KPMG helps accelerate relief fund disbursement, improves tracking and management of federal grants

Aid for communities in crisis

When disaster strikes—whether a hurricane, flood, wildfire, or pandemic—the Government Solutions Practice at KPMG helps organizations deliver aid so that affected communities get back on their feet fast. The work requires deep knowledge of relief execution and grant management processes—along with a robust technology framework that’s easy to scale and adapt and that instills public confidence in recovery efforts.

An independent US member firm of KPMG International, KPMG LLC delivers advisory, audit, tax, and on-demand services to help corporate and government customers turn challenges into opportunities. When it comes to grant management, KPMG risk advisors stay up to date on ever-evolving federal rules and regulations to make sure eligibility and compliance requirements are met, funds are disbursed appropriately, and taxpayer dollars are spent without fraud or abuse.

“As state and local governments need to do more with less, understanding the grant management process is particularly critical,” says Peter Zalkind, Principal, Health and Government Solutions Practice at KPMG. “Fewer government resources make it essential to use available grant dollars wisely.“

A public-health response, an aggressive timeline, and unknown requirements

The State of Georgia’s Office of Planning and Budget (OPB) turned to GrantCare when it received $3.58 billion in Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF) aid. The United States Treasury sent this aid to state governments as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act to provide assistance for workers, families, small businesses, and industry sectors that COVID-19 affected.

OPB needed to move quickly to be ready to accept grant applications from agencies and local municipalities in a short period of time. To meet this aggressive timeline and support many still unknown workflows and processes, OPB teamed up with GrantCare to deploy a new grant management platform built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and extended with Microsoft Power Platform, including Power Pages.

“We needed a solution that could go live quickly, respond to a dynamic, fast-moving environment, and meet grant needs as they developed, and the GrantCare platform was able to meet that need,” explains Stephanie Beck, Deputy Director of the Office of Planning and Budget at the State of Georgia.

A nimble, scalable solution

The team deployed GrantCare, a ready-made, highly customizable grant management solution built on Dynamics 365 Customer Service and other Microsoft technologies to tailor a platform that OPB could use to meet evolving CRF eligibility and management requirements. KPMG and GrantCare brought their expertise with Microsoft technology and KPMG risk advisory services to support and extend the solution. The team delivered an agile, flexible platform that’s easily extensible with other Microsoft resources for data visualization, dashboards, and insights.

“GrantCare can incorporate a range of Dynamics 365 customer engagement apps quickly and easily,” says Girish Chhugani, Chief Technology Officer at GrantCare. “And because we use the large-scale case management system already built into Dynamics 365 Customer Service, we don’t need to start from scratch.”

More flexibility, deeper insights

With taxpayer money at stake and grant rules and requirements still evolving, OPB needed agility, data insights, and control. So GrantCare used Power BI to tailor workflows and data visualizations that make it easier for OPB to meet grant requirements and deliver insights to decision makers.

“While other states faced challenges in meeting evolving reporting guidelines, we were able to make changes to the platform quickly to get the data we needed to respond to United States Treasury requirements.” says Beck.

State and local agencies, nonprofit organizations, and other community members interact with an OPB web portal, and OPB collects, adds, and edits that community data through Dynamics 365. OPB separates grant applications and payment requests into queues based on geography or government divisions for reviewers to process. The system automatically generates email notifications, requests, and instructions, and after the documents are complete and the State Accounting Office approves them, the files are automatically sent back to OPB.

When users change or add data, that action automatically refreshes Power BI dashboards so that decision makers get information in real time. “Power BI is providing our agency much greater insight into Coronavirus Relief Fund spending within state agencies,” explains Beck. “Information used to be very siloed, but by using Dynamics 365, we can track detailed spending across state agencies, local governments, and other participating entities.”

Lower costs, more transparency, and higher trust

With these comprehensive views into its data, OPB can generate essential insights into how government is spending taxpayer funds. Using Power BI and Power Apps, the team added user-friendly dashboards on the OPB web portal that show every payment along with a short description of each funded program. By providing high transparency, OPB saves money and time because it reduces internal resources needed to respond to records requests. Making accurate information so accessible also helps build trust with the media and the public.

“We wanted to streamline and automate processes and provide the ability to scale quickly and elastically so that people inside and outside OPB can get the information they need right away,” explains Zalkind. “We used Microsoft Power Platform to build customizations quickly and provide transparency across all the organizations that use OPB’s solutions.”

OPB controls the entire process, and while many other states fully outsource their grant management solutions, OPB easily manages workflows, reporting, and dashboard creation itself. “We use Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform to get better insight into every dollar going out the door—and to manage everything ourselves, which could potentially save millions of taxpayer dollars, rather than outsource management of Coronavirus Relief Fund aid,” says Beck.

A robust solution for the future

For as long as people live in communities, governments will need to be ready to provide support, especially when disaster strikes. By having an adaptable platform built on Dynamics 365, government entities like the State of Georgia’s OPB can easily pivot from managing CRF grants to supporting other initiatives such as housing, urban development, and emergency relief.

Additionally, having deployed this platform quickly, KPMG is well-positioned to take advantage of this solution and create a new grant management managed service. This managed service will provide a repeatable, consistent, and fast experience for government clients and help them quickly identify and effectively manage available funds. It also provides a new business opportunity for KPMG and GrantCare.

“We aim to help government organizations deliver money to local communities faster,” says Tom Stanton, Managing Director at KPMG. “We achieve that goal by using Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform to quickly make changes, configure new eligibility requirements, and automate processes.”

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