Mark Abramson has spent the last 20 years thinking up ways to improve government management. This year, he is going to start giving away $600,000 to get other people to do the thinking.
Abramson, a former Health and Human Services Department official and president of the Council for Excellence in Government, is now the executive director of the new PricewaterhouseCoopers Endowment for the Business of Government, which is being touted as the first foundation devoted to supporting the study of government management. The endowment is offering sabbaticals to government executives and grants to other individuals, who in return will come up with practical suggestions for improving the way government does business.
"If you look at the decade of the 1990s, there have been more innovations at the federal, state and local government levels than in the previous three decades," Abramson says. "What the endowment wants to do is facilitate a debate about what we have learned from reinvention and other innovations," as well as look at new approaches to government management.
On July 1, Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand merged to form a consulting giant, PricewaterhouseCoopers. The new company decided to create the endowment on government management as a way to contribute to the community and as a way to strengthen its presence in the federal, state and local government markets. In its first year, the endowment will make $600,000 in grants available.
Federal executives in the Senior Executive Service or at the GS-15 level can apply for two- to four-month sabbaticals. During the sabbaticals, executives will prepare research papers in one of three areas: outstanding leaders; new or effective tools, techniques or methods of delivering government services; and changing organizations, people and cultures.
The endowment will provide office space and cover research-related supplies and travel expenses. Executives' agencies will continue to pay their salaries. Sabbaticals are permitted for SESers under the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act and for GS-15 executives under the 1958 Intergovernmental Personnel Act.
"It's incredible how many people who actually do government don't get a chance to write about it," Abramson says. "We came up with the idea of a short sabbatical of two to four months. Executives can come to the endowment and research and write about either something they've done in government or something they'd like to propose--a new technique, for example."
The endowment will also issue $15,000 grants to academic researchers, journalists and others who agree to write 20 to 40 page research reports on ways to improve public administration. In addition, academic institutions and non-profit organizations can apply to the endowment for $20,000 grants to conduct conferences on government management. The conferences would bring together 25 to 30 government executives and outside experts.
The first grant application deadline is Sept. 30. For more information, call 703-741-1077.
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