With more than $780-billion made available by the Obama administration’s stimulus package, foundations can help federal, state, and local government agencies decide how to best spend that money so it creates jobs and helps the economy, said G. Edward DeSeve, a senior adviser at the Office of Management and Budget.

Mr. DeSeve is the government official in charge of tracking how the hundreds of billions of dollars in the package are used. During a speech at the Council on Foundation’s conference, he said grant makers can help in three ways.

• Foundations can make sure that the poor and other disadvantaged people have a say in stimulus efforts. As part of this, he said that foundations should assist small charities that want to apply for government funds but do not have the training or expertise to do so.

• Grant makers can make sure that separate government streams of money are connected and the efforts they support work together.

• Charitable funds can suggest what “metrics” the government uses to figure out whether the stimulus package achieves any of its goals.

To be involved, however, he said foundations must move quickly because a lot of the stimulus money is required to be used this year.

“The speed that this recovery act is rolling out is incredible,” said Mr. DeSeve.