The city of Portland gives out millions of dollars in grants every year, mostly to nonprofit organizations. But even with so much of the city’s money going out to nonprofit contractors, Portland never had a centralized process for measuring the effectiveness or outcomes from the millions in taxpayer money it distributes. 

That’s why the Office of Community and Civic Life, in collaboration with the Office of Management and Finance, has taken on the task of creating a “comprehensive process and transparency framework” for community grants the city gives out. 

The new grant management policy, adopted by City Council on Sept. 4, will require all city grants to go through a centralized online portal, expected to go live next summer. The portal, Webgrants, will be accessible to potential grantees during the application process, as well as to anyone interested in where Portland’s grant money is going. 

At a City Council meeting on Aug. 28, Commissioner Dan Ryan—who was in charge of the Office of Community and Civic Life until July—introduced the plan for a citywide outgoing grants administration policy. 

“Simply put, we want to ensure to our taxpayers that we are good stewards of their funds,” Ryan said during the Aug. 28 Council meeting. “This is basic housekeeping and fundamental accountability.” 

The current grant process 

The amount of general fund dollars allocated for grants has risen substantially in recent years. From 2018 to 2023, the city of Portland doled out more than $52 million in general fund grants. In the 2018-19 fiscal year, the city distributed about $6.4 million in general fund grants. By 2022, that number grew to roughly $16.6 million distributed. 

But the general fund allocations are only a minority of the city’s total outgoing grants. In fiscal year 2022-23, the city gave out about $130 million, but the majority of that money ($113 million) was restricted funding associated with the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF), the Portland Children’s Levy, or sub-awards passed through state or federal grant programs. 

While the grant management plan will only apply to general fund allocations, programs like PCEF—after some hiccups—have developed robust grant tracking and accountability processes as well. 

Ryan said in the city’s current, siloed grant system, it is impossible to determine data and trends about outgoing grants without conducting a manual count. Throughout Ryan’s time overseeing several different Portland bureaus and offices, he said he was “shocked to learn that all the bureaus…have different processes for outgoing grants.” 

At a January work session on the potential outgoing grant policy, Portland’s former budget director Tim Grewe laid out his top concerns with the city’s current grant disbursement process. 

“There's not always a focus on the priorities for how we're spending these community grants… It would be useful to make sure we're linking them to Council and bureau priorities,” Grewe said. 

Grewe said he also saw an absence of competition within the grant process, which could limit the outcomes of the funding, and he noticed a lack of consistent compliance with the city’s codes and financial policies. 

As it stands, the city’s “messy, decentralized process” does not always require nonprofit grantees to submit information such as recent financial statements and a list of current board members. 

“We need universal guidelines to ensure all awards from the city are being spent on organizations who can provide the basics,” Ryan said at the Aug. 28 meeting. “Current financial statements, a list of board members, staff, and, most importantly, clarity on the goal with measurable targets to track the [city’s] investment.” 

This isn’t the first time Ryan and other Portland officials have expressed concern about the outgoing city grants process. Last summer, Ryan announced the city’s Office of Arts & Culture would diversify its grant funding disbursement process, in hopes of establishing “stronger performance measures” and reducing the city’s investment in overhead expenses, “all to ensure a broader and more effective reach in delivering arts-related grants and services.” 

Previously, the city had a sole-source contract with the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC), which was entrusted with doling out grants to community arts organizations. Now, the city is working with three different groups, including RACC, to distribute arts grants. 

Years before the shakeup with RACC, city bureaus struggled  to maintain oversight of routine grant funding.

In 2020, a city-commissioned financial audit of one of Portland’s district coalitions (which fund neighborhood associations) found roughly $174,000 was lost to employee embezzlement over the span of seven years more than a decade prior. The financial mismanagement came as a surprise to the Office of Community and Civic Life, which manages the annual funding for the city’s district coalitions.

The new grant policy 

Those who have worked on developing a new citywide grant management policy say when the policy is implemented, Portlanders can expect to see more “consistency, accountability, transparency, and data.” 

“The future will be one grant framework and consistent data and centralized software systems and reports…we will have citywide participation, required reporting,” Sheila Craig, Portland’s grants manager, said at the Aug. 28 City Council meeting. “It will be one consistent process for all of our bureaus, and it will be a consistent process for our community partners.” 

Craig also said the city is developing a dashboard for the public to see where taxpayer funds are going across the city. 

At that same Council meeting, attorney John DiLorenzo asked if the new outgoing grant policy would restrict city funding to nonprofits who distribute tarps and tents to homeless Portlanders, even if the city’s grant wouldn’t pay for that work specifically. DiLorenzo is the attorney who represented disabled Portlanders in an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) lawsuit against the city. The city settled that lawsuit in 2023, and devoted $20 million over the next five years to sweeping campsites that violate the ADA settlement. 

DiLorenzo proposed that the outgoing grant policy “make clear that…grant recipients are required to comport their tent and tarp distribution policies to that adopted by the city pursuant to our settlement agreement.” 

“Your grant recipients should be part of the solution, not part of the problem,” DiLorenzo said. 

The adopted grant policy states that “grantees must agree to ensure compliance with legal requirements related to nondiscrimination and nondiscriminatory use of public funds, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and all other applicable federal, state, and local statutes, regulations, directives, and guidance including City of Portland policy.” It does not mention tent and tarp distribution specifically. 

Ryan said the reason he wanted to create a more scrupulous and centralized grant policy is to ensure “the people’s investments [are used] wisely.” 

“These investments are a reflection of our values,” Ryan said. “This policy establishes common sense oversight and centralized inventory that ensures that we'll track data and measure impact.”