Digital Commons Network^™

Taken For Granted? Managing For Social Equity In Grant Programs., Brian Collins, Brian Gerber

Brian K. Collins

Managing for social equity performance has long been a goal without much guidance for public managers. We examine social equity performance in the context of indirect governance through the administration of grant programs and, more specifically, the matching of policy responses (grant funding) to social needs. Grant program managers must allocate funding to match needs while also ensuring accountability, but common administrative models that rely on competition can undermine social equity performance. We develop a unique framework to analyze the relative social equity performance of four models of grant administration in general. These models are defined by whether competitions or …