The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), or Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) is increasing public sector grant funding. Grant opportunities are open now, including the recently announced State and Local Cybersecurity program. This new $1 billion program provides funding to state governments to develop, revise, implement, and address cybersecurity risks and cybersecurity threats to their information systems. This is great news, and more grant opportunities lead to more applications, which means a greater demand on overextended grant makers. The cumbersome grant making process needs a more effective solution that maximizes disbursement of funds to grant seekers and the people they hope to impact. This is not a new issue but grant management software has been missing a key differentiator: simplicity. Effective grant management software is user-friendly, configurable and facilitates movement through the grant lifecycle at speed. This longstanding need combined with increased government grant funding adds urgency to the demand. With the prevalence of grant making software, however, choosing a viable solution can be overwhelming.

Here’s how to make sure you identify the optimal solution for your needs.

Evaluate your software needs based on volume of grantee applications
The influx of funding means more grantees are looking for grantors to award them the money needed to fund their community-based projects, be they large state departments or organizations, small businesses, or many others where everyday people step in to give a hand. The new formula and competitive grant programs made possible by the IIJA may be sending these grantees your way. If your existing grant making programs are already complicated to manage due to a high number of administrative tasks, consider implementing software that simplifies and accelerates productivity. Even the most prolific grant maker would agree the process doesn’t become easier the more you do it. Therefore, a solution that easily digitizes current workflows allows for higher velocity.

Assess the ease-of-use of your grant making software
In recent years, once error-prone and exhausting work has become reliable and straightforward thanks to automation. The technology’s ability to minimize human effort on mundane tasks and maximize effort on higher value tasks has produced quantifiable value. According to Gartner, organizations that deployed automations saw a 195% increase in annualized hours saved. Therefore, the public sector has an opportunity to optimize their processes where grant management workflow is concerned.

If the hindrance has been ease-of-use, look to low-code software that easily integrates with the Microsoft tech stack, including Office 365, Dynamics 365, Azure, and hundreds of other Appsource apps. Essentially, a user-friendly, intuitive grantee portal experience makes your grantees request proposal, award requirement submission, and payment tracking easier. Funds can be disbursed to the organizations in need faster by moving away from outdated, manual processes.

Look for software performance differentiators
Automation reduces cycle times, but the software must also empower the user to do more. Effective grant management software must include the differentiators below to be of use for grant making leadership and funders:

• Facilitate the due diligence/compliance process by providing the ability to check applicants against any of your compliance-related lists.
• Summarize the applications, awards and tasks currently relevant to each user enabled by multiple customizable dashboards
• Allow an administrator to define user or group permissions on a field-by-field basis and customize online forms with colors, fonts and branding

Seek out a partner with expertise to deliver the best solution
Why would citizens, university students among them, abandon their grant award cart before checking out? There are multiple reasons that can all be abated with effective grant management software. Not all solutions are created equal, though. Avanade’s Grant Making Solution is a public services-focused application on the Microsoft Dynamics platform. It enables the connection of program delivery, funding, grant management and results measurement that will allow organizations to, with continual use, increase the impact of their work. The solution is intended to help manage the grant making process through the entire grant lifecycle from Pre-Award (with Funding Opportunities and Application Review) to Award (with Award Decisions and Notifications), to Post-Award (with implementation, reporting and Closeout).

We consider a solution like this to be essential to managing any grants process, especially those with elevated IIJA status.

For more information regarding its unique functionality due to being built on Microsoft’s Power Platform and the key benefits of the Avanade Grant Making Solution, please download our whitepaper and contact the team.