E-009 Technology Trends for Grant Management with Adam Roth, Jillian Neimeister and Lucy Morgan CPA
Episode Summary:
### Quick Episode Summary Grant Talks Podcast [#009]
*Intro ***.41***
* Fire Away Questions Adam Roth and Jillian Neimeister and Lucy Morgan CPA ***2:00***
* Live from the NGMA Conference – The Latest on the DATA Act***4:28***
* How the DATA Act will affect Federal Grant Recipients ***5:52***
* How Technology and Automation are Changing Grants Management***7:18***
* Grant Technology from Drones, to Datasets to Blockchain***8:49***
* Benefits of AI (Artificial Intelligence) on Grant Management ***11:31***
* Real-World Grant Software Implementation Case Study ***15:19***
* How Improved Grant Technology Solves Real-World Problems ***17:52***
* Dealing with Disasters - Puerto Rico Technology Case Study ***22:16***
* 4 Eternal Truths About Technology and Grants ***24:59***
* The Last Word with Adam Roth, Jillian Neimeister and Lucy Morgan CPA***29:14***
*Outro Audio GrantTalks Podcast with Lucy M. Morgan CPA ***30:30***
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Intro: 00:04
Welcome to the Grant Talks podcast with Lucy Morgan. Lucy is the CEO and director of MyFedTrainer.com a leading provider of grant management training and templates for federal grant recipients. This show is for grant professionals looking to gain confidence managing their grants. In an age of increasing complexity, you'll hear from leading professionals on the best practices surrounding grants, what's involved in successfully managing the grants lifecycle and how to make sure your grants are managed correctly. Now here's your host Lucy Morgan.
Lucy Morgan: 00:41
Welcome everyone to this conversation with Adam Roth. Adam is the founder and CEO of StreamLink Software, a privately held company offering AmpliFund, the leading enterprise grant management software platform. Adam works closely with industry and government officials to facilitate the development of improved regulatory guidelines for managing grant funding using standardized data structures. He speaks frequently on the topic to audiences around the country. As a result of his work, he was honored with the NGMA Impact Award-Private Sector for exceptional contributions to advancing the field of grant management. Adam is joined today by Jillian Neimeister, Director of Delivery, and I am Lucy Morgan, the host for this session. So welcome Adam.
Adam Roth: 01:24
Thank you so much. Excited to be here
Lucy Morgan: 01:26
And welcome Jillian.
Jillian N.: 01:27
Thank you very much.
Lucy Morgan: 01:29
Well, I'm thrilled to be able to interview you, Adam for this podcast. We spoke a few years ago as part of a series on the State of Grant Management Report and at that time we discussed some of the implications of the new open data initiatives such as the DATA Act and the GREAT Act and the effects on greater transparency requirements for federal grant recipients. So here we are, we're back at the NGMA conference in Washington DC.
Adam Roth: 01:52
It's a great conference by the way.
Lucy Morgan: 01:53
It is a great conference. I understand they sold out and have set records with this conference.
Adam Roth: 01:58
It's great to set records.
Fire Away Questions Adam Roth and Jillian Neimeister and Lucy Morgan CPA
Lucy Morgan: 02:00
So, I want to thank you. I know you've had a busy schedule. I appreciate you taking some time out to talk about what's going on in the world of adopting new grant technology. And I always like to start out with a few "fire away" questions to introduce you to our audience. So, are you ready?
Adam Roth: 02:15
Go for it.
Lucy Morgan: 02:16
Alright! You cover a lot of ground each year with StreamLink. What are you curious about at the moment with grant management?
Adam Roth: 02:23
I think it's really interesting to see what's going on in the market. Sometimes we even sit around the office trying to figure out what's driving the conversation, what's really pushing the agenda. And when you look at a federal market versus a state and local market versus a nonprofit market, there are different factors that are driving that. And I think, today I was talking to some folks from GAO, from OMB, and trying to understand what kind of implications, what were the core drivers of some things that are happening there. Clearly OMB has taken the DATA Act in the DATA Act pilot and the recommendations on that pilot to heart. And (OMB) has really taken that into driving a conversation exploration into how to better capture data at a federal level more globally. And I think that's starting to create a conversation within agencies at a higher level. It's part of the President's Management Agenda. We heard about that this morning at the conference. So, it's, something you can look up online, and that's really an interesting component. At the state and local level, I think you're really starting to feel and starting to see the implications of UGG (Uniform Grant Guidance) and how that's starting to really come through in the driving of the conversation. The other thing that's happened I think is that if you look historically at grants management with that state market, it's kind of moved from enterprise systems to, there were some attempts to do something with more of a specific solution that was kind of an off the shelf solution that were not successful. And then you're starting to see now, I think the first core successes with statewide grants implementation. And I think what my thought process is that you're going to start to see an acceleration with the state and local and the downstream market because of that, the nonprofits, etc. within those states. So, we'll see where it goes. But that's kind of some of the things that we're keeping an eye on today. And trying to understand how those things will facilitate the market moving forward.
Live from the NGMA Conference – The Latest on the DATA Act
Lucy Morgan: 04:28
So, I have to ask you, since we talked about the DATA Act really before the pilot was going full bore, what surprised you about the possibilities of the DATA Act now compared to a couple of years ago?
Adam Roth: 04:39
So I think when you look at, if you read the report to Congress and I'm not sure how many of your listeners have actually read the DATA Act pilot report to Congress because it's not exactly light bedtime reading, but it's an interesting read in the sense that the pilot was very focused on looking at forms and a form-centric approach and very tied to trying to manage that. There were some other activities that were happening kind of behind the scenes that were more focused on data, a data-centric approach as well. And I think what's exciting about the recommendations to Congress and in that report that came out in August of 2017 is that it really allowed for OMB to define what was accomplished in the pilot but also to set forth some standards of recommendation. And the recommendations, if you read them, three of the four were really, really focused on a data-centric approach to the pilot or to grants management. And I think you're starting to see the outcroppings of that in the President's Management Agenda. And so, I think the DATA Act actually has had it in the pilot itself along with the recommendations that Congress has had, sort of a very significant impact on the core direction of where things are moving today.
How the DATA Act will affect Federal Grant Recipients
Lucy Morgan: 05:52
And I have to ask you this because I think when we talked, most of the grant recipients that I talked to a couple of years ago, maybe had some vague awareness of the DATA Act and the expectations of the GREAT Act, but really didn't have it on the radar screen. Do you feel like that's getting more up on the radar screen with people?
Adam Roth: 06:10
I think for recipients, first of all, the DATA Act in and of itself doesn't legislate anything for recipients. It's only legislation that is specific to the federal government. Now, it's always been the belief of practitioners like myself and I don't know where, Lucy, where are you coming out on this? But it's always been my belief that because the federal agencies are going to meet certain requirements that those are going to be pushed down to recipients and local governments. So, I think, I think there is still some reality to that. I think what we see more at the recipient level though is a concentration on audit requirements, cost principles driven by the Uniform Grant Guidance. I think the concept of focusing on data-centric reporting has massive value for states without even taking into account the DATA Act per se. One of our customers, the State of Illinois passed their own legislation called the Grant Accountability and Transparency Act modeled in some ways after the DATA Act and modeled in other ways after UGG to set up a standard around grant reporting and accountability. And I think that's kind of probably how states see it more than the DATA Act per se in and of itself, at the federal level.
How Technology and Automation are Changing Grants Management
Lucy Morgan: 07:18
And Adam since we talked last about the DATA Act, I was living in Colorado at the time and I relocated to Florida and I'm seeing some new uses of technology that I really never even imagined a couple of years ago. One of the areas that I've seen some technology applications is the use of drone technology and in mapping for disasters and other types of preparedness and recovery areas. What are some of the ways that technology and automation are changing grant management? Not just legislatively, but actually the technology is improving grant management functions.
Adam Roth: 07:55
So, I mean, I think, first of all, it's our perspective and our being our company's perspective that there are a couple of core factors when we look at technology in how we need to think about it related to grants management. One of the core principles is it has to be data-driven. This is a data problem and in order to be data-driven, it has to be able to collect data at the recipient level. You can't be a paper and emails and post-it notes coming from recipients up the chain. And then somewhere else it gets entered as data because at that point you've lost all integrity into the process. You've lost your efficiency and the gain of trying to manage this process. And so, data is certainly center. So, I think the technologies that are focused on data, data collection, data movement, data management, and data analysis are areas that have the ability to impact the grant technology space.
Grant Technology from Drones, to Datasets to Blockchain
Adam Roth: 08:49
And so, what you're seeing today with the drones, for example, is a data collection structure. It's a way to get new data, different types of data into the system more efficiently than having recipients have to go out and try to find it together themselves. I think at the heart of this we have a partnership with IBM. We have a federal product called Grant IQ that is focused on incorporating the management concepts that we provide and the data collection structures that we provide within AmpliFund with much broader datasets integrated through artificial intelligence technology, utilizing IBM's AI (artificial intelligence) technology, to also detect fraud, waste, and abuse as well as to start to streamline data collection and some efficiency gains and management processes around utilizing AI. The other one that I know has been explored is, blockchain, which is really about data movement and trying to think about how do you control the movement of data and in blockchains interesting in the sense that it's, on the one hand, it's exciting because it's just cool, right? Everybody's talking about blockchain and it's at least from a tech nerd factor, it's cool, right? So, it has a sort of a cool factor to it, but the reality is sort of how do you think about blockchain and grants and this is one where I'm actually a little bit, I'm not quite sure how it's going to play out. I think if technology blockchain, were focused on payments and the payment management system down through the chain, so the federal government, in essence, could pay recipients directly through a blockchain process or at least monitor the payment structures through blockchain process that may have some value in protection. I think it's probably overpriced to just do data collection through blockchain and I'm sure that that creates the value on the backend. Maybe someone can show me differently, but we'll see where that goes. But I know those are two areas that are being explored at the federal government level in terms of incorporating new functionality and features. AI has a lot of, I believe, direct application at the state and local level as well and so we're excited to explore that over the next couple of years.
Lucy Morgan: 11:08
So, there's a lot of terminology in there that wasn't even on our radar screen a couple of years ago.
Adam Roth: 11:13
Oh, absolutely.
Lucy Morgan: 11:13
You didn't even talk about Bitcoin, the government paying in Bitcoin?
Adam Roth: 11:17
Well, yeah. Well, we'll see cryptocurrencies.
Lucy Morgan: 11:19
Yes. But I did appreciate you noting that little data elves don't come and take Post-it notes and turn them into quality inputs in the night.
Adam Roth: 11:29
At least not ones that we've found yet. No.
Benefits of AI (Artificial Intelligence) on Grant Management
Lucy Morgan: 11:31
Okay. So, some of the benefits you mentioned there, I think one of the ones that are probably new to a lot of people is this concept of AI. What are some of the benefits of advances in technology on AI? You mentioned some of the blockchain, but ...
Adam Roth: 11:46
Yeah, so with AI, I mean there are lots of, you can start to ask a different set of questions and you've ever been able to ask before. You can speed up some processes. So, for example, today, the federal government, if they're going to give out a grant, they have to check through a recipient across multiple evaluation tools; SAM.gov, other tools at the federal government level to make sure that the grantee is of the right quality to receive the funds. And so the idea of AI being able to do a process, which today takes 30 minutes and convert that down into seconds, in terms of processing speed, providing a core dashboard including single audit results, which may be reading an audit, which isn't true data, but it's reading regular text and being able to translate that into findings and being able to result that onto a dashboard like a credit report kind of dashboard for recipients across multiple structures has a practical time savings exercise. Fraud, waste, and abuse is an issue primarily due to a lack of tracking and monitoring and reporting on certain structures. And so the idea that you can take tools that are used with the IRS to track fraud, waste and abuse today and apply those to the grant space and apply those to let's say disaster relief scenarios where there's lots of money that's getting distributed almost like through a fire hose, but yet you still need to track results. How do you monitor that? Lots of data. How do you start to identify patterns that are unnatural? How do you start to define structures that are unnatural? So those are some kind of immediate sort of direct practical implications. In addition to that, you can start to ask a different set of questions. So you can start to say, if I'm a state and I have one recipient in one county that does really well with my grants and I have seven recipients across the state that do pretty well and I've got four or five that struggle, how can I find someone like the recipient that does really well in those other areas of the state? And so how do I start to ask a different set of questions? You know, what's the economic structure around that recipient? What's the leadership like? What's the audit like? What's the educational attainment level in that community? What's the core basis of their financial picture? And now give me six other agencies or organizations in my state that are like that one. And so, I can start to find grantees. I can start to find structures. I can start to ask a different set of questions to create better value for my dollars and where things might go in the future.
Lucy Morgan: 14:28
It's really cool. And it's also a little frightening I think in some ways.
Adam Roth: 14:32
Yeah, I mean it is. And I don't think it should be the end-all-be-all of any decision-making process. But today fundamentally some of the best organizations may not be receiving the grants to deliver the best programs. And, if we're really in the business of trying to figure out how to maximize the value of the assets of what is it actually a significant amount of money and we want to turn that into the greatest value, how do we do that? And I think if we start to ask the right questions, I think we can start to get some better answers. And up till now, we've been limited in the questions that we've been able to ask. And so, if we start to think about the different kinds of questions, we can ask in the future, that will start to change I think, our perspective in terms of how this whole process works.
Real-World Grant Software Implementation Case Study
Lucy Morgan: 15:19
Very cool. Well, I want to get into a little bit more depth with your presentation because you actually did implementation at the State of Illinois and the government of Puerto Rico. So, I'm going to ask Jillian a few questions since it sounds like you were in the trenches with these. Walk us through what drove these changes at both the State of Illinois and the government of Puerto Rico.
Jillian N.: 15:41
Sure. So, what's really unique about the two biggest implementations we have going on right now are how different they are. And where they started from is incredibly different. So, we've been working with Puerto Rico for longer, nearly a year now. With Puerto Rico, this began as an executive order. So, from their perspective, they are using a system AmpliFund to standardize business processes. So, we are working with five agencies this year to implement AmpliFund. By working with those agencies, we're learning what's going on. So what business processes are standard across the island and what aren't? How can we start to select those business processes that make sense for next year and the next 10 agencies that we work with? So, we're going with five agencies in this really big way and going all-in with them. On the flip side is Illinois who came at this from a completely different perspective. So, Puerto Rico is the top-down approach, executive order, start with five agencies, see what's happening there. And from Illinois, this was a recipient driven decision. So, in Illinois, the grantees were the ones who came to the state and said, you know, we're submitting 50 kinds of reports to 50 different organizations. There's got to be a better way. I didn't actually mean to say "gotta" but that's what happened is the Grant Accountability, Transparency Act (GATA). The recipients went to the state, specifically, Carol Krauss who was working with us on the implementation from the State of Illinois, was huge in getting that done, working with the legislation to get actual legislation passed. So, what they've done is they've worked for years to standardize business processes. So now they have the standard business processes in place across the state, and they're adding a system and kind of as a nice bow on top, I would like to say it. So, in Puerto Rico, they're using the system to standardize the processes. So now we have a great tool and let's figure out what processes are going to go into the system. Let's put the good ones in place. And we're going to learn what those are and what they aren't and how we can improve on them. Illinois, the opposite approach where it's we already know what's working. So, let's finish off by a consistent system in place across the state.
How Improved Grant Technology Solves Real-World Problems
Lucy Morgan: 17:52
Very interesting that they both, you know, they come from completely opposite ends of the spectrum but recognize the importance of technology. Adam, what are some of the primary problems that they were looking to solve with this technology?
Adam Roth: 18:05
So, I think that's a great question and I think, when we look at a state like Illinois compared to, Puerto Rico, there clearly were different goals and objectives, when we came in. Puerto Rico had a primary focus on trying to increase revenue for the island. They had a primary focus on wanting to ensure compliance with their agencies and were really focused on creating some good value right away in those areas. Illinois is more concerned about continuing the process, at least in the short term. Although they say they have those same, I mean both groups have the same priorities. It's just kind of in what order do they come in. Illinois was more focused initially I think in terms of the technology on trying to emphasize the gains that they've made through system standardization and innovation. The cost savings/cost avoidance in Illinois on an annual basis was shown to be in a study that was conducted by the state was shown to be about $258 million a year in cost savings/cost avoidance through grant standardization.
Lucy Morgan: 19:15
Wow.
Adam Roth: 19:17
And so, the idea that you can maintain that and drive that value forward by taking a lot of the work and effort that was done into a process that with the technology to drive that, it really was exciting for them. And so, the grants management system was a long-time interest of theirs and they had enough initiative and support behind this with the dollar values that were being generated through their work that it became an easy call I think at the end of the day to kind of push in this direction.
Lucy Morgan: 19:54
Well, and I'm sure the, you know, the whole concept of cost savings is something that many of the folks listening can relate to. We all are expected to do more with less resources. Jillian, how did the advances in technology impact the solutions that were offered to the State of Illinois?
Jillian N.: 20:09
So, another thing that's interesting about this is Illinois in their own way, started building their own systems. So, they have systems in place within the state already that don't exist elsewhere. So, they're Illinois specific, but it goes to some of the things that Adam was mentioning. For one, they have a process for posts like for the NOFO (Notice of Funding Opportunity) right? They're already putting that out there in a certain way. All grantees know to go to a certain place to get that information. Some of the things that are, I think you mentioned in your talk this afternoon, like risk assessments for recipients, being able to standardize that process. It's all in a system. So, there's one place that as an agency they can go and look for that information. The recipients have to fill it out once a year and then the agencies know they can go to one area to find that. So, Illinois is unique because they've built a lot of those systems already. And what we're looking at this as you know, it depends on where you are in the implementation, but we're not replacing GATA systems. So, the systems that Illinois has put in place, GATA, those are going to stay. We are going to integrate with them and build upon them for a grantee. So, this is where it started with the recipient who said, you know, there are too many systems, there are too many passwords. I don't know how to report on all of these things. Over time, we're going to transition from them to now they have the NOFO systems. They already know the GATA systems that are in place. AmpliFund is going to be the next step in the process, right? So, what they're going to learn is that they start applying for grants, through AmpliFund and it's going to be something as simple as the same username and password for every agency across the state. Right. That to somebody, I've applied for grants before, I still remember some of my passwords, but you don't want to have that. You want to be able to go to one place, apply for all of your grants and have that integrate with a system that you've already put in place. So, one of the concerns is, GATA spent a ton of time and they've spent resources and agencies are used to this and the grantees are used to this. So those systems are not getting changed. It's getting added to. So that's what the message we're trying to deliver is now we're extending the functionality that already exists there.
Dealing with Disasters - Puerto Rico Technology Case Study
Lucy Morgan: 22:16
And what about the government of Puerto Rico? Were the solutions there complicated by the recent natural disasters?
Jillian N.: 22:23
I think it'd be pretty easy to say "yes" to that answer. So, we have been working with Puerto Rico a lot longer than a year. And I think the first time I went down to Puerto Rico was a little over two years ago when we first thought that this project was going to start. So, from the delivery side, that was why I was involved at that point was, how are we going to do this? When are we going to get going? And then natural disasters happen. So, the focus changes. As we're building the program and the implementation two years later, FEMA money is still something that gets talked about. It's handled differently than the rest of the grant system. But everything from making sure, the different agencies we're talking to, they're getting their priorities addressed, which agencies are further along than others. It definitely goes back to, who had the additional infrastructure in place. What changes have happened since then? Maria happened. All of those things happen and there were a lot of other governmental changes on top of that. So, it's definitely something that's impacted things like timelines, but it also has proved a need to have this sort of infrastructure in place even more than anything else.
Lucy Morgan: 23:31
So, what lessons that you've learned both with the state of Illinois and the government of Puerto Rico, would you offer to a grant recipient that struggling with some of these same types of issues?
Jillian N.: 23:41
I don't think a lot of the issues that people face are uncommon. Right? So, if you're the recipient or the grantee at the end of the day, or you're the state who is putting money out there, it's a problem of scalability or size, not necessarily something different. So, there are a few things that you can do upfront if you're looking at adding a grant system in place to make sure that it's going to be more successful. The first one is plan for something like this and then communicate effectively about it. When I was talking to somebody today and she is interested in a grant system. She's from a city, a large city, but she's from the finance side. I said, "Okay, well who else?" She goes, "No, I'm just looking or I'm just starting to talk to people." And I said, "Okay when you go back, talk to people who are on the program side, talk to the people who are submitting the reports. Make sure that it's a collective decision going forward." So, if you're getting into a process like this plan, communicate, it's really important to get buy-in from other people who are in grants. I think one of the common misunderstandings is how complicated grants are and how many different people are involved in the process at the end of the day. So, getting some feedback from them is what would make beginning grants management implementation much more effective from the start.
4 Eternal Truths About Technology and Grants
Lucy Morgan: 24:59
That's good advice. And I love that you brought up this whole issue of communication. I think that's the unsung hero of successful grant management is that we are improving the communication tools and the actual skills within our organizations. You know, I think we all feel this crushing reality of how fast technology is changing. Adam, are there some eternal truths about technology that you can offer someone's struggling? Maybe they've got some antiquated systems or software that they're using that's really not designed for good grant management.
#1: Data-Driven Start to Finish
Adam Roth: 25:30
So I think there are four things that if I were going to talk to someone that wanted to go out and look at grants management systems, either look at their existing systems to see if they meet the mark for now and in the future, look at new systems coming in to evaluate them by, I think first and foremost, this has to be data-driven. As we talked about earlier, data is at the center of this, the ability to capture, move and manage that data will facilitate the ability to be both compliant with future federal regulations as well as streamline and automate processes, drive transparency within the state to have better visibility into performance and affect change where necessary. The amount of grant revenue that gets distributed every year from the federal government, the state and local governments represents about 5% of the country's gross domestic product. This is a massive economy that we're talking about trying to manage and if we're trying to manage it without understanding truly what the data within that economy is, we will fail. And you'll fail it at a variety of different levels. And so, I think fundamentally the first thing to focus on is data, data, data.
#2: Build a Strong Core-Objects and Structures
Adam Roth: 26:39
The second thing that I would focus on is whatever system you pick has to ensure that it has the ability to have the core objects and core structures in place to manage the full grant life cycle. If you're a grantee, that can be one part of the life cycle. If you're a grantor, that can be a different part of the life cycle. But if you're a grantor and it doesn't do any functionality or support any of the functions for the grantee, your ability to actually get and collect data is going to be limited. And so, the ability for systems to cross organizational boundaries to cross from grantor to grantee. And if you do both, you both receive and redistribute money. If so, you receive it as a grantee and redistribute as a grantor, that becomes obviously very critical. So, managing the full life cycle of all of the core objects that are necessary in grants management. That's the second bullet.
#3: Scalability Fuels the Future
Adam Roth: 27:32
The third bullet is it has to be scalable. And in order to be scalable, it has to be configurable. You can't have to, there's no way that we could implement five agencies in eight months in Puerto Rico. If we had to recode the system every time, we wanted to implement a different agency because they had a different business process or that needed to collect a different item or there was a different course or structure in place. So, the system has to have the core structures, but it has to also be configurable. And so, in order to be scalable and therefore cost-effective, it has to be configurable. And so if you look at your system today and every time you want to add a field to a form or every time you want to create a new report or every time you want to create a new data field in your system somewhere, you have to go pay a system to go do that work. It's not scalable.
#4: Implement and Innovative Quickly
Adam Roth: 28:24
Finally, the last bullet is it has to be able to be implemented efficiently by both scaling quickly, but also by being able to be innovative in terms of its implementation approach. We want to be able to get things in the market quickly. We want systems that are going to innovate and are going to push on the technology. And so, it has to be innovative and so you want to be working with an innovative company, but those other components have to be in the system to be successful. So those are the kind of what I would sit is the bullet points relative to this. I think there's a lot of exciting things that are happening in the space, but those, if I were looking at a system today, those would be the four boxes that I want to make sure are checked before I even did any other sort of central evaluation of the system or looked at price or anything else.
The Last Word with Adam Roth, Jillian Neimeister and Lucy Morgan CPA
Lucy Morgan: 29:14
Well, and I really appreciate Adam you taking the time to lay that out in a pretty simple framework because sometimes people just have struggled on where to even start. How do they start looking? So, I appreciate that insight. and I want to thank you, Jillian, also for sharing some of your experiences with Puerto Rico and Illinois. Before we sign off here if someone wants to find out more about StreamLink Software or AmpliFund, how should they get in touch?
Adam Roth: 29:40
I think the best is if you go to AmpliFund.com, that's our website. You can go to StreamLinkSoftware.com too. But we're pushing AmpliFund.com now. So, if you go to AmpliFund.com that's the best way. In there you can find out all the information, you can find out, information about us. You can contact forms; you can take surveys to figure out what types of products make the most sense for you given where you are with your grants process. And so, I encourage you to do all of that activity there, explore the site and then certainly reach out through that site for questions directly to us if you, if you have any.
Lucy Morgan: 30:16
Thank you so much for that. Thank you for participating in the Grant Talks podcast. Listeners, you can find all the episodes out on GrantTalks.com and thank you for tuning in.
Outro Audio GrantTalks Podcast with Lucy M. Morgan CPA
Outro: 30:30
To learn more about how MyFedTrainer.com makes grant management more manageable, visit MyFedTrainer.com. That's MyFedTrainer.com. You'll find all the Grant Talks episodes at GrantTalks.com. That's GrantTalks.com.
More About Adam Roth:
Adam Roth is the founder and President of StreamLink Software, a privately held company offering AmpliFund, the leading enterprise grant management software platform.
Adam is one of nine grant reporting executives to sit on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) DATA Act pilot program board. Adam works closely with industry and government officials to facilitate the development of improved regulatory guidelines for managing grant funding using standardized data structures, speaking frequently on the topic to audiences around the country. As a result of his work, he was honored with the NGMA Impact Award/Private Sector for exceptional contributions to advancing the field of grant management.
More About Jillian Neimeister:
Jillian Neimeister is the Director of Delivery for StreamLink Software, maker of AmpliFund, the leading enterprise grant management software platform.
Jillian has managed 100+ implementations, including rolling out AmpliFund to five territory-wide agencies within the government of Puerto Rico in a single year. Prior to StreamLink Software, Jillian was able to apply her Masters in Nonprofit Administration and Leadership degree as a grant writer and manager for a large nonprofit in Cleveland, OH.
More About Lucy Morgan:
Lucy M. Morgan is a CPA, MBA, GPA approved trainer, speaker, and author of 3 books including “Decoding Grant Management-The Ultimate Success Guide to the Federal Grant Regulations in 2 CFR Part 200.” As a leading authority on federal grant management for nonprofits, institutions of higher education and state, local and tribal governments she has written over 250 articles on grant management topics featured in LinkedIn, various publications and on the MyFedTrainer.com blog.
She is a sought-after presenter at national conferences sponsored by organizations such as the Grant Professional Association (GPA), National Grant Management Association (NGMA) and American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).
Lucy is also a highly regarded trainer whose techniques and teaching style come from real-world experience. Having faced many of the same challenges her audiences have endured, Lucy understands that what looks good on paper may not always work in the real world. Because she has been there, she provides people of all professional backgrounds with practical tools to advance their careers and make a bigger difference in the world. She can be reached at [email protected].
- Hear more about how Lucy became an "accidental" grant manager in Episode #004
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In this episode of Grant Talks, we talked about a subject that you may want to know more about:
So...as promised I want to share some resources that may help you on YOUR grant journey.
If you’ve been hanging on to outdated or “generic” software, you might be thinking about updating to software tools that are designed specifically for grant recipients.
(Wouldn’t it be great to do a few less Excel spreadsheets?)
That’s why I put together this Mini-Guide to Grant Management Software.
It’s a great first step on the journey to greater efficiency and better information for grant management.
This mini-guide walks you through 10 things to look for when you are considering an update to your grant software.
Here's what’s included:
- The first three steps to take when you start looking for better tools to support your grant management responsibilities.
- A “cheat-sheet” of things you may want to track with your software and more…
These resources are designed for grant managers, just like you, and I hope that you will find them valuable on your grant journey.
