Vice President Gore last week unveiled an interagency World Wide Web site for nonprofit groups that work with the government.
The U.S. NonProfit Gateway (www.nonprofit.gov) is a "one-stop shopping center" of government information for nonprofit groups, the White House said. The site links up information about grants, budgets, volunteer opportunities and partnership opportunities from 15 agencies. Users can look up information by agency, by type of service, or by using a search tool that delves through 300,000 government Web pages.
A search on "grants, at-risk youth" turned up relevant information from the Health and Human Services Department, the Education Department and the National Endowment for the Arts.
"I know that this site will help empower people with the tools they need to help others," Gore said.
Doris Matsui, deputy director of the White House office of public liaison, led the interagency task force that created the NonProfit Gateway. Teams at the 15 agencies involved in the project developed nonprofit pages on each of their Web sites as well.
The gateway is the latest in a series of interagency Web sites devoted to a particular customer base. The U.S. Business Advisor (www.business.gov) is a one-stop shop for businesses dealing with the government. The HHS-led Healthfinder (www.healthfinder.gov) is an interagency site for health care consumers. And FedStats (www.fedstats.gov), created by the Federal Interagency Council on Statistical Policy, links together dozens of federal statistical sources.
The interagency sites are examples of what Treasury Department Chief Information Officer James Flyzik calls "virtual agencies." Interagency groups look at their programs from customers' point-of-view, he says, and then "create a single face to the customer of government."
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