Brian Fogle: To Support Small Towns, Government Should Focus on Effectiveness, Not Efficiency (Op-ed)

About the Author:

Brian Fogle is the current chair of the board of directors at Rural Schools Collaborative. Additionally, Brian is the Executive in Residence at Drury University. He retired as CEO from Community Foundation of the Ozarks in 2024. Prior to joining CFO, he spent 30 years in banking in Springfield, Missouri. A leader of community development in rural contexts, Brian is active in numerous civic and non-profit groups.

I recently retired as CEO of a community foundation that serves over 60 counties, mostly rural, in a midwestern state. Prior to that, I spent three decades in banking, with over half of that in community development, including the establishment of the national initiative for Rural Community Development for a money center bank. More recently, I’ve had the privilege of being board chair for Rural Schools Collaborative (RSC).

I know and have seen first-hand the frustration with government that a majority of rural residents feel. After the pandemic, our federal government committed an unprecedented amount of fiscal policy stimulus to help bolster the economy, but little of it made its way to our small towns. Due to some heavy advocacy of rural leaders and champions, there was a significant carve-out of the Build Back Better initiative for rural America. There was much excitement around the support this could provide until the application came out—it was over 400 pages! The issue is, and has been, a lack of capacity in so many of our rural places.

The same challenge faces our rural schools, which do amazing work every day with limited resources. RSC research from a few years ago shows that rural school districts receive on average $1,200 less per student from state and federal funding than their urban counterparts, and that gap is even wider with suburban districts. There are good, caring leaders in our small towns, but very few have the luxury of planners, grant-writers, and other professional staff to both apply for and manage such complex state and federal programs. I know of several communities that sent back significant financial awards post-pandemic because of that human resource gap.

That frustration was certainly one of the factors contributing to the outcome of our most recent presidential election, and the resulting current efforts to dismantle the federal government as we know it. "We're not getting our share!" I heard, and we're being "left behind.” I understand the resentment and grievances that can emanate from those experiences, but eliminating funding and programs is not the answer. Even the title of this new quasi-department "Department of Government Efficiency" gets it wrong, and certainly their focus does; a country can have an efficient government, but that does not mean it's effective.

I will be the first to acknowledge we need a more effective government, but "drowning it in a bathtub" doesn't get us there. I suppose the current path of departmental extermination will ultimately be settled by courts. In the meantime, our country will learn firsthand the difference between efficiency and effectiveness. Perhaps after the pain is experienced, we can have a more thoughtful and deliberate process to improve the effectiveness and bring more appropriate resources to our rural areas.

One way to improve effectiveness is to utilize best practices from the private sector. Many foundations now utilize a universal application for all grants, instead of having a different one for each program of varying lengths and complexity. Another solution could be working better with potential partners as intermediaries. There are over 800 community foundations in America covering nearly every geography: they are experts in grantmaking and could have helped get the state and federal dollars out much more quickly and effectively. There are also other very effective intermediaries like Rural Schools Collaborative that have the trust and relationships on the ground to more effectively administrate federal resources. Our rural places know that a little can go a long way in those areas. We just need a better, more effective means to deliver those needed resources.

I fear once again that our rural neighbors will be disappointed with the outcomes of these efficiency efforts and be left behind once more. What we have needed in the entire United States, not just rural areas, is a more effective government, not merely efficiency.