AmpliFund Provides Expertise on GREAT Act Data Standards to Congress

CLEVELAND, Sept. 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Congressional staff invited AmpliFund's President and Founder, Adam Roth, and Head of Product, Jason Yu, to Washington D.C. to provide their expertise on the implementation of Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreement's Transparency (GREAT) Act (Public Law 116-103) data standards. In attendance were professional staff from the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform as well as the U.S. Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's majority and minority leadership.

The Committee staff and the representatives from AmpliFund explored how a standardized data set could be an effective solution for the implementation of GREAT Act data standard requirements. The group also engaged in a lengthy discussion on the value and transparency that could be created by employing these standards. 

The goal of the session was to gain information on the implementation trajectory of the data standards required by the GREAT Act, and to further recommend the practices that could ensure success over the coming years. The committee and AmpliFund discussed the value that could be created through more mandates around machine readable format reporting and the incorporation of currently published Federal Integrated Business Framework (FIBF) data standards.

Roth made connections between the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Uniform Grant Guidance (UGG) that went into effect in November 2020 and some key principals of the GREAT Act. Namely, the increased focus on programmatic reporting and tracking.

Yu described the advantage of utilizing the FIBF data standards as a baseline. Due to a proof-of-concept project in partnership with the MITRE Corporation, AmpliFund has had the opportunity to implement FIBF data standards in a pilot program, and Roth and Yu relayed the following findings that resulted from that program:

• The FIBF Data elements are currently able to meet majority of the requirements that would be needed for grants management processes
• Where the CDER library was an attempt to gather all of the grant data elements used at the federal level, the FIBF focuses on grant business processes which created a manageable set of key data elements
• Opportunities exist with regard to performance tracking and data definitions

AmpliFund shared use cases pointing to the ways that data standards have the potential to dramatically reduce recipient burden and increase transparency around Federal spending.  

The Committees and AmpliFund discussed the next steps needed to create this value, including the possibility of bringing other Federal agencies into the conversation concerning the adoption of data standards.

AmpliFund would like to thank the Congressional staff for the opportunity, and The GREAT Act's original House and Senate sponsors: Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Jimmy Gomez (D-CA), Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) and Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) for H.R. 150, the version that became law, and the Senate companion S. 1829.

About AmpliFund

AmpliFund is the leading purpose-built grant management platform designed for state, local, and tribal governments to manage every phase of the grant management process. Our configurable solution provides a full suite of features needed by grant funders and recipients to maximize grant outcomes, meet performance standards, and increase compliance so they can achieve their missions.