ACF Partnership Success Story: Department of State

Federal Grants World, September 2009
By Greg Young, Department of State

The Department of State (DOS) has benefited enormously from its partnership with the Health and Human Services (HHS), Administration for Children and Families (ACF) GMLOB Center of Excellence (COE). Through its OMB endorsed grants management system, GrantSolutions, the COE is providing DOS with a system that automates the grants management lifecycle from funding opportunity and solicitation to application receipt and evaluation to award, post-award monitoring and closeout. The COE has enhanced GrantSolutions to meet DOS’ unique grants management requirements and, in doing so, has also leveraged those enhancements to benefit all the GrantSolutions partners.

GrantSolutions is enhancing productivity, increasing transparency, and simplifying the grants management processes for DOS program officers, grant officers, financial officers, and internal and external reviewers. Partners and customers benefit from the flexibility of the partnership that the COE brings to GrantSolutions implementation. In the case of DOS, the COE agreed to last-minute requests for an accelerated time-schedule and a broadened scope for deployment. This allowed DOS to launch its pilot ahead of schedule and begin issuing grants a mere seven months after the partnership began.

COE program managers and developers are accessible and responsive to the needs of its customers, clients, and partners. Receptive to the input and feedback, the COE is constantly improving Grantsolutions.gov to meet the needs of its 17 partner agencies. The COE brings new customers and partners online quickly and develops new, agency-specific functionality rapidly. Interested agencies have the option of being a client of the COE or participating as a managing partner. As a managing partner, agencies participate in the COE’s decision-making process and impact the direction of the consortium. Managing partners have full-access and the opportunity to significantly influence and improve the future of federal grants management policy and best practices. DOS highly recommends the HHS/ACF COE, a thoroughly professional, courteous and patient organization, whose services and products will benefit large and small grants-making agencies alike.