End-to-End Grant Management

Presentation for ICMASeptember, 2015

ByAdam Roth, CEO StreamLink Software

Agenda• Background: StreamLink Software• Grant Ecosystem• Award management: Research Reporting• Day-to-Day Activities• The Turning Point: Grant Legislation• An End-to-End Solution• Resources

StreamLink Software Background• Problem Opportunity

– 300,000 Nonprofit and Public Sector entities lack automated processes due to fiscal constraints and the state of technology.

– Typically using spreadsheets, email and Word to get the job done.

• Result is wasted staff time and losses in revenue.

Company Mission

Adam Roth spent 15 years working in the nonprofit sector

Recognized the opportunity for technology to simplify operations

Founded StreamLink Software in 2008

Mission: high-value, affordable grant management tools for nonprofit and public sector entities

The Grant EcosystemInvolves all aspects of grant management, which are intertwined on many different levels and create many complexities.

Main “Bodies” of Grant EcosystemFundersPre-Award Responsibilities > Post-Award Activities

Prime RecipientsPre-Award Responsibilities = Post-Award Responsibilities

Sub RecipientPre-Award Responsibilities < Post-Award Responsibilities (usually)

Day–to–Day ActivitiesTraditionally managed through a variety of tools:spreadsheets, calendars, email.

• These disparate systems, although helpful, can cause managing grants to be very chaotic.

The Turning PointGrant Legislation

January 2013

Treasury “Do Not Pay” Initiative

December 2013

OMB Uniform Grant Guidance (UGG)

May 2014

Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act)

2014

State InitiativesOhio Open DataIllinois Grant Reform Act

“The DATA Act itself contains no provision for enforcement. However, the levers of enforcement exist. The threat is that organizations in noncompliance…will lose their funding. With common standards, the Department of the Treasury’s ‘Do Not Pay’ mechanism becomes an even more effective deterrent.” Source: Forrester Research, The DATA Act: One Small Step For Data, One (Potentially) Giant Step For Accountability. September 29, 2014

Grant Technology Becoming Mission Critical

Government-wide data standards for federal spending

Compliance via standardization and automation of data

transmission

Better transparency into funding management and

outcomes

Improves oversight of and transparency into federal

dollars

Focuses on performance as key to accountability as well as

consistent treatment of costs

Encourages use of Information Technology and shared

Services

Prevent, reduce and stop improper payments from being

made

Identify and mitigate fraud, waste and abuse

Provide a centralized repository to verify program

eligibility

KEY

OBJ

ECTI

VES

Grants Management Market Drivers

The Result• Organizations will need to update their business processes to ensure

compliance and accountability.• Technology will be needed to streamline these processes and provide the

needed transparency.• In order to be compliant, information will need to be captured as data, not

as “attachments.”

End-to-End Technology Solutions

Components of an End-to-End Solution

Technology’s Role in Grant Compliance• Centralizes all related materials for programmatic performance.• Demonstrates control over financial statements.• Enables automation of business processes, compliance and reporting.• Standardizes report information into data elements.• Integrates with financial systems.

Axioms of Grants Management Software

• Focus on the grant as the primary object.• Move data.

Pre-Award

• Ability to search across a wide range of opportunities

• Filters for most relevant results• Email alerts

Search Grant Opportunities

• Save search criteria and results• Alerts for new opportunities matching a

search• Sharable formats such as a pdf• Integrates with other grant management

software

Save and Share Grants

• Up-to-date databases• No extraneous or unrelated opportunities

Relevant Results

Post-Award

Competitive BiddingAllows funders and prime recipients to better manage the competitive bid process for funding initiatives.• Collect applications through a form builder and online public interface.• Enable structured review and approval processes, and automate tasks and

notifications with workflow.• Evaluate award submissions with applicant scoring capabilities.• Create an auditable trail of the entire grant ecosystem—from application and

award to implementation and reporting.• Select and notify award recipients, and create the fund distribution with just a

few clicks.

Fund TrackingTrack cash coming into and leaving a fund for detailed insight into how money is being used.• Create fund distributions consisting of one or more grants to internal and

external recipients.• Track cash receipts from multiple funding sources.• Plan and track performance and budgets at the fund and distribution

levels.

Sub-Recipient ManagementOversee the performance and budget activities of grant sub-recipients, external lead-recipients of fund distributions and grant vendors.• Approve performance and budget items.• Request resubmission.• Generate reports to track overall activity.

Project TrackingInterlink multiple grants, grant goals and budget items across organization projects.• Fund a project with one or more grants.• Segment a grant into multiple projects.• Plan and track both project performance and budgets.

WorkflowGain efficiencies by automating grant processes during both pre and post-award management. • Expedites the flow of information.• Triggers task and alert notifications to keep the process moving.• Captures activity for at each stage for audit and reporting.

Time and Effort CertificationRecord and map tracked time to the correct grant to provide advanced administrative and reporting options.• Provide after-the-fact documentation of work completed by grant-funded

staff.• Enable staff to enter time on a weekly or monthly basis.• Allow supervisors to review and approve employee timesheets.

End-to-End Grant Management Solutions

• COTS • Open

• Scalable• Centralized

Search

Filter

Save

Share

Create Opportunitie

s

Distribute

Project Management

Report

Questions?

Adam Roth CEO

Adam Roth founded StreamLink Software in 2008 after recognizing the need while running a nonprofit for more than a decade. Adam’s vision is

to develop affordable automation tools for nonprofit and public sector entities to solve the issues he encountered using scalable SaaS

solutions.