Want to track where the stimulus is being used in your community? Check out StimulusWatch.  StimulusWatch.org was built to help the new administration keep its pledge to invest stimulus money smartly, and to hold public officials to account for the taxpayer money they spend.  The site accomplishes this by allowing you, citizens around the country with local knowledge about the proposed “shovel-ready” projects in your city, to find, discuss and rate those projects.

Because legislative and executive activity on stimulus spending is moving so quickly, the site’s owners feel it is important to help jump-start citizen participation as soon as possible. The projects are not part of the stimulus bill, but candidates for funding by federal grant programs.

You can search the database by keywords, state/city or program type. Go here to view energy programs.

StimulusWatch.org was built by a four-person team led by Jerry Brito, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University who studies government accountability. The other members of the team include: Kevin Dwyer, Senior Computer Scientist at White Oak Technologies; Eileen Norcross, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Her research has focused on state and local budgets, economic development, and the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program; and Peter Snyder, a contract programmer who specializes in Web 2.0 projects and Cocoa programming in Chicago.

They are now working on Stimulus Watch 2.0, will allow citizens to track which projects are actually funded and to provide local knowledge about how that funding is working in their community.

Stimulus Watch Energy Tracking Grid

Off the Map, a website dedicated to geodata and visualization, has taken StimulusWatch.org’s dataset and mashed it on a map with regional unemployment numbers. Check out the interactive map. Also, be sure to read their post explaining what they did.

Off the Map, a website dedicated to geodata and visualization, has taken StimulusWatch.org’s dataset and mashed it on a map with regional unemployment numbers
Off the Map, a website dedicated to geodata and visualization, has taken StimulusWatch.org’s dataset and mashed it on a map with regional unemployment numbers
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Author: Tracey de Morsella (323 Articles)

Tracey de Morsella started her career working as an editor for US Technology Magazine. She used that experience to launch Delaware Valley Network, a publication for professionals in the Greater Philadelphia area. Years later, she used the contacts and resources she acquired to work in executive search specializing in technical and diversity recruitment. She has conducted recruitment training seminars for Wachovia Bank, the Department of Interior and the US Postal Service. During this time, she also created a diversity portal called The Multicultural Advantage and published the Diversity Recruitment Advertising Toolkit, a directory of recruiting resources for human resources professionals. Her career and recruitment articles have appeared in numerous publications and web portals including Woman Engineer Magazine, Monster.com, About.com Job Search Channel, Workplace Diversity Magazine, Society for Human Resource Management web site, NSBE Engineering Magazine, HR.com, and Human Resource Consultants Association Newsletter. Her work with technology professionals drew her to pursuing training and work in web development, which led to a stint at Merrill Lynch as an Intranet Manager. In March, she decided to combine her technical and career management expertise with her passion for the environment, and with her husband, launched The Green Economy Post, a blog providing green career information and covering the impact of the environment, sustainable building, cleantech and renewable energy on the US economy. Her sustainability articles have appeared on Industrial Maintenance & Plant Operation, Chem.Info,FastCompany and CleanTechies.