grant management basics

Grant Management Basics: How to Do Progress Reports for Grants

4 June 2020 by Christina Moore

https://youtu.be/h9v_nVymd6k

Grant Progress Reports

Cut your progress reporting time by 20 minutes per grant by answering three questions on a web form. We’ll take a look at the grant progress reports in Tempest-GEMS. With FEMA and other federal granting agencies, applicants are encouraged to provide progress reports each quarter.

We are coaching you on grant management best practices using grant management software. If you appreciate this presentation, please share it.

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Progress Reports

Progress reports occur as a part of the dynamic between the grant execution team, also called the sub-recipient, and the state’s grant administration team. The questions that the grant managers, or applicants answer come from the state. Here at Storm Petrel, we modify this process to meet the state’s needs. Quarterly, the applicants are asked to identify if the scope is sufficient, funding is sufficient, and if there is progress on the mission.

The state reviews and summarizes for the federal granting agency.

Creating Progress Reports

The progress reporting process is specific to a grant. Open the grant menu on the left to find progress – it has a bar-chart for an icon. Click the green button to add a progress report. Answer the questions from the state then hit submit.

The questions normally focus on your activities and needs. It is an early warning or early detection system. A key risk with larger disaster grants is abandonment. Success is accomplished with regular steady work. The quarterly progress reports reinforce this message.

Reviewing of Progress Reports by States

With each cycle of progress reports, the state reviews the effort with workflows and reports in Tempest-GEMS. The action taken by the state is for them to decide. Maybe the reports get sent to FEMA, maybe just summarized.

Communication is Key

Progress reports keep communication going between the state and the applicant. The effort reminds people to review grants, reimbursement status, data entry activities, and others factors, then document the situation.

We are providing you a Power Tools card on Progress Reports. We strive to reinforce successful grant management practices.

Power Tools Cards on Progress Reports

Grant Management Basics: Reimbursement Requests

2 June 2020 by Christina Moore

https://youtu.be/Bc6ETQZ6Upg

Reimbursement Requests

How to ask for—and get—grant money, extensions, and scope changes. Grant management best practices using grant management software emphasizes an all-in-one solution. With Tempest-GEMS, this process is called a Request. You make a Request of your state to get funds. You make a Request of your state to get an Extension. You make a Request of your state for a change in scope or budget. This is how you get reimbursed by a grant.

We are providing training on how to manage disaster relief grants such as the CARES Act and FEMA grants. If you appreciate this presentation, please share it.

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Request & Review Processes

In our FEMA Quest came, we identify the Call-and-Response loop. You and your state collaborate with back-and-forth effort steadily moving the grant management process through reimbursements to scope changes and ultimately to close out. The grant execution team makes a Request. The grant administration team then steps through Workflows.

Your data entry process, and document gathering process, may continue for months and months. Especially with large capital projects such as rebuilding infrastructure (roads, bridges, damaged public buildings, etc). These kinds of grants may remain open for years. Category B – emergency protection measures – often close a few months after the emergency period. With COVID-19, we already have a 90-day emergency period. For the first time ever, we have an emergency funding grant with a significant period of performance.

We’ll look at the Request process from the applicant’s side in the Tempest-GEMS grant execution module.

Then we’ll look at the Request review process on the state’s side in the Tempest-GEMS grant administration modules.

Request for Reimbursement

https://vimeo.com/412764143/42dab6805e

Log into Tempest-GEMS, I have my grant selected in green with the check mark. I’ll now use the menu to click Request. It has a hand-pointing icon. This takes me to the Requests page. On this page, you clearly see the name of your grant. And it shows you your past requests and their disposition.

Gone are the days of emailing documents, emailing requests, and shipping documents to states. The auditing and transparency benefit all teams.

I’ll add a Request. In Tempest-GEMS, green buttons add.

I’ll pause on this Select Request Type page. This list of the Request types changes based on where you are in the grant lifecycle. For example, you can not ask for Reimbursement if the grant has not been awarded or obligated.

The Request Types are a feature that states can add and modify. Our software is customizable-off-the-shelf or COTS.

Everyone’s favorite request is the RFR, or Request for Reimbursement. It is our favorite because it is how we walk the Money Please loop in FEMA Quest. Money’s how we all keep score in this game. We spend money on authorized projects and missions. Then we ask for a reimbursement.

The Reimbursement Request involves a few simple steps and questions. The specifics are state-driven. Some states want a signed letter on letter head. Some don’t. Some just use Tempest-GEMS but limit who can make the Request to specific people.

Enter, click, confirm, and hit confirm and submit at the end. This results in the information being “sent” to the state. Of course, the data doesn’t move. The state team uses their tools to review your efforts.

The Grant Administration Module

https://vimeo.com/412764845/57a80e12fe

I have stepped over the Grant Administration Module, the state’s tool. I’ll start with the Standard Requests page. This shows the pending Requests from applicants. If you study these pictures too closely, you’ll see that I’m using my demo data with data put in by our programmers. It’s test data for us, but it serves a purpose to show you the variety of actions and processes.

Users may sort and filter data. We can accommodate multiple grant types – more coming all the time, including CARES Act grants. Please pause this video or rewind if we go to fast through this. Lean right in.

The review and approval process for most Requests follows a state-defined process. Often a quick document validation process involving consistency and completeness. Are documents actually what they are supposed to be? And how are applicants doing at gathering the essential documents as defined in the master list that we call the Virtual Binder?

Reimbursement Queue

Next, we’ll look at the Reimbursement Queue. For the state team, this is a bit more involved. The team not only reviews the documents for consistency and completeness, they also review the financial data.

The Reimbursement Queue involves a multi-stage review and approval process. The first team does the in-depth analysis – these people are often contractors or temporary staff. The next tier is an approval process and confirmation. Typically, a state employee. The third approval sends the data to the state’s financial system or other system. This can happen either with a digital link or by paper.

When payment is completed, someone on the Grant Administration goes into the disbursement queue. This final process notifies the applicants that funds have moved, and it updates the Tempest-GEMS financial balances.

Benefits of Grant Management Software

Before using grant management software, people shipped documents to the state. Or the state came to an applicant’s site to review documents. This is a labor intensive and travel intensive process. Grant management software like Tempest-GEMS facilitates collaboration and cooperation between the applicant team and the state team. We work as one helping our communities recover from disasters.

The grant management basics don’t change. Our process of doing requests is an improvement on email and shared file folder. Our process of stepping through a WorkFlow on the state-side provides the monitoring-and-controls that FEMA and other federal agencies expect of our grant administrators.

The days of using a pencil and yellow paper for grant management are long gone. Quickly we are seeing the end of using an electronic spreadsheet for managing disaster relief funds. Sophisticated tools like Tempest-GEMS prevent fraud, waste, and abuse.

Additionally, it help us all confidentially navigate the rough terrain that is federal grant management.

Please share this material with colleagues. Post about us and our efforts on your favorite social media platform. And don’t forget to grab the Hints and Hacks on Requests to help you with your FEMA Quest.

Hints and Hacks on Requests

Grant Management Basics: How to Document Your Use of Grant Funds

28 May 2020 by Christina Moore

https://youtu.be/Ao8Wk1228W8

Documenting Your Grant Funds Use

Document organization can be challenging and boring. Use your tools to make your life a whole lot easier. Oh, and both reimbursement and closeout will be easier too. The other hint is to turn it into a game. Here is a list of things to find… Go find them. Grant management best practices includes actions that are done for their own sake. It may not be as dramatic as responding to 911 calls or triaging patients. Those actions require funding, paychecks, supplies, power, and internet. Your work keeps all of that moving. Documenting your grant fund use is an integral part of how to manage relief grants.

We are providing grant management best practices so that you and your team will learn how to document your grant funds use. If you appreciate this presentation, please share it.

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The Virtual Binder

Tempest-GEMS includes a Virtual Binder. Just like a 3-ring that is empty and awaiting documents to be slid in. It serves two immediate purposes. First, it provides a robust master list of all documents you will need or should have between now and close-out. When using grant management software, like our Tempest-GEMS, you should have an easy and consistent means of gauging progress.

In this episode, we’ll first look at the virtual binder – as a framework for document management and skim through a few examples. Then we’ll look at uploading documents. I’ll define what we mean by “applicant” or “grant” documents. We’ll, also, compare the document upload wizard verses the upload button.

Before closing the episode, I’ll show you how the Virtual Binder is used for the monitoring and control process at the state. The grant administration team steps through the document validation process first confirming the documents as what you say they are. Then they go through and compare what you’ve uploaded against the Virtual Binder – as list of what is expected.

Applicant Documents

Documenting your grant funds use? Follow the outline shown in Tempest-GEMS. There are some documents that are about you, the applicant. These documents should be part of every grant binder. With our system, you upload them once. Applicant documents include items such as procurement policy, overtime policy, union contracts, fringe rate calculations. Some organizations, especially non-profits, may also have to provide corporate documents that give evidence to your status as an essential organization.

Score Card Outline

Our grant management software then uses this outline to create a score card. The goal is to have one of each type of document. And maybe if a document is non-existent, write a memorandum for record with an explanation. Here in Tiny-Town Vermont, our road department does not have a union, therefore there is no union contract. A quick note to explain that fills the gap and gives the point. Points are good.
You can, by using the outline, modify this list to fit your needs. We provide a score card based on our experience, this does not mean it is perfect for this disaster or your state. We try… but we also give you the tools to take care of your own needs.

Let’s go answer the question how do we earn the points and upload documents.

The Grants Menu & Documents

First, navigate to the Grants menu and find documents on the menu – it has a little PDF icon. We have two green buttons for uploading documents. Why? One is a short cut for experienced folks, the other walks through a wizard giving guidance and coaching.

Remember your goal is grant closeout and final reimbursement. To do this well, you need to fill your Virtual Binder and get as many points as possible. Grant Management basics! We looked at the document score card. Tempest-GEMS and the state can only evaluate documents if they are tagged correctly. So, every document must be a PDF. This is done for security reasons. When FEMA uses our system, their security team requires only PDF.

Document Wizard

I am clicking on the Document Wizard button. I am expanding the “Examples” section. This is another guidepost in our software to help you expertly navigate through the rough terrain of FEMA Quest. My next steps are just to illustrate. I’ll pick a grant class: applicant, grant, program, transaction, etc. In my case, I’ll upload a policy for this Applicant. I pick the document type. And move on to the next page with the Next button.

Then I upload a document from my local computer.

The Upload Document button does the same thing but with fewer key clicks. Each section of the software: grants, program, applicant, vendor, etc – has a document page. Some users prefer to save keystroke, and know to click to “applicant” to upload a policy or fringe rate calculation.

Our software has flexibility and gives you two ways to accomplish the same goal!

Perform a Virtual Binder Review

The Virtual Binder is used by the state grant administration team as well. During their quality assurance process, they perform document validation. The first step confirms the documents what they are reported to be. The second step gauges completeness. They compare the documents applicants have uploaded again the Virtual Binder.

On the screen is an article from Storm Petrel’s knowledge base site. Yes, we also provide targeted how-to articles on our knowledge base too. We’re here to help in every way we can.

In this article, we are showing a grant administrator how to perform a Virtual Binder Review. Although not shown, red identifies errors or failures. Yellow is a warning indicating missing documents. And Green indicates that not only is a documented uploaded, but it has passed the review process.

On the left-hand side, the master list of documents – the Virtual binder. On the right, we show documents uploaded and their status: pass or fail.

The state-side or applicant-side, Tempest-GEMS uses the same tools, the same lists, the same rules to aid both teams through towards their shared goal: a successful close out of a grant.

Adding PDFs to the Virtual Binder

The Virtual Binder, which when I was in New York City we called the Document Manifest, is nothing more than a target or a master list of items for a scavenger hunt. Find them, save them, scan them to PDF and upload them appropriately in Tempest-GEMS.

The Virtual Binder structure can be modified to suite your needs or modified by the state to meet the needs of the FEMA Public Assistance Grant Program, or a CARES Act grant program. To us it is just a list. Same is true for you. It is just a list. It represents grant management best practices.

Over the years, we are so often asked can’t I upload my Word or Excel documents? The rule is upload PDF. PDF documents do a better job of not including malware. Because Word and Excel permit macros and some programming inside, they also represent a higher security risk. You know that yellow warning banner you see when you open a spreadsheet from an email? The warning states: do not open documents from unknown sources.

That’s why PDFs are better.

Additionally, FEMA will not permit their staff to download anything but PDF.

Ergo, you must upload PDFs.

Please share this material with colleagues. Post about us and our efforts on your favorite social media platform. And don’t forget to grab the Hints and Hacks on Required Documents to help you get started with FEMA Quest.

Hints and Hacks on Required Documents

Building Your Disaster Relief Grant Management Team: The 6 Players You Don’t Want On Your Team

30 April 2020 by Christina Moore

Building Your Disaster Relief Grant Management Team

Today, we will learn to avoid the grant trolls: 6 players you don’t want on your team. Building your disaster relief grant management team requires that you identify the trolls you do not want nearby. The bad-buys muddle the definitions of FEMA grant dos and don’ts. At their best, trolls bring distraction and confusion. At their worst, they put you in jail.

We are providing these materials to you hoping that you can help your community, your organization survive this disaster and wisely execute the mission before you. If you appreciate this presentation, please share it.

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The Babble of Bad Guys

Every Quest involves difficult terrain, shifting environments, a strong team of allies, and the babble of bad guys who toss obstacles and hazards on your path. They are part of every landscape and every society. We’ve created identification cards for these guys to help you rapidly spot them. This cast of characters includes the following:

No-timer, Spinner, Badger – the bad-one, Fobbit, Jafo, and the Felon. We have pictures and definitions for each that you can download from the links below or show notes.

Avoiding the No-Timer

No-timer is so easy to identify. No-Timer informs all that there is no time. Doing something now is better than doing something right. This troll says: Right-now is the only way forward. No-Timer insists that the standard rules don’t apply. This situation is so different than any prior situation that we can just do what is needed, now.

No-Timers have a special power – they turn process into chaos. A team working through steps 1, 2, 3 are instructed to skip that, ignore process, and just do this now!

The worst No-Timer is one who is in charge. A loud and authoritative No-Timer is so difficult to deal with. No-Timer’s ears are so filled with the sound of alarm and urgency, that they just can’t hear the importance of triage, prioritization, and the value of logical steps. A No-Timer can accidently run a team out of cash, run people into jail cells, and not see the self-harm.

How do you combat No-Timer? It is tough. You’ve got facts on your side. In upcoming episodes, we’ll show you the reports from the Office of Inspector General. A printed report, a calm voice, and a blue-and-white document shows how FEMA claws back millions every year for mistakes made of haste and ignorance.

Avoiding the Spinner

Who is Spinner? Every cop, firefighter, and EMT/paramedic knows Spinner. This is that person you see at an emergency scene. They walk in tight circle repeating the same words over and over and over and over. It is a very common human reaction to stress, oddly it is also a common symptom of head trauma in little kids too. Too often their recitation is of the minutes or seconds before the event paying in a loop in their head.

This Spinner appears in meetings and throughout the disaster recovery process. They are not evil-doers on purpose, forgive me for putting them next to No-Timer and Felon. On the bad-side, they pull resources and focus away from the mission. Stress is very real. People’s behavior regress into younger, even child-like actions. These people need care and feeding and management. They are wounded humans.

You’ll need to develop skills to identify then either help or isolate these people from your mission-focused grant management team. If you fail to recognize the Spinner, you’ll find that your progress and process will crumble gradually.

Go to jail, do not collect $200. No, this isn’t Monopoly. It’s the part of grant management most people ignore—procurement and reporting of expenses. However, this is where the most risk lives. In the next episode, we show you how to mitigate the risks simply.

Avoiding the Jafo

Jafo came in from the cold, or the heat, or the rain, or the sun, or the snow. They’ll tell you that they are doing something super important. Or maybe that they are super important. They talk about their adventures and their missions and trials going on elsewhere. We know this critter from his name: Just Another … Observer. But Jafo sits on the desk or spreads out on a table nearby.

Grant management work involves detailed work, precise follow through, and focus. Here’s Jafo suggesting that indoor work ain’t real work. People sitting at desks with monitors are not performing magic that keeps the cash flowing.

How to you handle a Jafo? I have seen it done in operations centers that house thousands of people in open spaces. People build barriers. There is nothing like a cactus plant to prevent a human being from plopping their dirty-butt on a desk. Wizards and Millers who work in such conditions know to starve the spaces nearby. There is no visitor chair and a noise-cancelling headset are fine deterrents.

Avoiding the “Bad” Badger

Here comes the Badger again. This one looks just like the last one. Same polo shirt and same plastic badge around the neck or hanging at the waist. This badger does not know policy. This badger fails at being an advocate for people like us. Grant policy and federal administrative law includes some flexibility because situations and organizations vary.

Grants are provided to organizations and communities to help. Balancing intent with gentle coaching is the mark of a good Badger. The bad Badger is obstructive and at the worst abusive. If you haven’t met this critter yet, you will. That little plastic badge ennobles this troll with presumed authority. The bloody Badger is often wrong too. That’s the horrible part.

Wrong, loud and with an official badge, ugh. What to do? You have a team. Use your team. Ask Wonk to find a pathway. Ask Scribner to write some email and briefs. Bring the knowledge of policy and law to your team. They are your laws too. The rules are the leveler in this game of FEMA Quest.

We are providing you a Bad Guy identification guide. This serves as reminder of who to avoid and give you hints on solving problems. Click the links below to download this guide

Avoiding the Felon

The Felon is just another critter on the path. You must identify them quickly. Oh, the best Felons, swindlers, con-artists can be so disguised. The 11-steps of the competitive procurement process exist to prevent Felon from winning. Why is the sole-source procurement so distrusted? Because it has been so abused. You can’t take federal grant funds and channel them to your family’s bank accounts or your own. That’s a direct route to jail.

In 2012, I had 2 federal agents knock at my front door in Southern Vermont. Our house is miles from pavement and deep on a 100-acre place. They flashed their credentials and presented with stiff formality. I recognized them instantly whilst greeting them with a breezy familiarity. Come on in, I said. I offered refreshment and invited them right into my home office. I assumed it was another friend going through an in-depth background check. I lived, worked, and played in that world a long time. My jaw dropped when they told me that were investigating felony fraud of a FEMA staffer who was known to me. This Felon redirected funds from his government issued credit card directly into his bank accounts with some slight of hand. Oh, and he was my FEMA liaison. And he’d work in my house at my desk with me.

The lesson, I missed the identification. His felony did not impact our recovery process. We stayed on the straight and narrow. That fellow went to jail. My community got all of their money.

In short, Felons are bad. Missteps with federal funds will land you in jail. Done.

Be Wary of Fobbit

Let’s close our Troll identification process with a look at the Fobbit.

The Fobbit is a wanna-be warrior who never left the forward operating base or FOB. They want you to think they have the requisite experience and skills. Maybe they do? Maybe they don’t. Who knows? A few too many war-stories that start with the same line: When I worked Katrina dot dot dot.

The Old Warrior may say something similar, then the next time through, mentions Sandy or some odd experience in Iowa managing the bizarre process of disposal of farm animals resulting from a wide-spread animal disease. An Old Warrior will have experience in a few FEMA regions, and a few FEMA administrators. The Old Warrior has perspective, scars, failures, and a sense of humility.

The Fobbit is a bit too sure. Trust but verify.

Avoiding the Grant Trolls

We’ve got six trolls to avoid and manage during our Quest. Some will distract and drive a team to failure and possible jail by not listening to anything but alarm bells, that’s No-Timer. Some just pull resources and focus by regressing into behavior that resembles a top. Hello Spinner. The Jafo annoys the productive team and too often undervalues the efforts of the back-office.

The bad Badger uses authority of a plastic badge to obstruct and obfuscate. The Felon can be the hardest to recognize and the most dangerous. They sell bad as good and make it sound great. The last critter is the Fobbit, with a touch of borrowed valor and exaggerated background, this critter may not be worth listening too, but might be.

Your defense against the bad guys is your team, your increasing knowledge of the policy, and your steady progress on working the problems carefully and deliberately. You are as protected by the laws and rules as you are threatened by them.

Please share this material with colleagues. Post about us and our efforts on your favorite social media platform. And don’t forget to grab the Bad Guy Identification Guide to help you get started with FEMA Quest.

Bad Guy Identification Guide

Building Your Disaster Relief Grant Management Team: Key Grant Management Roles

24 April 2020 by Christina Moore

Key Grant Management Roles

Building your disaster relief grant management team requires identifying people to fill roles. We are building a Cast of Characters for our FEMA Quest Game as a means of helping you identify Good-Guys. There are key grant management roles that we suggest you fill. Stay tuned to learn the value of Wizards and Millers. While we can show you how to manage disaster relief grants, you and your team must do the work.

Good Guy Guide

We’ve invented this fictious game called FEMA Quest. This series will help you confidentially navigate the rough terrain ahead. There are people you have met or will meet along the way. Some are Good Guys. Some of the Good Guys you’ll want as members of your team. And in the next episode, we’ll take a humorous and sincere look at the Bad Guys in this cast of characters.

A couple of these people you want to identify and recruit right away especially the Wizard and the Miller. Finding a Wonk is helpful too. You’re going to want to identify a good Badger and make friends there. Having access to a Scribner is good as well.

These people will hold key grant management roles.

Finding a Wizard

Let’s go find a Wizard and a Miller!

You may already know a Wizard – one of these people who while at a computer find pile of data and can turn that mess into something incredibly useful. One of your early challenges is aggregating all of your payroll data. FEMA wants to see this pile, but the numbers you see – the amounts on the paychecks are not the values FEMA pays. FEMA pays you their hourly rate, plus all of their benefits, uniforms, and such. There is no real abracadabra here. It is work, but the work done by a Wizard seems efficient and effortless. It looks like magic.

What’s amazing about Wizards is that they are often unsung, and do exactly what is needed even if your question isn’t precisely correct.

If you think you have found a Wizard show the entire challenge to them. Not just the tiny piece. Show them the FEMA Quest game. “Hey, do you have any idea how I get the payroll data out of this computer system and turn it into something useful for FEMA that uses their fringe or billing rates.” Show them, let them explore the question.

A Wizard may not be where you expect them. You clearly need payroll data. But the Wizard may not be on that payroll or accounting team. Wizards face challenges as a game. They tend to find ways of saying: I think I can make that happen. A little hesitancy, a soupcon of optimism, and odd sense that they are thinking faster than you are talking.

Finding a Miller

The Miller is another amazing member of your grant management team. Find one, or two, or three. The Miller puts a nose close to the grindstone and works. Take from the pile on the left, grind through it, refine it, process it, and wrap it into a nice neat package. The Miller and the mill work together to gradually and steadily convert raw data and raw documents into something that is a cohesive, value-added product that give credibility and proof to your progress around the gameboard.

Treat your Wizards and Millers well. Give them the right tools. Provide the environment they need. Two screens? Three screens? Give it. A high-speed scanner at their right elbow instead of the left, make it happen. There are people in your world who are not Wizards and Millers. They are good people too.

At Storm Petrel, we know when an organization has a Miller. Our software Tempest-GEMS has reports that shows productivity. The leaderboard shows counts the amount of data entered by person, by week. It also counts the number of documents uploaded by person, by week. The Millers stand together at the top of this report.

In Episode 7, we will continue to explore the cast of characters. We’ll provide you means of identifying the bad guys along the route. We’ll create an identification guide.

Finding a Wonk

A Wonk is a helpful ally too. Sometimes these people are consultants you’ve hired. Maybe this is a colleague from another organization or region who has been through several hurricanes. A Wonk reads and understand federal policy, as it pertains to you. The rules can be very, very helpful to you and your Quest. Knowing them, knowing how to apply them, and even knowing how FEMA has applied them in the past is highly valuable.

Wonk see pathways and solutions in the rules, the policy guides, in the confusing email coming from the various sources. They can see the rules as benefits and risks. Some of my favorite wonk are former lawyers or people who get whacked by a disaster after years of encounters with other federal policies.

The Badger

Who the heck is a Badger? A Badger is a human being with a little plastic badge often from the State or from FEMA. Some Badgers are amazing and helpful human beings. The best Wonk with a wink. A great Badger tell you how to work through a grant management or procurement problem with grace. Like a Warrior and a Wonk they’ve seen similar problems. They know what will cause the back-of-house people to get entirely fussed up.

I almost called this character FEMA Bob in honor of my own FEMA Bob. He sat in my office and said: Show me this. I pull out a pile of pictures and document. He’d pick a few and say: Never show these to me, ever. This Badger always showed and proved to me that he was my advocate. He is fair. He is honest. And he is experienced. This is the Badger to know.

We are providing you a Good Guy identification guide. This serves as reminder to find people to help. Click the links below to download this guide

The Scribner

A Scribner is not a Wonk, but some Wonks are also Scribners. You may get into a situation where the rules support your actions and position but FEMA or your State entirely disagree with you. While a Wonk can guide you through the nest of rules, a Scribner can write the email, letters, appeals, and other documents that un-mess stuff.

There is a formula for writing policy stuff. You start with the federal law, work up through administrative law, draw on written policy guidance, and research past rulings from FEMA. It is, in so many ways, a legal brief – except we never admit that. And we never actually call it that.

And we try not to have lawyers sign them. If you Scribner happens to have a Juris Doctorate, leave it off, or have someone in authority at the organization sign the document that was ghost written by the Scribner.

The quality of the writing and the depth of the research informs the recipient that the Scribner knows this material well. FEMA may own the court room, sit as judge, and prosecutor, and jury, and, oddly, it also serves as its own appellate service. When it comes down to it, FEMA must exercise professional discretion based firmly on the law, its own law.

Recruit Allies and Teammates

Most of the time, should not try wend your way through FEMA Quest alone. Recruit allies and teammates to help with the grant management basics. Find yourself a Wizard to help turn numbers into information; a Miller who grinds away daily during raw materials into neat, useful packages; Get to know a Wonk – keep informed on the policies and regulations. Your Wonk may also be a Badger. Badgers, people with small plastic badges, can be very helpful and sometimes very not-helpful.

Please share this material with colleagues. Post about us and our efforts on your favorite social media platform. And don’t forget to grab the Good Guy Identification Guide to help you get started with FEMA Quest.

Good Guy Identification Guide