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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
FEMA Grants Outcomes (FEMA GO)
Grants Management Modernization (GMM) is
a FEMA-wide initiative that began in 2015 to modernize and consolidate existing
FEMA grants management systems, business processes, and manual workarounds into
one single information technology (IT) platform— FEMA Grants Outcomes (FEMA
GO)—and one common grants management lifecycle.
Background
What is FEMA GO? What is its purpose?
FEMA developed the new platform, FEMA Grants Outcomes (FEMA
GO), to promote uniformity across all core grant management processes. FEMA GO
eliminates reliance on multiple systems, many of which operate on multiple
platforms and use different types of grant applications and reporting
technologies. The capabilities and data elements used by prior systems were
inconsistent and duplicative. Previous grants management processes and systems
did not provide data transparency and required users to create spreadsheets and
other ad hoc tools or workarounds to get the information required to manage
FEMA grant programs.
The FEMA GO electronic signature capability provides
increased security, reduces risks, enhances conveniences, increases mobility,
saves resources, and ensures compliance. Security is one of the biggest
advantages versus paper signatures. For example, the electronic signing feature
within FEMA GO provides a higher degree of security by reducing vulnerabilities
to alter a signature on a grant application or on an award document.
Additionally, the electronic signature streamlines the application and awarding
process by eliminating the need for users to print, sign and mail documents.
Compliance safeguards are built into FEMA GO to ensure a signature is provided
by the authorized representative of an agency.
FEMA GO automates data collection through on-line forms,
which allows application submission and required reporting to be completed
faster and more efficiently. FEMA GO integrates with the SAM.gov system which
eliminates the need for applicants to create new organizational entities when
they apply. Less manual input reduces errors both in the creation and
completion of an application or report as illegible or incorrect data entry is
less likely to occur. For example, users can complete and submit the SF-425
within FEMA GO. The form is prepopulated with prior and aggregated data which
allows users to complete the form faster and more efficiently and reduces the
potential for errors. Additionally, the prepopulated SF-425 data streamlines
workflow and process forms much more quickly, freeing up time for users to
focus on other aspects of grant management.
FEMA GO provides users with one system to house quarterly
progress reporting data. Programmatic information that was previously spread
across silos including emails, spreadsheets, and paper files, can now be easily
shared, submitted to one centralized location within FEMA GO and
collaboratively reviewed by FEMA GO internal and external users.
FEMA GO is targeted toward the
entire grants community of users, including FEMA personnel and grant recipients
and subrecipients across all FEMA grant programs, including mitigation,
preparedness, response, and recovery grant programs.
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Grant Program Categories:
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Mitigation: Hazards
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Mitigation: Risk Analysis
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Mitigation: Community Assistance
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Mitigation: Earthquake
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Preparedness: Fire & Life Safety
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Preparedness: Community Security
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Preparedness: Chemical
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Preparedness: Emergency Management
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Preparedness: Infrastructure Security
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Preparedness: Training
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Preparedness: Other
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Response: Urban Search and Rescue
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Recovery: Public Assistance
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Recovery: Individual Assistance
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What are the expected outcomes of FEMA GO?
FEMA GO transforms the way FEMA manages grants and strengthens
FEMA’s ability to execute its mission through a user-centered, business-driven
approach, consistent with the following key objectives:
- Simplify grants management lifecycle
processes;
- Improve timeliness of funding to support
survivors and facilitate community resilience;
- Improve allocation of grant funds across the
emergency management and homeland security communities;
- Enhance FEMA’s ability to achieve equitable
outcomes for our grant recipient communities;
- Streamline and improve business performance
through business process and decision-making improvements;
- Improve business intelligence and
decision-making by increasing access to data related to grant program
performance and grant project status;
- Facilitate compliance with regulations and
statutes;
- Reduce sustainment costs by consolidating
legacy systems into a single Information Technology platform; and
- Execute a user-centric,
business-driven approach to grants transformation founded on active
engagement with all grant stakeholders.
How will FEMA GO
impact state, local, tribal, and territorial applicants?
Providing a single grants management system for FEMA grant
recipients will simplify the experience of FEMA’s state, local, tribal and
territorial (SLTT) government and nonprofit entities who currently use a
variety of FEMA legacy grant management systems. FEMA GO is being built to
support the full grant life cycle that is sustainable in a virtual environment.
With respect to application submission, FEMA GO is designed to:
- Accept applications for FEMA grant programs
through easy-to-use web-based forms.
- Enable multiple sub-applicant submissions
supporting a variety of project types.
- Facilitate applicants to collect and review
subapplications.
- Enable collaboration within the applicant
organization or with FEMA on an application.
- Near real-time view for FEMA users to
provide enhanced technical assistance to applicant.
- Rapidly open new funding opportunities for
supported programs.
- Extend reusable budget component to expand
the ability of FEMA GO to handle a variety of cost data structures which
reduce complexity.
FEMA continues to work with stakeholders to ensure that
their requirements and needs are considered throughout
FEMA GO’s development, with the intention of users only
having to access one system in the future - FEMA GO
What additional information is available about FEMA GO?
FEMA GO has a public-facing site containing more information and training
materials. You can also follow @FemaGrants on Twitter and FEMA |
LinkedIn to learn about important grant-related
information.
Development
Why did
FEMA start development with the Assistance to Firefighters Grants Program?
FEMA identified the Assistance to Firefighters Grants
Program (AFGP) as a good program to start development for FEMA GO for the
following reasons:
- The legacy grants management system for AFGP
supported three grant programs, Staffing for Adequate Fire & Emergency
Response, and Fire Prevention & Safety, which provide funding directly
to grant recipients who manage the project funded.
- The AFGP system was one of oldest FEMA
grants management systems and expensive to maintain;
- The program used multiple cross-cutting
business functions and laid the foundation for other FEMA grant programs;
and
- These three grant programs required system
business functions to cover all phases of the grants management lifecycle:
pre-award, award, post-award, closeout, and post-closeout, helping to lay
a foundation of reusable and configurable IT services in the FEMA GO
system that will support all FEMA grant programs.
What
systems and/or grants programs were developed next?
The FEMA GO development team used the functions that had
been built for AFGP to quickly configure the system to support the Assistance
to Firefighters Grant – COVID-19 Supplemental Program, funded in response to
the pandemic. Simultaneously, the FEMA GO team started work on two Hazard
Mitigation grant programs: the Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) Grant Program
and the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Grant Program. These
mitigation grant programs provide funding to states, which then pass money to
subrecipients who manage the projects funded by the grant.
Unlike the AFGP grants, which provide funding directly to
grant recipients, BRIC and FMA grant programs pass grant funding through the
recipient (i.e., state) to local jurisdictions to execute projects funded by
the grant. Both funding routes provide a foundation of reusable, configurable
FEMA GO capacity that enable us to bring more FEMA grant programs more quickly
into the FEMA GO system. FEMA plans to open funding opportunities for more than
a dozen additional non-disaster grant programs and two disaster programs in
FEMA GO during Fiscal Year 2023, with the remainder of FEMA grant programs moving
to FEMA GO during Fiscal Year 2024.
Will other FEMA systems undergoing modernization efforts be
compatible with FEMA GO?
Yes. There are currently three major IT modernization
efforts underway within FEMA.
- The Financial Systems Modernization improves
the Integrated Financial Management Information System, which is the FEMA
legacy financial management system.
- The Enterprise Data and Analytics
Modernization Initiative (EDAMI) optimizes the use of FEMA and emergency
management data through greater data sharing and analytics capabilities to
ensure data-driven decision making and its FEMA Data Exchange (FEMADex)
cloud-based data analytics platform will replace FEMA’s legacy Enterprise
Data Warehouse.
- A modernization of the Individual Assistance
module within the National Emergency Management Information System (NEMIS)
platform will enhance FEMA’s Individual Assistance program’s ability to
provide rapid, holistic, and integrated support to individuals, and to more
quickly respond to changing administrative and agency priorities for
helping individuals impacted by disasters by replacing the aging and
fragile Individual Assistance system in parallel with the FEMA GO
development effort.
- A fourth modernization initiative, the
National Flood Insurance Program Modernization (commonly referred to as
“PIVOT”), was completed in 2021.
Due to the interrelated functions and needs for these
efforts, FEMA GO stays connected with modernization programs and actively works
with their program management offices. This ensures seamless integration and
compatibility between these systems as each one moves toward a new solution.
Ultimately, end users will experience enhanced functionality and greater
overall satisfaction with the administration of their grants.
What business capabilities will be built into FEMA GO?
FEMA GO is being built to perform all business functions
that fall within all five phases of the Grants Management Lifecycle: pre-award,
award, post-award, closeout, and post-closeout. Any functionality that is
needed to complete grant work will fall within the scope of this initiative.
The following graphic explains
the basic functionality of the Grants Management Lifecyle. For additional
capabilities of FEMA GO, visit FEMA Grants Outcomes (FEMA GO) | FEMA.gov.
What systems and/or grants programs are to be developed next?
The program has a FEMA GO Product Roadmap to deliver new
products and features in the system that is updated each quarter to reflect
work over the coming year. Roadmap planning is a fully collaborative effort
with key stakeholders, including the FEMA grant programs, programmatic
subject-matter experts, and external stakeholders (including FEMA grant
applicants and recipients) that meet quarterly to recommend prioritization of
programs and functionality being integrated into FEMA GO.
Currently, our top priorities remain development of
remaining post-award functionality, including ability to close out grants and
onboarding all remaining non-disaster grant programs. At the same time, we will
complete design of preaward consultative project development functions needed
for Fire Management Assistance Grants, Public Assistance, and Hazard Mitigation
disaster grants to comply with the Robert
T. Stafford Act requirements, and to provision Individual
Assistance Community Support Services grants, including Disaster Case
Management. In Fiscal Year 2023, we plan to onboard the following grant
programs into FEMA GO:
- Community Assistance Program-State Support
Services Element Grant Program
- National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Grant
Program
- Cooperating Technical Partners Grant Program
- National Dam Safety Grant Program
- High Hazards Potential Dams Grant Program
- Emergency Management Baseline Assessment
Grant Program
- National Incident Management System Grant
Program
- Homeland Security Preparedness Technical
Assistance Program
- Homeland Security National Training
Program/National Domestic Preparedness Consortium
- Homeland Security National Training
Program/Continuing Training Grants
- Presidential Residence Protection Assistance
- State Fire Training Systems Grant Program
- National Urban Search &
Rescue-Readiness Program.
Stakeholder Engagement
How does Grants Modernization Management engage its
stakeholders?
FEMA develops FEMA GO using an incremental, iterative
approach to delivering high-quality software with frequent deliveries to ensure
value throughout the process for its stakeholders. We value working
collaboratively with ability to incorporate user feedback to respond to change.
From 2015 to 2019, FEMA conducted extensive stakeholder
outreach sessions across the country with FEMA regional offices, states, Tribal
Nations, and other interested stakeholders to capture how these groups manage
grants to create a streamlined and unified grants management experience for all
FEMA grant programs that will look and behave the same every time a stakeholder
comes to FEMA for a grant.
FEMA took extensive notes from those outreach sessions and
used that feedback to develop a grants management lifecycle that captures 39
unique business functions across all grant lifecycle phases and supporting
activities. FEMA GO simplifies the customer experience in the system by
developing standard, less complex workflows to support those 39 business
functions across the entire grants management lifecycle.
As FEMA builds capability in the system, functionality is
validated with users through progressive demonstrations, click-through
prototypes and retrospectives, or hot washes. Users can participate in user
acceptance testing (UAT) where developers use business requirements to build a
prototype and work with users to test the prototype to ensure it functions
properly. After testing, FEMA will make the functionality available for users
in FEMA GO.
FEMA conducted three FEMA GO usability and design surveys
to solicit feedback from all FEMA GO stakeholders, including FEMA employees and
registered FEMA GO users. The results of these surveys are integral to the User
Experience (UX) design approach that FEMA GO employs in its system design,
testing, and delivery. UX design helps ensure that we are achieving Agency and
program strategic objectives to unify coordination and delivery of federal
assistance, reduce complexity, simplify grant management processes, and eliminate
barriers to FEMA programs through a people-first approach.
FEMA facilitates multiple working groups, user research
interviews, and outreach sessions to keep stakeholders informed about the
development of FEMA GO. For more information or to get involved with the
planning efforts, please email FEMAGO@fema.dhs.gov.
Transition
What is happening to the other Grants systems? How is FEMA socializing this transition?
The legacy grants systems’ functionalities and business
processes will be modernized and developed in FEMA GO. The legacy systems will
be decommissioned once FEMA GO is at full operating capacity; the grants data
in the legacy systems is migrated to FEMA GO; and, users validate that they
have all the information they need to manage those grants. Users of FEMA’s
legacy grants management systems will transition to FEMA GO as grant programs
migrate onto the new platform. FEMA will socialize training opportunities with
users to support this transition.
Will FEMA GO provide resources to guide applicants through the
grant application process?
Yes. To successfully transition all FEMA grant recipients,
applicants, and users to FEMA GO, FEMA continues to develop and add user guides
and training materials to the FEMA GO website to create a more user-friendly and
customer-centric experience.
Will FEMA provide training for FEMA GO?
Yes. FEMA GO has a comprehensive training program for all
stakeholders using the system. FEMA grant programs also offer training webinars
to their external stakeholders. The FEMA GO training team develops user guides
and training webinars for FEMA internal staff. User guides, one-pagers, and
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for external stakeholders are located on the FEMA GO website. FEMA will add,
update, and create user guides to the website as new functionality is available
and when new grant programs get built in FEMA GO.
The goal is to make FEMA GO user-friendly and intuitive to
eliminate or reduce the need for extensive training. The training team will
continue to work with system developers to provide training following the
initial deployment for each functionality and then in an on-going, as-needed
basis to complement training materials and user guides. The training program
will cover each phase of the grant lifecycle.
Training priorities are determined by each of FEMA’s grant
programs and may be subject to change as the virtual training environment is
developed and aligned with new FEMA GO capabilities.
Are there data analytics and reporting resources or tools
available?
Yes, but the current functionality is only available to a
specific set of users. FEMA GO provides reporting and analytic data through
data hubs accessible to data analysts in the FEMA Headquarters and Regional
Offices. FEMA GO will develop accessible data sets and will integrate with the
EDAMI system to support the full analytics community, including non-FEMA users.
Is there a FEMA GO Help Desk?
Yes. All issues should be
reported to the FEMA GO Help Desk to resolve user issues as quickly and
efficiently as possible. Users can contact the Help Desk by calling
877-585-3242 or by emailing FEMAGO@fema.dhs.gov.
All issues should be reported to
the FEMA GO Help Desk to create and track a ticket, research, analyze, and
resolve the issue being reported by a user. If the resolution of the issue
requires more in-depth knowledge or research, the Help Desk will escalate the
issue to program or technical experts.
- The FEMA GO Help Desk accepts phone calls at
877-585-3242 and emails at FEMAGO@fema.dhs.gov. The FEMA GO Help
Desk is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern Time (ET), Monday–Friday.
- A key goal of the Help Desk is to resolve a
user’s questions as quickly as possible, ideally in a single conversation.
Because user questions could be related to system programs, how to use the
system, and program or policy, the Help Desk also facilitates a “hand-off”
to other experts.
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The Assistance to Firefighter Grants Program
Help Desk is not for IT systems support, but instead provides technical
assistance for user questions related to the grant programs or policy. The AFG
Help Desk accepts calls at 866-274-0960 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET
Monday–Friday and emails at firegrants@fema.dhs.gov. The Help Desk is open
from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET Monday–Friday.
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The Hazard Mitigation Assistance Help Desk provides
technical assistance and answers to programmatic questions about hazard
mitigation grant programs (such as eligibility) and reached at 1-866-222-3580
from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET Monday–Friday.
How will the FEMA GO Help Desk address an issue reported by a
user?
The FEMA GO Help Desk will respond to emails and calls
received from users. Once system issues are resolved, the Help Desk will
contact the reporting user to validate that the software fix has addressed
their problems and they are able to successfully complete work in the FEMA GO
system.
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