as the work conducted with respect to each significantly affects the opportunities, challenges, and prospects for local grantseekers.