According to a request for information (RFI), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is seeking to modernize its grants management system with an end-to-end automated solution.
IRS is primarily interested in automating the grants management system process as much as possible; providing grantee access to the system; providing simplified reporting; and rough estimates of how much the tools would cost relative to the tools’ return on investment.
The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program – which runs through the IRS Grant Program Office – has received increases in funding since the VITA grant was codified in July 2019. With this increase, IRS sees a coinciding increase in the number of organizations the program will support.
“Providing proper oversight, timely correspondence, administering the award timely, and ensuring the funds are available as soon as possible to the organizations are major concerns for the program,” the RFI states.
For industry partners and other interested parties, IRS wants summaries of the following:
- Existing Federal grants management systems the party has deployed in government or industry that complies with Federal Integrated Business Frameworks standards;
- End-to-end process information on the number of users the system can handle in the pre-award stage; online grantee access; applicant evaluation stage; Federal Award Identification Number generation; ranking; and grant award approval processes; and
- Automation opportunities that include “descriptions of existing or planned interfaces with required grants management support websites to include monthly uploads, reporting, history, and verification expenditures.”
Responses for the RFI are due by May 26, 2020.
