AEM’s grant management systems and support help to make Department of Education grantees successful.

The U.S. Department of Education awards billions of dollars in federal grants every year. The size and complexity of these awards require the Department to provide much needed, but time-consuming, oversight of grantee compliance—and to determine where technical assistance is needed. Even when a grantee may be compliant, that does not mean a grant is successful. The ultimate success of a grant program hinges on the Department’s ability to deliver targeted and timely assistance to help high-risk grantees meet their objectives.

While supporting a program with grant monitoring and technical assistance delivery, AEM quickly identified the need for a modern approach to streamline grant monitoring activities, consolidate data collected over the life of a grant, and to use this data to identify risks and make more informed decisions on how scarce technical assistance resources are deployed. This resulted in the design and development of the Grantee Records and Assistance Database System (GRADS360°). GRADS360° offers built-in intelligence to identify trends and lessons learned, flag at risk grantees, and provide program officers with the information they need to make informed decisions in minutes instead of days.

With more than 30,000 visits per month, GRADS360° now serves as an innovative solution for grants performance management, tracking, and delivery across the Department. It has been adopted by 16 Department program offices in the Institute of Education Sciences, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Office of Innovation and Improvement, the Office for Civil Rights, and the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, supporting more than 300 grantees and 4,000 additional stakeholders.