Episode notes:

• Learn more about NGMA 

• Dive deeper into Uniform Guidance

• See the full list of agencies affected by DOGE budget cuts

Transcript:

This transcript was automatically generated.

Welcome to Impact Audio. I am Sam Caplan, vice president of social impact at Submittable. And last week, I was in DC for the annual National Grants Management Association conference. And this conference is always a really great opportunity to connect with grantmakers, especially those who are working in government grants.

This year's event felt really different for me than any other previous year. The grant making landscape is changing fast, and the whole sector is confronting some new realities. It was a good time to come together for discussion and learning and some general community building. Today, I sit down with my colleague, Ian Witthoft, who is our director of solutions engineering at Submittable, and we're gonna chat about what we heard while we were at the conference and what it might mean for the year ahead.

Ian, welcome to Impact Audio. I think this is, our first conversation on the podcast. Right?

It is, Sam. And I'm really excited to be here and and be with the one and only Sam Kaplan.

Well, thank you for the kind words, my friend. So you and I were at the conference together last, week, and, I'd love to just hear, like, your thoughts and and perspectives on what you saw and what you heard.

For sure. And and, Sam, this is either my third or fourth, NGMA AGT conference. I can't remember.

So, you know, I I've watched sort of a progression over the last few years. And and if I think about last year, year before, the big kind to do was around uniform guidance and a lot of the changes that that were kind of coming down from OMB around that.

This year, I I have to say the tenor was driven even more by change.

Obviously, you know, just to address the elephant in the room, right off the bat, there's a ton of change going on with the change of administration.

And, you know, I think the the country doesn't always realize a trillion dollars in government funding moves as grants from the federal government to the state and and local. And these are the folks who are operating that every day and I think experiencing some of the biggest change that that they've ever gone through in some cases in their entire career.

I I think about the the big the big topic last year were the changes to uniform guidance.

It took something like eighteen months to even be able to digest what was being proposed, go through the listening process, and making those changes to uniform guidance that then there's another eighteen to twenty four month implementation period. So if we think about sort of the pace of change that I think most government grant making is used to, it doesn't move at at the rapid nature. I almost think back to COVID, and the pandemic, right, where we had agencies who had never done grant funding before having to figure that out and having that rapid pace of change.

And it's you know, I I hear from a lot of our our colleagues that there's an element of control that they don't feel like they have right now, but it's met with a lot of it's met you know, I I mentioned resilience, but also a sense of humor and a sense of dedication to continuing to drive, you know, those missions forward. The last thing I heard from anybody, whether it's a presenter or or a colleague was I'm just kind of washing my hands of this and walking away. If anything, they're they're double clicking down and saying, let's let's go. Let's let's make sure we're maintaining what we can of these programs, these processes, and dealing with the change kind of in the moment and and also dealing with it with a smile on her face.

Like, there were a lot of emotions, Sam, that that was definitely getting a takeaway and there there was a sort of a sobering kind of point of view, almost in some cases somber, but there was also a lot of humor. There was a lot of, you know, conversations happening. I was in a, a session on, post award monitoring, which, you know, you think is a pretty dry topic.

It's fairly, regulatory and it's, you know, nature. You have to monitor the performance of a grant financial or, the outcomes and performance of what they said they were gonna do, but the presenter made it human.

She tied it back to her figure stating figure skating career and relating it in that human element, which I I just think is powerful in a moment like this, that we don't forget about the the human piece of it and and relating that experience.

Yeah. I completely agree.

You know, I was thinking back to, like, some of the really great information that was conveyed by many of these speakers. Like, one of the common themes that I heard was, like, now is the time to double down on compliance, to double down on reporting, to double down on the data that we're collecting, to be able to tell an impact story, which by the way, like, you know, I typically don't hear government grantmakers talking a lot about the impact of these dollars. You know, it's like it's all about the compliance and the auditing and, you know, crossing the t's and dotting the i's and and following this very strict process.

You know? But, ultimately, like, those dollars are flowing through to beneficiaries, to real real people, and making a difference in their lives. And the context for this piece of the conversation was that, you know, they are just, like, cutting so many programs and grants and and agencies that and, like, what happens is that once those things get cut, like, the people who scream the loudest about the importance of those cut programs are the ones who are having some success in getting them reinstated.

And so now there's this new conversation around, like, we need to talk about the impact of what these dollars are actually doing so that we can demonstrate the importance of these programs and hopefully get some of them reinstated. What what were some of your takeaways, from from the sessions that you attended, Ian?

You know, I I'm seeing paradigm shift, and I think, you know, the the paradigm shift that I'm seeing is on that that programmatic element of the reporting. I I think you brought up a good point before around compliance management, financial oversight, and the like that's happening here. But even even before what's what's going on, there's there's so much more storytelling that I am seeing in that government grant space. And that's a big takeaway for me. And, by the way, it started to bubble up a little bit last year too. But this year, I was hearing more about needing to measure that impact, measure the takeaways, and and even some of that's codified in in the updates to uniform guidance where programmatic reporting is so important.

Another takeaway, that that I had was AI is entering the conversation. I mean, Sam, you and I talk about AI all the time. I think in almost every every context you can imagine, Where I haven't heard AI in the past was in the government grant space. That was almost like something got tap dance around. But this year, there were actually sessions around it. What I thought was interesting, though, is that it wasn't necessarily focused on, you know, the typical talk track we hear around efficiencies or, you know, managing risk, etcetera.

The AI conversations were actually how do we use AI to make a grantee's life easier? To make a grantee, excuse me, be able to more easily find funding or be able to more easily create an application, which I thought was interesting. It was a little bit of a, the the one AI session I was in was all about, AI and analytics, and it was not where I thought it was going to go. It was really deeply focused on the grantee and how can we use AI and analytics to actually help the grantee, the sub recipients and such with their reporting, with their storytelling back to the prime funders, and help them get more funding and the like. So that was a a paradigm shift I haven't seen yet in this kind of part of our our our world.

And I think those conversations are gonna start to happen more and more.

Yeah. I heard about AI in the same session you did. I also heard about it in the OIG plenary panel. This was titled current state of oversight and emerging trends. And one of the four presenters, is Hong Zhou.

Hong talked a lot about sort of the role of analytics and technology and AI in particular. And she mentioned how, like, natural language processing and artificial intelligence can be used to help review, like, huge amounts of data that understaffed teams can't manage. I thought it was really refreshing to sort of acknowledge that, like, in many cases, you have a team of three or a team of five, and they're responsible for tens of thousands of applications.

She had talked about how, we can use it to integrate data sources together to see the big picture, how machine learning can help to identify even basic things like mistyped social security numbers.

She talked about how so many times, like, grant recipients may have multiple entries in a system. Right? And the data isn't aggregated in a good way, and it's just so easy for human grants administrators to miss that sort of thing. So, you know, she described it as, like, I think she called it a robotic process automation tool, that can scan transactions, scan applications, verify dollar amounts, right, help complete three grant checklists, even do things like drafting emails to an auditor.

So, yeah, for sure, like, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, machine learning, like, as the number of people employed in the government grant space continues to dwindle, I think technology is gonna be a really important enabler for, you know, people who are working at the federal and the state and the local level.

Yeah. I I had a sidebar conversation with a a grants manager, at a state agency, actually, not not too long after that that plan area with the OIGs. And we're talking about AI and where can we use that in risk management? How can we, you know, program AI to look at the data and understand, you know, where there's risk in those grantees?

Where is those risk in those funding, pieces. And and by the way, one big takeaway I had from that that OIG session besides besides, I think, you know, your point with with what Hong was sharing was spot on about where those efficiencies, where those processes could happen. By the way, those those OIGs were funny. Like, they were they were really that was some of the best humor.

And and by the way, that's that's one of the hardest roles right now. I think in the changes of the administration and what's going on, there's a lot of change in in how OIGs are working, how the audit process is happening in these various federal agencies, and that's kind of passing through down to the state. But even hearing their resiliency and reactions and and such and and responding through humor, and getting the whole room laughing, I think, was really key on a very difficult topic to discuss from from an audit and compliance perspective.

Yeah. I thought so too. They were they were really entertaining and, you know, provided the sort of sense of levity, to the audience.

You know, couple couple of the takeaways also that I I heard while I was there. One is, you know, even though there are some disparities now between, like, the executive orders and uniform guidance, like, trust in uniform guidance. Like, until that changes, that is the, you know, the the the system of record when it comes to the way that government grantmakers should be functioning and what's required in terms of compliance and auditing and reporting. So, you know, if you're listening to the podcast and you're you're looking for some grounding, definitely, two CFR two hundred, that's the place to to continue to, to refer to as you're doing your job.

And, you know, and, just back to this idea that, like, you know, it it's it's this situation of being in a new normal. And at some point, things are gonna settle down for the grants community.

Yeah. I I think when when I think about technology and and how it reacts, we need to be agile on our technology approaches. Right? What was working yesterday may not work tomorrow.

And, you know, a lot of lot of big takeaways that that I was hearing was just more need for compliance, more need for for data at our fingertips to be able to to be that loud voice in the room. Right? To say, hey. Don't don't change this because of these results that we're getting.

And I think technology, you know, has to like ours or, you know, our grants management platform has to, you know, surface that data, has to make it available through the entire grants life cycle so that, you know, those key folks can spend less time on administration and more time on the programmatic work, the the being the loud voice in the room, right, being the advocate as it were to to these funding streams. And the more that we can make access to data, faster as well as collect it, in a way that transforms the story. So, you know, I think, you know, you you you mentioned, you know, the the relying on uniform guidance.

That's a hundred percent right. I think what uniform guidance actually set us up for in today's time is that marriage of programmatic and compliance and financial data together.

And that storytelling element and and I'll just, you know, mention, I I bought my, most recent edition of the grants management body of knowledge, which is this thick manual that that NGMA puts together to really help train grants managers in that federal space and such. And, you know, the last addition was last year. So I'm I'm very curious to see what what happens here. But, you know, I think grants managers have an have an element of, agility to how they're they operate because there's a great sticker.

I wish I had it with me that, you know, it it was an owl that, is on the sticker, and it says, uniform guidance. Am I compliant? And then in the middle, it says, it depends. And so Yeah.

There's so much truth to that, I think.

This concept of fraud. Like, this was a recurring theme throughout the conference.

A lot of a lot of the speakers were talking about fraud risk management.

It was actually kind of great to hear more about this because it's something that, you know, our own company has been focused on, for the last couple of years. And it was really described in terms of, like, you know, now more than ever, like, there's this renewed, you know, interest in making sure that grant dollars get into the hands of beneficiaries for the right purposes and that we're, like, actually doing very detailed risk analysis and and doing everything possible to ensure that that we are, looking for and addressing and mitigating fraud in the grants process. Did you hear anything in in your sessions about, fraud risk management?

You know, I I hear that in all sessions. And even even before this year, like, that was always especially in subrecipient monitoring, that always comes up in every session. There was one that I was in that was talking about actually creating a subrecipient framework.

There was another one that it's amusing. I I attend this session every year. It's it's about staying out of the news, and and that one is all about fraud and how to recognize certain certain areas. Actually, you know, the keynote speaker, Frank Abagnale, you know, for those, fans out there, catch me if you can, write the book and and movie. You know, he was he was his entire keynote was on fraud, which is different than it has been in past years. Usually, the the keynote is something in the grants world that's important, but never focused that much on on fraud and fraud prevention.

And it was interesting kinda hearing his talk and then going and and listening to the staying out of the news and thinking of the ways that and five years ago, we would be talking about deep fake videos and and such. Right? And when I think about staying out of the news and some of the scenarios that they brought up there, there's a lot of tie back to could have technology caught these issues, or do we need the humans? Right?

The human beings have human experience there Yeah. To recognize. And, actually, I heard from a grant maker, earlier today even a site visits are so important for that reason. To be able to go on-site and not trust that Zoom call or or that data that that you're coming that you're coming into.

And I think, you know, one of the themes that resonated was trust but verify was a theme in all those sessions I attended where whether it's fraud, it's like trust the data, trust your grantees, trust your subrecipients, but go and verify whether that's in the awarding process, in post award, wherever in that life cycle that exists.

Yeah. Frank was a very entertaining speaker, and I have committed now I'm never gonna use a debit card again. I'm deleting all of my social media accounts. I'm not gonna trust anything that I see online.

It was it was very sobering approach towards fraud and risk management for sure.

Yeah.

Without a doubt. And, it was interesting, though. I kept on seeing clips of the movie playing when he was talking, which I was having having a hard time, separating reality from the movie. But it was a it was a good talk. I'm I'm glad they had, brought him in.

Me too. Ian, any parting words, for the audience before we close out today?

My my thoughts are continue being resilient. I think, you know, as we we look at government grants management, the change isn't over.

I think the change is just beginning.

But continue our resilience, meet it with a smile, and be the loudest voice in the room.

I I'm a big fan of that, and I think that's the right thing to do at the place we're at and do all the things that we know how to do.

Yeah. Totally agree with you. I I think, you know, one one of the most impactful things I heard, during the conference was that this is the time for grants managers to really be advocates for themselves, for their programs, for their agencies. You know, don't don't sit back and sort of just get impacted by changes.

Like, if you see, change happening that you disagree with, like, this is the time to use your voice, use your tools, speak up, you know, protest if you need to, you know, and at the same time, like, double down on all of the great things and great habits that grants managers in the government space are known for around compliance and monitoring fraud, monitoring risk, you know, making sure that that all of the reporting that's expected is being done because that's where the data comes from to demonstrate the impact of your programs. And so if you are one of the unlucky ones who, you know, is is in a situation of having to defend, your grant program, you know, at least you have all of the data, and you followed all of the process that that you need to to make the case that that program shouldn't be cut.

Couldn't agree more, Sam.

Alright. Ian, thanks for joining me on this, and thanks for, traveling to DC. I'll see you at the next conference.

Sounds great.

I wanna send a big thank you out to everyone behind the scenes at NGMA who helped put this event together. Being in person with the grant making community made me really hopeful for the future. If anyone is set up to manage rapid change while keeping the focus on constituents, it's this cohort of grantmakers.

They're a thoughtful, innovative, and generous group, and I know that all of my coworkers here at Simitable wish them the best of luck as they begin to navigate the new normal in government grant making.

That's all for me today. Thanks for tuning in to Impact Audio produced by your friends at Submittable. Until next time.