Grant Managers Report Improved Performance as COVID Issues Ease

As disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic abated over the last year, grant recipients generally were better able to accomplish the mission of their awards than they were during the prior year. As a result, grant managers — particularly federal grant managers — responding to an annual survey noted a sharp increase in year-over-year performance. Meanwhile, all respondents continued to stress the need for attracting and maintaining a well-qualified grants management staff as their biggest concern.

The 2022 survey, which is designed to “inform the grants community of cross-cutting issues and trends with the goal of improving grants management,” was conducted by the George Washington University Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, REI Systems and the National Grants Management Association. This is the seventh year that they have conducted the study.

Last November, the survey authors invited more than 15,000 governmental and nongovernmental professionals in grants management and related fields to take the survey. The 2022 survey netted more responses — 643 — than ever before. Federal, state, local and tribal government officials responded, as well as officials with nongovernmental entities and those from other organizations who either receive federal grants or are in charge of managing recipients or subrecipients.

During a recent webinar to discuss the survey results, officials with REI Systems specifically highlighted the results of a question that asked respondents whether their organization’s or recipient’s outcomes improved over the past 12 months. Because of COVID-19 pandemic disruptions, the 2021 survey found that only 18% of federal grant managers said grant-related outcomes improved over the last year. However, in the 2022 survey, 43% of federal government respondents said performance improved — a 25 percentage point increase — while 44% of state and local government and 59% of nongovernmental managers said it improved.

“This 25-percentage point increase could be caused by grantmakers and their recipients getting used to the new normal post-COVID,” said REI Systems’ Program Manager Heather Morgan.

Challenges to Success

The survey sponsors provided a list of significant challenges facing federal grants administration, and asked respondents to rate the challenges. The top challenge, by far, is “attracting/retaining well-qualified grant management staff,” which has continued to rise in importance in each of the last four annual surveys, and it was mentioned in 2022 as a concern by 54% of respondents. “Funding uncertainty/susceptibility to politics,” which was the top concern in the 2021 survey, has decreased in each of the last four surveys and was mentioned by 38% of respondents. “Inefficient/bureaucratic processes” (38%) was another key area of concern noted.

The only other challenge area listed by the survey authors that increased in importance in 2022 compared to 2021 was “disconnect between grantee needs and agency priorities.” Fewer respondents said the following were significant challenges in 2022 compared to 2021 — “recipients who are inexperienced at managing programs,” “recipients who are ineffective grant managers,” “hesitance to adapt to changing environment/context,” “the risk of fraud” and the “cost of grants systems.” Other concerns raised by respondents included “changing priorities,” “lack of training” and “inadequate grants staff.”

When asked about the most significant factor leading to success, grant managers overwhelmingly (70%) cited having a “well-qualified grant management staff.” However, the survey also found that 61% of organizations questioned did not require their staff to have formal grant training, while 25% required grant training but not a certification. Only about 14% said training with a certification was required, which was down from 19% in 2021.

In a new question, the survey authors asked how long it typically takes to fully train staff to execute grants management actions. Some 38% stated it takes seven to 12 months, 34% said it takes between one to two years, and 9% said it takes more than two years. Only 19% said it takes less than six months.

Other top indicators of success were:

• “organizational structure to support agencywide coordination” — mentioned by 36% of respondents in 2022, up from 30% in 2021;
• “clear communication about the mission of grants” — 31% in 2022, down from 45%;
• “clear law/authorization to make the grant” — 30% in 2022, down from 36%; and
• “passionate and skilled recipients” — 30% in 2022, up from 23%.

Respondents also provided other factors to success that were not included in the survey authors’ list, including “retention of qualified staff,” “standard operational procedures, and consistent systems and processes,” “buy-in from leadership and staff,” and “adequate cash flow.”

Administrative Requirements

The survey authors found that grants managers, as they had reported previously, are still spending much of their time on managing administrative requirements, compared to their time working on grant programmatic activities.

When asked how much time respondents spend on grants management activities, respondents said they spend about 35% of their time monitoring financial and nonfinancial administrative requirements, about the same in percentage as in 2021. Other key day-to-day activities that grant managers spent time on included application submission/reviews and other pre-award activities (18%), and program policy and design (14%).

The survey found that administrative spending on grant management decreased slightly in 2022 among all respondents, while increasing in some specific sectors. When asked what percentage of the annual value of grants comprised the administrative budget, the average among all respondents was 10%, down from 12% in 2021. Broken into governmental sectors, the administrative spend for federal respondents was 15% (down from 17%); state respondents, 22% (up from 13% in 2021); local respondents, 17% (up from 7%); nongovernment respondents,  25% (up from 14%); tribal respondents, 3% (down from 17%); and other respondents, 16% (up from 11%).

Other Topics of Discussion

Using a scale indicating their satisfaction — 0 (not satisfied) to 5 (very satisfied) — pertaining to technology, the respondents’ satisfaction level for “access to technology” in 2022 was 3.39; the “ability to use technology” was 3.4; the “ability of recipients to cover costs of reporting” was 2.96; and “ability of subrecipients to cover costs of reporting” was 2.78. All of these results were similar to the 2021 levels.

The survey included a new question related to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Pub. L. 117-2), asking affected respondents the biggest impact the law has had on their processes. Among these respondents, 19% said “adapting to new reporting requirements” and 17% said “urgency in issuing/receiving the funding.” Other responses were “no familiarity with the grants application process” (15%); “not enough administrative budget” (15%); “no change” (15%); and  “inadequate grants management technology” (14%).

Reactions to Survey

During the webinar, a panel of stakeholders responded to the results of the survey. When discussing the increase in performance noted by federal grant managers, Genevieve Lind, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said that the pandemic created supply chain issues that hampered the ability to conduct grant-related work; stifled access to certain facilities (e.g., research labs, offices); and caused illnesses that affected employee health and well-being.

“Looking at why performance has improved, in general some of the challenges we faced during the pandemic has eased over time,” she explained. “Fundamentally, we’ve figured out how to adapt. Some of the problems have been solved. Some small business supply chain issues have caught up or been resolved, and people have found creative networks to facilitate access to supplies.”

When assessing performance over the last two years, Lind noted that her agency has identified more SBIR recipients completing Phase 1 projects (which allows them to apply for Phase 2 funding) in 2022 compared to 2021, as well as fewer requests for no-cost extensions. “More projects are finishing on time within the scope of what they initially proposed,” she concluded.  

Staffing Concerns

When addressing the need for hiring and retaining a well-trained staff, Shannon Candler, grants division director for Gwinnett County (Ga.), said her county leaders prioritized grants oversight since the pandemic started — particularly since Gwinnett’s COVID-relief funding increased its grant expenditures four-fold — so her division staff has more than doubled in numbers.

“New staff means a lot of training needs,” she said. “We have to be [adept in] purchasing, accounting and budgeting, so taking advantage of all of the training opportunities provided by the funding agencies has been critical for us,” Candler explained. “Agencies have taken the time to shift those trainings to a virtual platform … which makes it easier to digest. You can also see areas of trouble within your team. However, you can't put your staff in a training [session] and assume they know [the material]. It's that day-to-day practical application of what has been shared with them and what they've been trained on that needs to be nurtured, evaluated and supported.

Eric Russell, a director with ENJ PLLC, added that having effective grant managers within an organization can depend on the hiring process. “We often are an afterthought with respect to positions that are to be filled and funded,” he said. “Grant positions will fall under the finance department, but budget positions will be filled first. That forces a crunch to hire someone [for grants oversight/administration] that may not have the appropriate baseline skills. Then we’re doing more than grants training; we’re ramping up on fundamentals of governmental finance and general project management. We need to look at those old job descriptions and update them to reflect the current skill sets that are needed in the profession and then customize training plans around the teams we’re trying to develop. There’s a lack of [understanding about] what the expectations and the needs are at the top of the chain.”

When asked what is affecting grant manager retention, Candler said workers handling multiple tasks can experience burnout. “Within the grants management field, with all the financial and programmatic compliance elements, we’re really asking our staff to take on a lot to ensure our recipients are good stewards of grant dollars,” she explained. “Workload is a key element shifting people out of this field.”

Added Russell: “Another factor is that the grants unit is like a pass-through unit; almost like a training ground. Individuals coming into grants will typically have a three-to-five-year lifecycle before they go to another division or agency to take on a more senior-level position. As grant managers, we need to determine how to identify a career path, how do we motivate them to stay and how to provide them with assignments that allow for growth.”

Bruce Robinson, associate administrator for the Federal Transit Administration’s Office of Program Management, said that federal agencies need to know more from grant managers overseeing recipient funding about challenges they face and how to improve processes and technology to assist their administrative duties.

“From a federal perspective, we need to understand from recipients what the burdens are and what are the roadblocks that make it difficult to work with a funding agency,” he noted, adding that the FTA has regional offices that oversee general grant administration. The regional offices “have a good understanding about the challenges recipients face and those their own internal staff face. We have regular meetings with regional offices to talk about what they are planning, and receive input from them on how to improve our systems. [Grants managers from all environments] need to identify how to improve [challenges] from our own perspectives.”

For More Information

Information on the survey is available at https://www.reisystems.com/insights/reisurveys/.