IAE’s Strategic Partnership with Grants.gov

One of the promises of the E-Gov initiatives was to eliminate duplicative data processing. The IAE strategic partnership with the federal grants community is making good on that promise. A federal grant is an award of financial assistance from a federal agency to a recipient to carry out a public purpose of support or stimulation authorized by a law of the United States. All federal agencies are required to post competitive grant opportunities at Grants.gov, which was developed as part of the E-Grants Initiative (a part of the President’s 2002 Management Agenda to improve government services to the public).

Through this common website, agencies allow applicants for federal grants to find, apply for, and manage grant funds online, simplifying grant management and eliminating redundancies. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is the managing partner for the Grants.gov initiative, which allows organizations to electronically "Find and Apply" for more than $400 billion in federal grants.

The Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999 mandated that the grants program improve the effectiveness and performance of federal financial assistance programs and simplify the application and reporting requirements. The grants community does this by interagency workgroups, and by developing common data elements, electronic processes, and uniform administrative rules across agencies. The strategic partnership with IAE allows the grant community to use IAE services such as the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) to avoid creating duplicate and repetitive data processing. The grants community uses CCR to collect information on its grant applicants; currently interested grants community registrants make up 14-20% of the total active registrants in CCR. This number is expected to grow, potentially outpacing vendor community registrants. CCR provides these grant registrants the trusted data needed by the federal government to "Find and Apply" on Grants.gov.

The March release of Grants.gov will be utilizing even more information from CCR. By using CCR, the grants community does not have to create separate redundant systems or require redundant record-keeping, thus reducing the grantee and vendor registrant’s administrative costs. This strategic partnership means the next generation of the grants community will use CCR more and more, further reinforcing simplification, improving the grants process, and reducing overall cost. To continue to "grow the partnership" with IAE, grants policy groups need to work closer with the registration community to refine what it means to be a grantee and take a more proactive role in transforming the business model.