July 01, 2009
Group Sheds 'Sunlight' on Failed Bid
While many charities proudly announce when they’ve won a government contract or grant, almost none publicly discuss why an attempted bid failed. On its blog, Sunlight Labs has done just that.
Sunlight Labs is run by the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington nonprofit group, and uses technology to push government officials and members of Congress to be more public about their work. (Read The Chronicle’s article about the Sunlight Foundation.)
In June Sunlight said it would try a radical idea: With help from independent Web developers and others, it would draft an application to operate Recovery.org, the federal government’s Web site used to track economic-stimulus money.
But the project did not work, writes Clay Johnson, director of Sunlight Labs. Among the problems: Sunlight didn’t understand the terminology used in federal contracts.
On the blog, Mr. Johnson describes the mistakes he made and writes about what his group learned from the effort, taking some pride in the experiment’s negative result.
“We’re proud to fail,” he writes. “Too often, especially in this community, people wring their hands and try and figure out what’s possible before trying something. While some may use the cliché of ‘don’t let perfect be the enemy of good,’ I think it may be more appropriate to say: ‘Don’t let what’s possible get in the way of doing something.’”
What do you think? Have other nonprofit groups talked publicly about a failed bid for a contract or grant and what they’ve learned from the experience?
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