Behind the Curtain at TCG

Buying COTS grants management systems, and aligning with GMLOB

A couple of years ago I made some presentations at the NGMA Conference, and posted them here via Slideshare. That system tells me that the presentations are getting a lot of views lately. As it's clearly of interest again, I thought it might be useful to post them again here for the broader audience.

The first describes a process of aligning with the Grants Management Line of Business. The second presentation discusses the process for buying an off-the-shelf grants management system, or determining whether to build your own. Enjoy!

Grantium announces "Find & Apply Portal" alternative to Grants.gov

Grantium has now issued its own press release (following from that issued by CGI Federal a while ago) about their alternative solution to Grants.gov, called the Find & Apply Portal.

Grantium's Grants Find & Apply Portal is an alternative solution to Grants.gov, delivering the functionality of Grants.gov Find and Apply. Based on Grantium's industry-leading G3(TM) software, the Front Office Applicant Portal, which is currently being used by U.S. federal agencies, the portal allows agencies to post or publish Notice of Funds Availability (NOFA), offers 24 x 7 access to applicants via standard web browsers, and includes pre-configured standard federal application submission forms (SF-424, A, B, C, D).

To enable agencies to respond quickly, Grantium's Grants Find & Apply Portal will be offered as either a hosted and managed solution, or one to be implemented in the agency's environment. Agencies will be able to make a transparent transition from Grants.gov to their own find and apply system, thereby complying with the OMB requirements for alternatives to Grants.gov.

This is already in use in at least one Federal agency, and Grantium's G3 suite is deployed elsewhere, too. (Disclosure: TCG is involved in one of the projects.)

Earl Warrington/Recovery.gov speaking at NGMA meeting today

Earl Warrington, Program Manager for Recovery.gov, is speaking at today's National Grants Management Association training luncheon. Should be an interesting talk. If you didn't get a chance to register, never fear! A webcast of the event will be available on a tape-delay basis.* Go to the NGMA web site to register for that.

*Disclosure: TCG provides this to NGMA for free but, because there's no reliable Internet connection in the meeting location, we can't broadcast the event live. Consequently, there's a delay between taping the event and making it available online. NGMA is working on getting a location with reliable Internet access in the next year so we can broadcast meetings live online.

Grants.gov hits new highs, and tracks Recovery Act opportunities

Two great pieces of news hit the Grants.gov blog yesterday:

Grants.gov has experienced an unprecedented volume on the website. The hits on the site have increased 115% from December 08 (800K) to March 09 (1.8M).

In the three week period from March 2 through March 22 Grants.gov processed 27,576 applications which is by far and away the largest submissions processed in any 3 week period since Grants.gov began.

Also, on March 6 Grants.gov began capturing Recovery Act specific grant opportunities posted by agencies. We created the following page http://www.grants.gov/applicants/recovery.jsp with information on the Act as well as access to the opportunities.

From March 6 through March 29 this page has been accessed 94,227 times. There are currently 67 Recovery Act opportunities posted on Grants.gov. We are continuing to work towards enhancing system performance due to the increased activity on the system.

Looks like the system is now scaling better, and that the PMO is working really hard to ensure Grants.gov stays the one-stop-shop for grants information government-wide. Excellent!