As reported over at GovExec, one part of Senator Voinovich’s new legislation is to develop a web site where grantees can track their grant applications. Clearly this is an attempt to expand the scope of Grants.gov (which was originally intended to fulfill this function, but whose remit was narrowed due to continuing challenges in ensuring the “Find” and “Apply” functionality were completely implemented and used), and it’s a welcome push in the right direction. 

How this might impact Grants.gov and the Grants Management Line of Business, no-one knows yet. The legislation hasn’t been passed, of course, so that discussion may be delayed until such times as people really need to think about it. However, one would hope that some consideration of these changes may occur sooner rather than later. 

Grants streamlining has always been dogged by pursuing too many tasty bones at once. The privilege of focusing on one clear goal at a time is rare, but would definitely help agencies and prevent the inaction-by-indecision that has plagued such efforts up to now.