Calibrating Best Practices to Contemporary Risks

Wendi Gephart
March 1, 2025 at 07:15:52 ET

Since mid-January, we in the grants community have had to become more familiar with various legal terms, congressional legislation and critical White House actions that can have a widespread impact on federal funding.

Take this list for example: “arbitrary and capricious” (from a U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia administrative stay, published Jan. 28, 2025); gender ideology; “ultra vires” (from a U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island temporary restraining order, published Jan. 31, 2025); the Impoundment Control Act of 1974; the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022; just transition; diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA); Executive Order (EO) 14173, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity”; Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum M-25-13 ( “Temporary Pause of Agency Grant, Loan, and Other Financial Assistance Programs”); OMB Memorandum M-25-14 (“Rescission of M-25-13”); continuing resolution; and finally, “very demure, very mindful” (for levity’s sake).

How do we keep up? Grants intelligence is a great resource for grants managers. Also worthwhile is Thompson Grants new “Trump Administrative Actions Affecting Grants” roundup, which includes links to executive orders, fact sheets and other White House measures taken that impact the grants community. As we learn new meanings of familiar phrases, we expand our understanding of best practices. To keep ahead of the wave, read on.

Know Your NOFO

Following the publications of EO 14173 and OMB Memo M-25-13, OMB distributed “Instructions for Federal Financial Assistance Program Analysis in Support of M-25-13”. Agencies were provided with a spreadsheet with funding agency; sub-agency; Assistance Listing number; title of the opportunity; opportunity objective; SAM.gov link; and USAspending.gov link pre-populated. Agencies were tasked with responding to 15 additional questions. Among these questions called for agencies to identify any funding through the Inflation Reducing Act of 2022, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and any funding related to the Hyde Amendment.

On the grantee level, most of the OMB worksheet information can be found in the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) we use at the pre-award stage. Post-award, grants managers should track this information for our own use, as well as retain a PDF of the NOFO in lieu of a web link, which may not accessible forever. While our colleagues may know we have a grant from a particular agency and might know the grant dollar amount, as grants managers, our knowledge must be more in depth, with increased breadth.

Follow the Money

It’s not enough to categorize external funding into “governmental” versus “nongovernmental” sources. Tracking the provenance of the money is best practice. As an example, a 2024 ballot initiative to defund Washington State’s Climate Commitment Act (CCA) failed by a sizable margin. The CCA funds Move Ahead Washington, a public transportation grant program providing youth with free public transportation. The grants team of a public transit agency, knowing that these funds were potentially in jeopardy, would be able to provide timely guidance to finance, which in turn could calculate budget impacts. Increasing public awareness that repealing the CCA would also eliminate youth ride free programs would also be of value to retain funding. The same practice is valuable for tracking all external funding.

Across the Spectrum

H.R. 9495, passed by the House but not the Senate last November, is indicative of recent legislation that has the potential to impact our organizations as well as our funding. This bill would have granted the President the power to “investigate, harass, and effectively dismantle any nonprofit organization — including news outlets, universities, and civil liberties organizations” — by stripping them of their tax-exempt status based on a unilateral accusation of wrongdoing. This summary provided by the Nonprofit Association of Washington concludes with the observation that this bill is widely predicted to be re-introduced this year (read the full story here at https://nonprofitwa.org/h-r-9495-alert-the-fight-isnt-over/).

Consider the open-ended nature of the following three questions posed on the “Instructions” spreadsheet in light of H.R. 9495 in order to gauge how to think about your own best practices and internal controls:

  1. Does this program provide funding that is implicated by the directive to end discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and DEIA mandates, policies, programs, preferences and activities, under whatever name they appear, or other directives in the same EO, including those related to “environmental justice” programs or “equity-related” grants?
  2. Does this program promote gender ideology?
  3. If not covered in the preceding columns, does this program support any activities that must not be supported based on executive orders issued on or after Jan. 20, 2025 (including EOs released following the dissemination of this spreadsheet)?

Beware the Ides of March

Technically, March 15, is otherwise known as the day following the expiration of the continuing resolution funding the government that was signed on Dec. 21, 2024. It’s worth noting that Congress may reassess appropriations designated for grant funding at this time.

Wendi Gephart leverages her deep knowledge about grants and contracts to create management tools, training programs, and policies that ensure robust internal control systems and compliance with evolving funder regulations. With over 25 years of hands-on experience as both a grantor and grantee, she has based her practice on funder regulations, rules, and policies, currently as the Federal Contracts and Grants Compliance Manager for Movement Strategy Center, a nonprofit organization that provides intermediary services enabling access to crucial infrastructure and thought partnership for communities. She is an active member of National Grants Management Association committees and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board for Thompson Grants.

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