Federal Program Manager – The Beginning of Trish’s Grantor Story

Before anyone can apply for this HHS grant, Trish needs to coordinate the design and posting of the FOA. To allow prospective applicants more time to plan, Trish would also like to publish a grant forecast.

Fun Activities to Help Grants.gov Improve Your Experience

Okay, “fun” is subjective, but these short activities will help you and the grants community by informing how we organize and present the resources you need most. The goal is to make it faster and easier for you to find the specific information you need to get back to your job.

Drag and drop words and phrases into existing categories, or create a new category that makes more sense to you. This Card Sort activity takes approximately 15 minutes, and it will help us determine how information is combined and displayed on Grants.gov.	Click through branching menus to find information that matches the task prompt. This Tree Test activity takes approximately 15 minutes, and it will help us refine the information architecture for Grants.gov.

Grants.gov Has a New Resource for Applicants and Grantors – Discuss!

The latest Grants.gov release simplified the process for creating a workspace and also introduced a mobile app to boot. But that’s not all!

Registered Grants.gov users can now contribute to and collaborate in the discussion forum. Just login to Grants.gov, then click the Discussion Forum link under the Connect tab.

Here’s what you will find in the forum:

Join Us on #GrantChat May 1st—Preview of Questions

Tuesday, May 1^st at noon EST, we will be guest hosts on #GrantChat on Twitter. Join the conversation with the grants community to meet peers, share resources, and learn about federal grants.

Here is a preview of the questions we will discuss, so bring your ideas, input, and follow-up questions to Twitter May 1^st at noon!

Chat Questions Preview

Gil Tran on What Is Coming Up for the OMB Uniform Guidance in 2018

While telling a story about a vacation to Venice, Italy, Gil Tran, Senior Policy Analyst for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), described Venice as a beautiful and unique city where, “you’re always going to get lost when you’re in it.” Despite its layout, he said, “When you get lost, that’s when you discover all the gems.”

According to Tran, this is how grant professionals ought to dive into and enjoy the OMB Uniform Guidance (or the “Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards” for those who prefer its full name). Immerse yourselves and get lost, only to discover the wonderful “nuggets” of regulations governing your federal award experience.

While many of you may have a less enchanted, more pragmatic approach to grant administration, you nonetheless need to know the latest about the Uniform Guidance.

Grants Management: Bringing Insight from the HHS Conference to You

Over 77,000 grants awarded to more than 11,000 recipients—a total exceeding $480 billion in FY 2017 by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—is significant. As Andrea Brandon, Deputy Assistant Secretary of HHS’ Office of Grants and Acquisition Policy and Accountability (OGAPA), explained at the conference, this makes HHS the largest grant-making agency in the U.S. and globally.

Grants.gov Community Blog subscribers may recall the invitation to attend OGAPA’s 2018 Grants Management Conference on January 9, 2018. While OGAPA hosted hundreds of attendees—both federal grantors and some applicants—there were many of you who could not make it to the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Natcher Conference Center.

Today, we look back on two key themes from the conference. Over the coming weeks, we will share other updates and information about grants management and the federal grant lifecycle from the conference.

OMB Publishes Free Online Grants Management Training

Do you want the grants training for federal grant managers? The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) initially developed the Grants 101 Training for federal government employees, but now these eLearning modules are available as a resource for you.

Grantors: Two Ways to Register New Users on Grants.gov

The latest Grants.gov release adds new functionality for grantors who need to associate (add) new users to their federal agency account.

There are now two ways an agency can affiliate a new user, as discussed in the video below:

Top 5 Blog Posts in 2017

What were the most read blog posts on the Grants.gov Community Blog in 2017 (that weren’t about Workspace)? Let’s jump right into the list:

What Is the Plan? Grants.gov In 2018

After looking back on 2017, we now look forward to 2018. As the Grants.gov program, we are designing forward with the guiding principles of simplify, support, and strategize. What does that mean for this next year?

#1 Increased Commitment to Learning from Grants Community

Grants.gov is committed to improving its service to you, the federal grants community, by transforming itself into a more user-friendly system for years to come. We cannot do that without listening to you.