The next phase of digital transformation centers the human experience

The first step is building trust. You won’t get credit for digitizing your grant process if constituents don’t trust that you’ll protect the sensitive information you collect, which can include social security numbers and bank account details.

For some teams, the big hurdle here is to bid farewell to an outdated homegrown solution, also sometimes thought of as “legacy modernization” (NASCIO’s number 4 priority). These older solutions were simply not designed to handle the threats governments face today—they’re inherently at risk. And your constituents can tell when they’re interacting with a dated, glitchy system compared to a seamlessly secure and modern one.

Consider also the security and compliance certifications of your vendor, as well as the availability of strong authorization technology such as Single-Sign On (SSO) and multi-authorization plus  any history of data breaches. For more advanced organizations, you can begin to evaluate some of the more sophisticated features in the market today, such as fraud screening and AI-powered document transcription that reduces the risk of human error. 

Next is usability. Constituents want and expect a simple way to engage in basic government programs like applying for grants or public programs. 

Here, some teams need to begin at the very beginning, and sunset —at last!—their paper application process, and adapt a modern grant management system. 

For online processes, begin with accessibility for users of all abilities. Then consider basic ease of use. We recommend simply filling out your application for yourself! Remember, your citizens want an experience that matches what they receive when engaging with services elsewhere. Was filling out your application comparable, within reason, to the activities that you engage with online? 

Here’s the framework we use at Submittable to map our clients through their own digital transformations: 

• Crawl: This is when teams first bring their application collection, review process, and reporting into the same cloud-based online system. Moving away from either a painful paper process or antiquated legacy system can be a massive undertaking, and teams need to move at their own pace—but the time to start is now. 

• Walk: Once all in one online system, teams are set to optimize. They have a secure foundation, and can turn to creating efficiencies within their new system. Customers often begin by optimizing with bulk communications, standardized review scoring, and progress report collection for sub-recipient monitoring.

• Run: At the most evolved end, we work with teams to automate their end-to-end process to the greatest extent possible. For instance, this can look like automated eligibility screening, document parsing, and funds disbursement. It’s our goal to graduate our clients here.

As you consider the next steps for your organization, we offer this list of the top 10 difference-makers for our customers. We’ve divided them according to those that will help improve trust or increase usability, and ordered them from the more basic to the more sophisticated.

It’s important to begin with a secure foundation. Submittable has industry-leading security and privacy certifications, including SOC 2 Type 2. Beyond this initial check, we recommend looking for these capabilities: