E-010 More Tech Trends for Grant Management with Adam Roth, Jillian Neimeister and Lucy Morgan CPA

2 cfr part 200 federal grant management grant software the data act uniform guidance Sep 22, 2019

Episode Summary:

### Quick Episode Summary Grant Talks Podcast [#010]

*Intro ***.41***

* Fire Away Questions Adam Roth and Jillian Neimeister and Lucy Morgan CPA ***1:39***

* Puerto Rico and Illinois Case-Studies: Technology Implementation***5:54***

* Survival Tips for Grants Management-Changing Technology ***7:32***

* What Open Data Means to Your Organization***9:40***

* 5 Phase Blueprint for Technology Implementation ***13:23***

* Phase One: Initiation for Grant Technology Management ***14:44***

* Phase Two: Planning for Realistic Expectations **15:04***

* Phase Three: Analysis Discovers What’s Really Going On **15:32***

* Phase Four: Rinse and Repeat Cycle-Analysis, Configuration and Testing ***16:21***

* Phase Five: Real-World Technology: Migration and Go-Live ***17.41***

* Timeframe: Expectation Setting in Technology Upgrades ***18.44***

* First Steps for Kicking the Excel Spreadsheet Habit ***23:21***

* Predictions for Grant Management-Open Data and Machine-Readable Formats ***26:38***

* The Last Word with Adam Roth, Jillian Neimeister and Lucy Morgan CPA***30:51***

*Outro Audio GrantTalks Podcast with Lucy M. Morgan CPA ***32:33***

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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.

Introducing Adam Roth and Jillian Neimeister from StreamLink Software-Makers of AmpliFund

Lucy Morgan: 00:41

Welcome everyone to this continued 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 and frequently speaking 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. And Adam is joined today with Jillian Neimeister, Director of Development for AmpliFund and StreamLink Software as well. So welcome back Adam. Welcome back. Jillian. I didn't want to let you get away without expanding on some of the topics we talked about in the first episode about adopting new technology for grant management and getting into some of the details about how to implement what seems like a massive project that you've been involved in.

Fire Away Questions Adam Roth and Jillian Neimeister and Lucy Morgan CPA

Lucy Morgan: 01:39

So, let's let people get to know you a little bit better with a couple of "fire away" questions. In your presentation, you are looking at the implementation of technology solutions at both the state of Illinois and the government of Puerto Rico. And it was interesting how you shared that they came to the solution from completely opposite ends of the spectrum. I'm assuming both Illinois and Puerto Rico had unique challenges as part of the implementation and since the first step in implementation is initiation, Jillian, what surprised you or Adam, what surprised you the most about the initiation phase?

Adam Roth: 02:11

That's a great question. I think when you look at sort of engaging in initiation is, in any of these processes is trying to get your arms around who the stakeholders are-the right people to have in the room for the conversation is much more challenging than you would think. And when you're thinking about a smaller organization, you know, it's five or six people and when you're thinking about a statewide initiation, like when we did the kickoff meeting in Illinois, it was to 200 people. And so, the idea that you're going to sort of be able to drive not only a technology but a communication plan, through those 200 people is a challenge. And fortunately for me, I hired Jillian, who is our Director of Delivery for AmpliFund to do that. So, I'm going to actually let Jillian take kind of the bulk of this question because I get to identify the problem and she gets to solve it.

Jillian N.: 03:12

Yeah, that's a pretty accurate summary right there. It's always fun when these things start because I'm like, okay, what's happened for the last, the sales process might be six months, a year, two years. And we have to figure out what happens next. Great ideas. And now it's time to come up with a plan. So, Adam kind of hit the nail on the head with the stakeholders. So, doing an adequate stakeholder analysis at the beginning is something that absolutely has to be done and sometimes it's a misstep. So that's one of the things that's a big surprise during initiations is understanding who else do we need in the room and making sure that we can get ahold of all of those people. One of the fun things anecdotally, at least about Puerto Rico is that they figured out some of us can speak Spanish. So now AmpliFund is not only getting delivered to five agencies within a territory that large, but also most of it's in Spanish. So that's one of the specifically unique things about delivering that. So now that we are doing this in Illinois, I said, at least that's not one of the barriers we have this time. Hopefully, this is all in English at this point. But during the initiation phase, it's really understanding, who's going to be in the room when you show up. So, 200 people is not what we expected. We did a due diligence session the next morning and there were a hundred people and we were expecting 40. So those are the kinds of things, really being able to change things on the fly and be flexible. That's one of the biggest things. And I think that's actually what's made us pretty successful with these is, having a plan. Come up with a backup plan. And then come up for your backup plan, for your backup plan, and being able to roll with that. And in initiation, you need to have an idea of where your goals are. You know, but be realistic about them. So, we're going to get to the finish line in our first year in Puerto Rico. But how we're getting there is not exactly what we anticipated and it's surprising, but it's worked effectively still to get all the way through.

Adam Roth: 05:04

Yeah, and I think that we shouldn't undersell this. So, Jillian and her team were able to implement an enterprise grants management solution in Puerto Rico, still feeling the effects of the largest natural disaster to hit a US territory in history and at the same time accomplish implementing five agencies in eight months and that has never happened. We talk about the history of trying to implement a statewide grants management system. The first group to do it was done in Spanish, and it was done in Puerto Rico. And that's an amazing accomplishment both for Puerto Rico and we feel for ourselves. And so, I just make sure we don't undersell that part of the story.

Puerto Rico and Illinois Case-Studies: Technology Implementation

Lucy Morgan: 05:54

And I think that pulling together is something that doesn't always make the news when we think about Puerto Rico. Sometimes it's more divisive things that are happening, than the good things that are coming out of the area.

Jillian N.: 06:06

That's one of the things that's really nice to see that is that when people do see what we're working towards, it's all-hands-on-deck. And they can get, there's a select crowd who gets excited by grants management and grants management software implementations. But it's really good that there are so many of them in Puerto Rico to make something like this so successful.

Lucy Morgan: 06:24

So, Jillian, what were some of the similarities between the two geographies when it came to implementing technology?

Jillian N.: 06:30

So, similarities are interesting and it's something that comes up. I sat in three sessions today and everyone, what we talk about is how special and unique everybody is, all the different agencies and all the recipients, etc. But commonalities are really what the focus is on. So, some of the things that are common between Puerto Rico and Illinois are the two offices that are in place. So, we have in Illinois the Grant Accountability and Transparency Unit. And in Puerto Rico, we have the Center for Federal Opportunities. So, the fact that both of these have something in-place where this can be driven from is the biggest and probably most important similarity that you're going to find. Because without that central office it would be incredibly difficult to reach out to five agencies in Puerto Rico or 35 or 50 agencies in Illinois. So that's a huge benefit and Kudos to both of them that they've taken the time and they understand how important that is to make sure something like this can be effective.

Survival Tips for Grants Management-Changing Technology

Lucy Morgan: 07:32

Adam, in our last section we talked about some of the ways that technology is changing grant management, and I'm sure there are some people out there today who know they need to make some changes to how they're managing grants is especially in light of the upcoming requirements that are going to start happening in impacting grant recipients with open data. What advice would you give to someone who they may feel almost paralyzed by that rapid pace of technology?

Adam Roth: 07:57

So, I think that the key component here is to identify what it is that you want, and not to get sold on what someone else thinks you need. And so, I think functionally is one of the things that Illinois and Puerto Rico both did very well was that they were able to quickly identify what was important to them and what kind of core components were necessary for them. I think the other thing that's important when you look at this is having gone through this process of purchasing grant systems for states or for large implementations as well as smaller ones, is that the greater the complexity that you want to have managed, the more specificity you want to have in the demo or in the learning process. When a state goes through a buying process and takes an hour or less in our technology for statewide implementation. That's concerning for me because I know that I could show that our system does pretty much anything in an hour even if we didn't do it. And I think the reality is you want to do a process that ensures that the system that you're buying has the functionality and capacity to provide the service that you want. And so, in so much as you can take the time to really learn and understand the systems, I think that's important. Remember you are the expert in what you want, even if you're not the expert in the technology.

What Open Data Means to Your Organization

Lucy Morgan: 09:40

That's a good point. What would you say to people listening today who maybe they've heard of this concept of open data and the DATA Act, but they are grant recipients? So, they may be thinking it's doesn't apply to me or I don't really understand what it means to me.

Adam Roth: 09:54

So, I think fundamentally, the core concept, and I've said it before, it's data, data, data. And it's really whether you're a recipient, whether you're the state, whether you're the federal government if you're collecting information as data, nothing else matters. Your ability to report, and be compliant with the DATA Act is going to be there. Your ability to report, and be compliant with, understand where you are even with the UGG, and track and monitor is going to be there. Now you may need to collect a specific data element two years from now that you're not collecting today because compliance requirements change. But the reality is if you're collecting information as data that's not a big left. It's not like you have to convert 400 forms. You just have to add one data element. And so fundamentally, if I'm a recipient, I'm less worried about the language that's in the DATA Act. And I'm more worried about making sure that I'm collecting my information as data in a machine-readable format that can be easily transferred into a variety of formats that will meet federal reporting requirements going forward.

Lucy Morgan: 10:58

And it was interesting in the keynote this morning, they were talking about the expansion of the data elements from the 57 that we currently see in the DATA Act up to over 400 that they just had 1100 comments on those 400 items. So much like it seems like once the horse is out of the barn, there's a whole herd of horses running along, right behind them as well. What advice would you give someone in an organization that currently is managing large parts of their project on maybe excel spreadsheets or are on even some different systems, like in healthcare where they have some proprietary healthcare applications.

Adam Roth: 11:38

My background is I worked in a nonprofit. So, I worked in a nonprofit organization for 15 years. I had 35 different federal grants we were trying to manage. I was doing it all on spreadsheets. So, I've been there and I've seen that and I've seen it work. I also know that it doesn't work forever. And so, I think the reality is, look, there's a scale to this, right? If you've got one grant and you're trying to manage it, don't go buy our system. It's not worth it to you. Manage it on the spreadsheet and then Word and you're going to be fine. If you're trying to manage $29 billion across 7,000 recipients across 50 agencies, you need a system to do that. Nobody can manage $29 billion without a system. It just can't be done. And conceptually, if you think about it, it just doesn't make sense.

Adam Roth: 12:25

And so, it's really a case of scale. We don't try to, when we go into implement, we don't necessarily think that anything anyone's doing is bad or it's wrong. It just may not be scalable or it may not be an efficient way to capture data. And so, what we want to do when we come in is figure out how do we take what you're doing today, how do we scale that? How do we standardize that? Because that's important with compliance with the UGG, and then how do we drive it from a data perspective? And that's what's going to create the value for you. Now again, it's a matter of scale. It's a matter of commitment and capacity of your organization. But if you're at any kind of scale, excel spreadsheets will not suffice long-term. They're just going to fall apart. Even if it's the same user over time. You start tracking back trying to find all your links from historical sheets and it's just a, I've been there, I understand it, but it just isn't what you want to be doing.

Step-by-Step Technology Implementation Blueprint

Lucy Morgan: 13:23

Good point. So, let's get into some of the implementation processes. Jillian, if you would join us in this section, I want to make sure that the audience feels more comfortable with what happens once you decide, when once you've made that decision to move forward with a technology solution. What are the phases of implementation that were used when the state of Illinois or the government of Puerto Rico made that decision to move forward?

Jillian N.: 13:47

Sure. So, this can get into some basic software implementation processes, some project management processes with both the state of Illinois and the government of Puerto Rico. We are using, it's the AmpliFund implementation methodology. So, we say we're a combination of waterfall and agile principles. Meaning, you're going to have a project plan. We're going to understand initial goals. We're going to understand long-term goals. But we also follow agile processes or practices where we're not waiting until something's at completion before we start the next step. And that's actually a huge benefit of being a system that already exists. From other people that we've talked to, they're waiting for a system to be built. But when we get started, our AmpliFund is real. It's there. We can log into it right now if anybody wants. So that means what we're doing is we're implementing business processes into a system as opposed to building a system as we go.

Phase One: Initiation for Grant Technology Management

Jillian N.:

14:44 The specific phases that we go through, I can rattle these off if I need to. It's our initiation phase which is getting started when we go from sales to delivery. That's initiation. There's a lot of conversations that happen. It's still a little bit of due diligence. It's meeting the team on the other side and who is going to be involved.

Phase Two: Planning for Realistic Expectations

Jillian N.: 15:04

The planning stage as somebody who acts half the time like a project manager. And it's pretty important to me kind of making sure that our expectations are set fairly from both sides. I think that's actually something that's really important is making sure there are reasonable expectations set. And that's what that planning phase is for saying, "Okay, here are your goals." Sometimes I have to say "No" and say, "Okay, we can't do all of that in the first year and here's why. But here's what we can do."

Phase Three: Analysis Discovers What’s Really Going On

Jillian N.: 15:32

After that, we get into our analysis phase. So, we say that at the beginning we call one of our meetings or discussions a grant management "landscape" and it's basically "Tell us what's going on." This might be one conversation; it might be four hours of conversation depending on who you're with. But we want to understand from Illinois and from Puerto Rico like what's going on in your agency or what's going on at the state level. Tell us about what's happening. When I walk into those meetings, I'm the expert on AmpliFund, but I'm not the expert on Puerto Rico, right? I'm not the expert on the history of GATA in Illinois. I'm learning. But that analysis phase is a chance for both sides to understand what's happening. You might also hear it as a due diligence phase or as a discovery phase. Those should absolutely be part of any enterprise grant management system rollout.

Phase Four: Rinse and Repeat Cycle-Analysis, Configuration, and Testing

Jillian N.: 16:21

With the AmpliFund implementation methodology, what happens next is this sort of cyclical process, its analysis, configuration, and testing. So, Adam touched on configurability of the system earlier and that's really important. And this is also where we have kind of the agile processes coming in-place where we, let's say I'm in the state of Illinois, we're starting off with three basic business processes. So, one of the first things that we're working on is the uniform grant application across the state and putting that into place. So, as we start to roll this out, what we're doing first is saying, okay, here's the actual application. Here's what we know is in place. What does your agency do? So, we know that everyone follows this, but in reality, what are those differences? And it gives us a chance to roll something out, see how it's working, make adjustments as we need. So, analysis, configuration and testing are the processes of putting a process in place, configuring the system accordingly. We can build out the application, we might need to tweak a form. It's not that hard, but we might have to tweak it in eight different agencies. Right? So, understanding how it works, a baseline is one thing. But then kind of if there are specific add-ons for each agency, we have that functionality in the system and we have that built into our process.

Phase Five: Real-World Technology: Migration and Go-Live

Jillian N.: 17:41

After that, there are migration and go-live phases. So, when you're going through something like this, especially at such size, you don't always want to be going in a live system on day one. And that's something that is kind of important is making sure that there are testing processes. For AmpliFund testing means like we can get technical with this and say it's making sure functionality in the system is in place, but there's also the user acceptance testing. So, making sure that we are pulling grantees in and saying, "Go apply for this." You know, we haven't got this far in the process yet, but that's part of our plan. We have the uniform grant agreement, we're going to build it out on the agency side, but we're going to bring those final end-users in the people who are actually going to be applying for grants into the process. And that's part of that testing. Making sure it works in UAT (user acceptance testing) before we say, "Okay, let's push it to the production environment where it actually goes live." So that's also really important. That's part of our overall methodology and some of the phases that we go through in those processes.

Timeframe: Expectation Setting in Technology Upgrades

Lucy Morgan: 18:44

So, it's interesting you bring up expectations. You know, I'm sure everyone wants to have a system implemented in a week, which is probably not very realistic. Approximately how long, I realize these are very large projects, but about how long did the projects last from the conception to full implementation? Or is your expectation of that timeframe to just give people a little bit of guidance on what would be an average time frame for something of this magnitude?

Jillian N.: 19:10

Sure. So, a lot of times, when I'm writing out a project plan, I'd start with a year and then, but it's within that year, what are we trying to achieve? The reason that I can say that we can deliver a lot of this in a year is because AmpliFund exists, right? So, we're not building new code from the ground up with Puerto Rico. We had a July 1 official start date of the project and I think it was September 27th we had our first large scale training bringing in recipients and municipalities, you know, 60 people in the room outside of the five agencies we're working with because of one of the additional things that we're offering there. They had a live system that day, right? So, we launched AmpliFund. We had all of our agencies that we knew of available, they all had accounts and then we are able to roll this out to a larger audience within four months of the start of the project.

Jillian N.: 20:07

So big eyes came across on that one, for viewers who can't see. That's not something that happens everywhere. Our goal was to give a research version of the system, right? So, we can do that with that limited scope. With Puerto Rico, we have five agencies who are going to be doing all of their grantee or post-award functionality within the system this year. So, money that comes from basically the federal government to Puerto Rico and Puerto Rico keeps it, manages it themselves. That's the functionality that will be in place this year. Those were our objectives for year one, right? It was identifying new opportunities for more funding, manage the dollars whereas Puerto Rico receives them more effectively. That's grantee functionality and that's something we can do in a year. So, when I'm also writing out a project plan, I like to make sure that there's room for growth or adjustments during that year.

Jillian N.: 21:00

So, as we're going through with these different agencies, we've identified different goals. Someone really wants to focus on their recipients. Somebody really wants to focus on their Single Audit findings, right? So, adjusting that within each of the agencies. But we're still able to accomplish all of that with those agencies within the year. So, we have one year for implementation with initial agencies. And the post-award management, we're going to keep working with them because maybe we're expanding what they want to do. And we're also still trying to develop those, standard business processes across the island. So, using those five agencies from year one, by working with them down the road, we're going to be able to kind of expand on that into the later agencies. In Illinois, it's a different process where we basically have a three-year roll-out that we're looking at. Now, three years is a lot longer, but if you think about what we're trying to do as opposed to starting with five agencies, we're starting with three or four business processes.

Jillian N.: 21:57

Three of the business processes have been standardized by GATA already, so we're working from a really strong starting point, but if we're taking three business processes, then we're all in for all the agencies. So, within year one we've set these deliverables that are going to address, it's the application, it's the review of the application, and it's the award agreement. So, with that we said, where is the cleanest place to start for grantees, again into the system and it's them applying for the award. So next year when we want to do all of the post-award management for these grantees, the application is "the easy part" right? It's shiny and it's pretty and they're familiar with that. So next year is going to be all of that post-award management. And then year three of this will be a lot of the revision. So, if you think about the implementation methodology and kind of that cyclical process, expand that out over three years. So, let's say we roll out this year, it's going really well, but halfway through year two we decide we want to make a tweak. That's what that time allows for is we're not going to put something in place and say this is the "law." Actually, I don't know if I can say that anymore because they actually have laws, right? So, this is the "plan" and we're not changing. Now the goal is to put something in place that's going to be long-term effective. So, we have time built in to make sure we can revisit the process and grow from there.

First Steps for Kicking the Excel Spreadsheet Habit

Lucy Morgan: 23:21

And I love that you're able to approach, you have the flexibility to approach the project from either a more hierarchical with the department structure or a transactional-a functional approach. That was a great contrast and I really enjoyed that. You know, I'm sure I've found that for many of us it's hard to get your arms around something of this scale, especially if you're not the implementation expert. Let's talk to the folks listening who might have, maybe they have a smaller nonprofit or a local government. What's the first step they should take once they know the time has come to reduce that kind of addiction on excel spreadsheets and move to a tool that's better suited to manage grants.

Jillian N.: 24:02

So, I think one of the first things to realize is that this isn't impossible. Just because you've always done it a certain way doesn't mean that that's the only way that it can be done. And I think that's really important. That's one of the conversations we often have. It's open to new ideas. It's being open to knowing that maybe you're not the expert, so find somebody else who is. Adam was talking about something earlier in terms of advice to people who want to go from excel to a system. You know you don't know everything. So, find somebody who knows the other side. So be open to other people to bringing ideas to the table. Again, it's not impossible. So, this may seem like a pretty daunting task, but you have to give yourself some time to learn a new tool. Give yourself some space and be okay with like a little bit of duplication of effort at the beginning. That's going to happen. We want to make sure whatever you're putting in place is going to be a good change, right? So maybe you're doing double work for a little bit, but then the end goal and understanding what that end goal is. That you know, I used to work with somebody who, a client, it took her three days every month to build this report and this was from a university that was one of our clients and she was not a huge fan of putting something in place because she had spent a lot of time building this report. We got it down to build it out in the system, so she had to press like four buttons. Her 80-page three-day report was to us several configurable views. What we had to do was teach her that your world still exists. You might call it a "PI" (Principal Investigator), right? And AmpliFund and calls it a "grant manager." So, for her, we basically had a mapping tool like here's "your word," here is "our word." But here we have everything set up. And what we came to realize is that this report, it had just gotten more and more complicated over time, right? So, then they wanted to see it, another data point, and then another data point. So, she's manually doing this over time and we can say, "Okay, add this to the table." "Start filling out this field." This is what this field means, and you can get that information out quicker." So just really understanding that there are choices in those things, getting a configurable system is going to make a big impact on what you're looking to do, and it's not impossible, right? So, going from excel to a system is not impossible. Get the right people on board. If there are other people in your agency who are outside of your department, bring them in. They might have a value that you would not have thought of before. Right. But get input from inside and possibly outside your agency to make sure that you're getting the right audience there.

Predictions for Grant Management-Open Data and Machine-Readable Formats

Lucy Morgan: 26:38

Very good. Well, Adam, I want to bring you back into the conversation since I've always thought of you as one of the open data experts through the years. Do you have any predictions about when grant recipients are going to be reporting data elements in machine-readable formats? If you had that crystal ball, people ask me when is it going to be implemented and I wish I had an answer for them.

Adam Roth: 26:59

So, I mean, right now, if you're using our system, you're doing it. So, in Illinois and Puerto Rico, I predict in within the next 18 months, pretty much all the grant recipients are going to be reporting their data in a machine-readable format. So, I do think of, Lucy said multiple times, data's driving this and this is going to be, data is what's going to win the day and it's going to win the day for you as the recipients. It's going to win the day for the federal government. You need to make this a focus of your grant priority; is how do I get data? How do I get information as data? Now, how do I get a form, not how do I get a sheet and I don't get a pdf now that'll get a report. How do I get data? And if you have that as your focus, this can happen quickly because there are technologies out there that can do it for you tomorrow and it's not overly complicated to do. It's not daunting, it shouldn't feel daunting. This is not a huge leap to get from where we are today to that, to that point. So, I do feel good about that. And you know, I think the more that the space is defined and the more that the grants management space as a whole is defined. I think that's good. And I think the more we're getting some core fundamentals of what we want our products to do, I think that's also good. I don't know how much many of your listeners, Lucy, know that Gartner covers the space. So, there's an analyst within Gartner today that covers the space. And so, if you're in a larger institution and you have a Gartner membership, I would encourage you to go talk to them about this as well because it's a really, really important that the core fundamentals of what you're looking at are right. And you can wind up going down the wrong path and spent a lot of money and not get what you need. And I think that's scary, but understand that there are people there yourself, there's Gartner, there are other people there that are trying to bring the right message to the fore on this. And I think if you do that, the ability for recipients to get things out in machine-readable format will happen faster.

Lucy Morgan: 29:04

And I really appreciate you looking into that crystal ball as you spoke about the fact that so much of this technology already exists and it's really taking that first step. I've often heard that we are afraid of things that fear is False Expectations Appearing Real is the acronym for FEAR. And I think sometimes with this whole legislative and federal grant management area, it almost feels scarier than it needs to be because we're just, it's fear of the unknown. We don't, we think that all these bad things are going to happen to us when in fact we can go out and find partners like AmpliFund to do this type of work.

Adam Roth: 29:42

Yeah, I think that's right. And I think the reality is that majority of what's being talked about today will actually make people's lives significantly easier. I mean, Jillian gave the example that this Illinois initiative was driven by recipients and it was driven by recipients because they wanted to improve their ability to report and have that in place. And there are reasons to be concerned about what's happening so that you pay attention. But that doesn't mean that you should be fearful about what's happening because the results I think ultimately will benefit the recipients. Listen, reporting in a machine-readable data format is easier. If I could report 10 data elements to you as opposed to reporting 40 forms, which takes those 10 data elements and puts them in different formats and different structures, wouldn't you like that better? Right. And so, at the end of the day, data reporting is actually a much simpler way to manage information. But you know what it is, it changes and it's different. And I think that's where the concern or the concerns come in. But ultimately this will benefit recipients in a big way. And I really do believe that and I think that efficiency in that gain will be very positive for everybody in general.

The Last Word with Adam Roth, Jillian Neimeister and Lucy Morgan CPA

Lucy Morgan: 30:51

Thank you very much for that. I love that there're so many different angles that we can all come together in making grant management better. Whether we're looking at driving change from the grassroots like you're doing in Illinois, where the recipients are actually started driving that change, to where the federal government is actually leading innovation, which many of us would have never guessed that of the federal government a few years ago. So, I think that's really interesting, how many different angles are all coming together when it comes to this concept of data and open data. Well, I want to give you the last word, Jillian and Adam, is there something I should have asked about this that I did not?

Adam Roth: 31:27

You asked all the right questions.

Lucy Morgan: 31:30

Thank you for that Adam.

Adam Roth: 31:30

It was really good. No, I really enjoyed it. And I just think the main focus as I said is data, configurability, innovation and the full cycle. If you focus on that when you're in this process, you will be successful.

Lucy Morgan: 31:47

All right, well thank you for that insight. If someone would like to find out more about StreamLink Software or AmpliFund and how should they get in touch?

Adam Roth: 31:55

Amplifund.com is the easiest way. It's our website. You can go on and fill out a form to learn more about different areas. You can complete online surveys to find out what product best for you. Please take the time to go to our website and check it out. I know that would make our marketing person extremely happy. So overall it would be great and we welcome you there and if there's any way that we can be helpful for you in the process, let us know.

Lucy Morgan: 32:18

Thank you very much and thank you for participating, Adam and Jillian in the Grant Talks podcast listeners, you can find all of the episodes out on GrantTalks.com and thank you for tuning in

Outro Audio GrantTalks Podcast with Lucy M. Morgan CPA

Outro: 32:33

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

More Resources for Grant Professionals

Thanks for checking out the Grant Talks podcast!

In this episode of Grant Talks, we talked about a subject that you may want to know more about:

The DATA Act and Open Data

So...as promised I want to share some resources that may help you on YOUR grant journey.

What if I told you a total overhaul of how federal grant recipients report on their grants was underway right NOW.

Would that catch your attention?

And yet…

As I travel the country talking about the DATA Act and the GREAT Act, (just like our conversations with Adam Roth) only a few people have heard of it, and even fewer understand what this means to them.

So, I am sharing an easy-to-digest Mini-Guide on the DATA Act to start getting the word out!

(I hope this little overview will help you avoid some of the “learning curve” that will come about as the DATA Act and GREAT Act start affecting your grant reporting.)

This quick and easy mini-guide covers critical elements of this transformational change in transparency and accountability for federal funding like:

3 ways how we think about data will be changing
3 benefits of the DATA Act and its sister legislation; The GREAT Act
8 steps for implementing reporting transformation at your organization and more…

These resources are FREE for you, and I hope that you will find them valuable on your grant journey.

Click here to download and share

P.S. If this is helpful, you might be interested in finding out more about the age of open data and the DATA Act with another interview I did with Adam Roth of AmpliFund at: https://blog.myfedtrainer.com/grant-leader-spotlight-adam-roth-and-amplifund-part-ii/