State and Local Grant Management Opportunities and Challenges

With the CARES Act, the American Rescue Plan, and now infrastructure funding, state and local governments have a large pipeline of grant options to help further citizen support. In fact, White House initiatives aimed at providing relief to citizens total nearly $6 trillion.

However, applying for and later managing those grants can be an incredibly burdensome, and often manual process. With a wide variety of variables that need to be carried out and measured, the management of these grants involves a large number of people from multiple constituencies both within a state agency and outside it including grant applicants and recipients, various levels of government and agencies, and affiliated nonprofits. Multiple surveys and studies have shown that grantee organizations spend more than 40% of their grant resources on administration activities alone. Continue reading