Episode notes:

Note: This episode was recoded before the One Big Beautiful Bill was passed on July 4, 2025.

• Follow Matthew on LinkedIn

• Learn more about Witt O’Brien’s

• Email Matthew at mhanson@wittobriens.com

• Check out NGMA

• Dive deeper into Uniform Guidance

• Read Matthew’s article “Challenges to Opportunities: How Grant Professionals Can Help Influence the ‘New Normal’ in Federal Financial Assistance”

• View the federal bills and acts Matthew mentions:

  • American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

  • CARES Act 

  • American Rescue Plan Act 

  • National Environmental Policy Act

  • Davis-Bacon

  • One Big Beautiful Bill

  • Build America Buy America Act

• See the coverage of Elon Musk stepping down from DOGE

• Learn about some of the RIFs being reverted

• Read about the cuts in education and HHS funding

• Learn more about NASCIO

• Get more info on the state-level DOGE programs

• View Witt O’Brien’s Center for Grants Excellence

Transcript:

This transcript was automatically generated.

Welcome to Impact Audio. I'm Sam Caplan, Vice President of Social Impact at Submittable. And today, I'm joined by Matt Hanson, managing director of grant and policy at Wood O'Brien's, which is a part of AMBAPAR.

Matt knows government grant making from the inside. After over a decade working as grants director in Arizona, Matt transitioned to a role where he supports strategic planning and development and implementation of federally funded grant and assistance programs.

For info on how new federal priorities are reshaping the grant making landscape, Matt is the guy to talk to. In this moment of change and disruption, he sees a real opportunity for grantmakers to help build the new normal that they want. Matt sits down with me to explore the landscape and pinpoint the places that grantmakers can help shift practices for the better.

Matt Hanson, welcome to Impact Audio, my friend. I've been a fan of yours for a very long time. I've seen to speak at National Grants Management Association. I've been following you online, reading the, amazing things you've been posting on LinkedIn. So super excited to get to, have this conversation with you today.

Thanks, Sam. I appreciate it, and looking forward to today's conversation as well.

Yeah. So let's just start off, by getting some of the basics out of the way. So tell us a little bit about you and and your background personally, and then, like, your, your role in in the organization that you work at.

Yeah. So I am a managing director with a consulting firm with O'Brien's.

We have a, what we refer to as a blue sky grants management, team, about a hundred and fifty grants professionals across the country doing all sorts of, you know, federal, state, local, nonprofit, k twelve, grant related staff augmentation.

But a little bit about my background, I've been, in the grants world for over thirty years now. So I started off with the Department of Justice, where I was there for about fourteen years, on the grantor side. So working at the federal level, then had an opportunity to be a municipal grants administrator, and then went to work for the state of Arizona, where I was the director of grants management, for the state of Arizona. We were one of the first states to go to a centralized approach and one of the first states to implement an enterprise wide, grants management solution. So very proud of the work there before coming to Wood O'Brien's where I've been for the last four years.

In addition to, sort of my professional work, I'm also a, certified grants management specialist and a grants professional certified through both NGMA and GPA.

That's a great background, man. Tell me a little bit about the role of being a grants manager in the government space. So I am familiar with uniform guidance, and I go to the conferences. But it strikes me as being a pretty complex job because you have so many things that you're you're responsible for and managing over the course of a grants life cycle. Like, tell tell us just just a little bit about the life of a grants manager.

So it's definitely one of those jobs where you have to wear multiple hats, you know, especially if you're at the the federal, state, or, you know, large local jurisdiction level, you're oftentimes a, a grantee where you're researching and pursuing grants, but you're also a grantor. You're passing through funding. So, you know, we sometimes joke that literally you need two different hats so you know which role you're working on at the time.

The other interesting thing about about grants in general is most people don't go to college to be a grants professional. You fall into it backwards. So you come out of an accounting space. You come out of a programmatic space.

And one day you just get assigned a grant to, manage and poof, you're a grants manager. So I agree.

It's a very, interesting space and a complex space depending on what your duties and responsibilities are.

Yeah. And you you mentioned being, certified. Like, what does that mean in terms of the grants management role?

So like many of the other, you know, professions being in accounting and HR specialist procurement, For a long time, they've had different certifications and credentials to to demonstrate your your knowledge base, your experience.

Grants was lacking that for a long time.

And because, you know, there are so many different roles, different skill sets you needed to have, there really needed to be a measurement of, yes, this person has the knowledge base, this person understands, everything that's needed to be a grant professional. And, thankfully, two of our, associations, the National Grants Management Association and, Grant Professionals Association, established credentials.

And I don't know the current numbers, but I think c m CGMS, there are only about five or six hundred nationally, and GPCI is something like that as as well. So it's a a fairly small and exclusive club, but one that's that's growing and is, you know, critically needed across the, the grants landscape.

Yeah. I was gonna ask you, is it a role that like, are there new people coming into this role in terms of grants management, particularly in the government space? Like I mentioned, the, you you know, two CFR two hundred uniform guidance. Like when, when I look at what it takes to be a grants manager, in government grant making compared to a private philanthropy, like they're both hard jobs and they're both unique, but there are so many requirements and regulations and and so much administrative work that has to get done on the government side. In in my perspective, I'm really curious. Like, is this a job that a lot of people are lining up for?

I don't know if it's a job that, people are lining up for.

But it's certainly a job that increasingly folks are getting pulled into. So, you know, over my last thirty years, there's kind of this regular pendulum of limited federal financial assistance to large amounts, you know, large influxes of federal financial assistance.

We, just went through a period in the, two thousands with the housing crisis, the financial crisis, and the influx of stabilization money through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. And suddenly a lot of local government folks were were thrust into the role of being grants professionals to manage this influx of money.

It then sort of died out a little bit. Fast forward to the COVID public health pandemic and with CARES Act and ARPA, suddenly, again, a lot of folks were thrust into this role as being, you know, if not a grant professional, certainly having to take on grants, responsibilities.

If you think about the American Rescue Plan Act, it was one of the first times that the federal government has given money directly to smaller cities and towns, non entitlement units of local government, and literally thousands of city clerks, accountants, you know, folks of of that nature who have never dealt with federal grants before found themselves having to manage, you know, direct federal funds.

I think right now, we're probably looking at the pendulum swinging back the other way a little bit as the pandemic money starts to dry up. But, yeah, certainly over the last four years, there's a whole bunch of people that got a crash course on on how to manage grants and how to be a grants professional.

Yeah. And if we narrow that time frame a little bit to the last four months, like it has been a pretty wild ride for a lot of grants professionals out there and people that are working, in this sector and in the industry. So, I saw you speak at the National Grants Management Association conference, a couple of months back, and, really, this was just shortly after the election.

And the the the executive orders that had been issued that were really sort of beginning to reshape federal grant making and I think state and local government grant making and and the work that nonprofit, organizations are doing. So you've you've begun to describe things as the new normal over the last four months. Tell tell me a little what you mean by the new normal and and sort of how we got here.

Yeah. So through the through the pandemic period, there were just historic amounts of federal funding.

You know, whether that was to be used for, you know, lost revenue for local governments, whether that was used for economic stability of small businesses, nonprofits, etcetera, but really unprecedented amounts of of federal funding.

At the same time, we probably saw the most flexibility we've ever seen within grants. So flexibility from, timelines, you know, how long we had to spend the money, flexibility in the allowable uses.

Normally, grant programs are fairly narrowly, you know, designed and scoped, to be spent on one thing. A lot of the COVID stabilization money could be used for a broader range of items, including, you know, things as big as lost revenue or, you know, provision of government services.

And we saw a lot of discretion when it came to actually the applicability of the uniform guidance and other historic norms in the grants world. You know, federal flow down requirements like the National Environmental Policy Act, Davis Bacon, all the provisions of the uniform guidance suddenly didn't apply to some of the money. And it really, you know, was an interesting time. But in some ways, it it I don't know. It was a trap. It allowed us to get a little lazy, get a little lackadaisical, because timelines were extended, compliance requirements were extended. And certainly, we're in a correction mode now with the new administration.

There are a lot of nonprofits, k twelve, other organizations that have been impacted really significantly financially, and these organizations are are hurting.

And there is going to be a significant amount of litigation going forward, appeals of termination, and I really, you know, have have empathy for those folks that are going through that. But on the government side, you know, it it's really just a return to kind of the normal state of grants management. And we really, as grant professionals, need to get back to some core principles.

And we have some opportunity right now, with the new administration to inform some of the new normal as they're revamping what federal financial assistance looks like.

So, Matt, I'm I just got done reading your article. It's titled From Challenges to How Grant Professionals Can Help Influence the New Normal in Federal financial assistance. And I thought it was really, really insightful. And there were a lot of things, that came out of that, that, that were just intriguing and that I wanted to ask you about. And so in that article, you make this sort of case that like systemic issues, like, procurement and budgeting are often seen outside of the grant space, but you think that they're really relevant to grants managers. And I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about why you believe these grants professionals should be leading cross functional reforms around things like procurement and budgeting.

If I had to, identify, you know, one single problem with grants management, the grants enterprise in general, it would be, silos.

Not only do grant programs, grant professionals within a single organization operate within silos, but, also, they operate in silos, separate from their other cross cutting, you know, shared service type resources within their organizations.

Grant professionals tend to think that their grants are special. Their grants are different than everybody else's grants.

And they operate like that. They, you know, have separate policies and procedures. They have separate systems. They, you know, they don't play well in the same sandbox.

And the same thing goes with partnering with, you know, other business office support. So like procurement, like accounting, like finance, like budgeting, etcetera.

Grants are a, a transfer of a financial resource from one entity to another for a programmatic purpose. You know, no different than a local government's tax collections, no different than, bond revenues.

And you certainly would not be looking at a a government's bond capacity or bond revenues without incorporating finance and accounting and HR and everybody else upfront.

And that's where grants historically have not played well with others. And it's normally with an entity. You figure out all your other budgeting issues. You go through, you know, what your tax projections are gonna be.

You look at general fund. You look at all that. And then grants come later. And we really need to get into a position where, you know, grants are are discussed up front, they're coordinated up front, and you're partnering with, you know, the other professionals within your organization on the impacts, both positive and negative, that come from grants.

And as the new administration came into place and and as the NGMA conference was was happening, like, there was a lot of uncertainty among this group of grants management professionals. Like, we were beginning to see, agencies really being stripped of, you know, their their budgeting and their programming. We were seeing a lot of grants professionals, I think, begin to, you know, they were beginning to fear whether or not they were going to be gainfully employed as as the administration and as as the team was really looking for, like, more and more efficiencies, in government funding and budgeting and grants? Like, how have things shaped up for grants management professionals over the last several months?

I think it's somewhat sector specific. I think certainly, the nonprofit sector, the higher ed sectors, the research sectors are still feeling much of the brunt, much of the pain.

Certainly, Elon Musk and his leadership of Doge has has taken a step back.

We have many of the cabinet secretaries who have now been confirmed and are now, you know, taking control of their agencies. So we are starting to see some stabilization.

There are at least three legislative packages currently being considered that are really going to tell us what the next, you know, couple years look like. The the one big beautiful bill that's being considered, the rescission package, and then the president's proposal for the discretionary budget.

Any one of those is really going to, tell us what the federal financial assistance landscape is gonna look like, going forward.

We're certainly seeing some federal grant professionals being brought back on, being rehired, some of the risks being reverted.

But we are seeing, you know, the the trickle down impacts. We're seeing significant cuts in education funding and HHS funding that is impacting state level professionals.

So I would be lying to you if I could tell you what the new normal is going to look like. But I do think there is a couple of things that we know. And that is more federal funding is going to be pushed down formulaically to the states.

So states are gonna have a larger role, in passing through money. Historically, it's been about sixty percent of federal funding goes through states. I think we'll see that, you know, upwards of, you know, eighty percent going forward. That will mean less discretionary competitive funding opportunities at the federal level.

And we also, you know, are going to see that states are going to be responsible for more of the compliance responsibility. So, National Environmental Policy Act clearances being done at the state level, compliance with Davis Bacon, build American, buy American, and general compliance with the uniform guidance. Things that, historically we've relied on federal agencies to review and approve on our behalf. More of that work is gonna get pushed down to, to state and local governments.

Yeah. Is that a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion if we see the federal funding go from something like sixty percent to eighty percent at the state level.

Like, in terms of all of the people who manage grants at that state level or even local, municipal, tribal level, and there's a lot of, like, pass through grants, a lot of subrecipient data to manage.

And and from my perspective, like, a lot of this compliance is is anecdotal, and it's being discussed, but it's not necessarily codified in something like uniform guidance yet. Like, so I guess a couple of things. One, how are people managing it this at that state and local level? And and, you know, is this something that you think is gonna be a positive thing for state governments? You've mentioned, you know, this need for standardization and and better process.

Do you think it will eventually be a good thing for state governments as as more of that money gets pushed down?

So how are people managing? I think they're managing by the the seat of their pants. I you know, it's it's it's a very interesting environment. I think I think the American Rescue Plan Act and and specifically the state and local fiscal recovery funds was, really a preview of what the new normal is going to look like. With that program, treasury was not weighing in on allowability, eligibility, compliance, etcetera. I mean, they were really pushing those decisions back to, state and local government. And it made a lot of people very uncomfortable because they're used to going to their grantor agency to have them sign off on all manners of things, even things like disposition of property and and close out.

And and that's where, you know, being a grant professional and really relying on those tried and true policies and procedures and internal controls is is so critical.

So I think I think there's gonna be more of that going forward.

Ultimately, will it be a good thing?

I I think yes, no, and maybe.

I, you know, I mentioned earlier that, you know, the purpose of grants is, for a programmatic purpose.

Those folks that are closer to that programmatic purpose are gonna know better how dollars should be invested and what stakeholders should work with and how to structure programs. So I think that that element of state and local control can be incredibly beneficial, going forward.

Where where I get a little bit concerned is duplication of some of the problems we currently have at the federal level. So, at the state level, if you have multiple grants management systems, you have multiple, sets of policies and procedures, you have grantors not coordinating with each other, different application forms, etcetera, that, you know, siloed activity at the state level could really complicate things and really make the process inefficient. And I think that's one of the areas where grant professionals can really help inform the new normal. And that's working at the state and local level to try to streamline, you know, those grants management practices in advance of more federal money flowing through that pipeline.

Yeah. I think all of that makes sense, Matt. Like, let let's keep going down the path around, like, standardization and process improvement, especially at the state state level.

Like you you mentioned, there are, like, duplication of of technologies and systems out there. There's really no not a lot of standardization around, like, grant applications and types of data that are being collected or asked for. Like, do you have thoughts on what would it look like if we began to standardize more at that at that state government level?

I I think there's a, a very specific process that, state and local governments should be working through right now.

The the first step is understand their current grants portfolio.

I would I would argue that most, folks in leadership roles at state and local government don't have a complete picture of, their own organization's grants portfolio. Like, they might know what the you know, is coming into the city manager's office, but they don't know what the police department or some other department has. So I think that's critical sort of first step is to understand your full grants enterprise.

And certainly, that is where, you know, breaking down those silos, bringing in technologies to, you know, have all your grant information in one place is is critical. The next step I think is, you know, once you you have this partial understanding of your complete grants enterprise, understand the problem. So do something like a, you know, a lost funding opportunity analysis.

Where, you know, how is your jurisdiction benchmarked against peer jurisdictions?

Are you getting your fair share of funding?

Once you receive a grant, are you actually, you know, fully utilizing the grant funds available? Are you getting fully reimbursed for the work you've accomplished?

That is something that I think would be eye opening to many jurisdictions there where they they think they're doing a good job. And the reality is they're missing out on, you know, millions of dollars a year in funding. As we go into, you know, what are the impacts of these these three legislative packages? I think it's really important for organizations to be doing, playing out scenarios.

So if, you know, program x is cut by twenty five percent, what does that mean to our jurisdiction? If program y is eliminated altogether, what does that mean to our jurisdiction?

Can we diversify our grant portfolio and look for foundation, nonprofit or other grants? Do we have to look for efficiencies, consolidation of systems, or do we need to, you know, tighten the belt and actually think about, you know, curtailing certain programs?

Unless you're actually working through those scenarios, you really don't know how to position yourself going forward. And then once you have those scenarios, it's, you know, implementing whatever those plans are from those recommendations.

You know, I can tell somebody that they do okay with grants, but they're missing out on fifty million dollars a year. The impact of these three legislative packages, their, grant portfolio is probably gonna be, you know, cut by fifteen percent.

And you need to do something. But that's all anecdotal. Like, you need to, you know, put some hard data to that, play out the scenarios, have some recommendations, and then implement them going forward.

Matt, if if you put your hat back on as a as a state level grant maker in Arizona, I'm curious, like, how much is the typical state chief information officer, like, thinking about or concerned about grants management and and and the technologies, that accompany that. Like when I went, you know, I've had the opportunity to go to the Nasio, get together a couple of times, and and and I always look at their top ten CIO level initiatives. And I don't remember, like, grants management ever raising, rising to the top of of those lists.

Is it something that state level CIOs are are preoccupied with, especially these days? Or, you know, is this still something that that I'm sure they care about but are are, you know, not, focused on as much as other technology initiatives?

We were fortunate enough to have a a lot of support in Arizona. But generally speaking, I would say that purpose built workflow type grants management solutions are are fairly low on the list of IT professionals in general. And I don't think that's because they're they're not interested. They don't care. I think they just have, you know, so many other priorities and and potential vulnerabilities, you know, that they have to address starting with, obviously, you know, cybersecurity and, systems related to human capital and, you know, payment processing and that sort of thing. I think, in those states where you have, some sort of transformation office or some sort of process improvement activity going on, you'll see more of our, you know, importance put on grants management systems.

Oftentimes, when a state or or local government is, updating their enterprise wide, accounting system, their ERP system, There's more attention given to grants management systems. But no. I mean, I think, Sam, I think you know the the story from Arizona. When we started digging in, we found out that we had twenty three individual grants management solutions across the state.

And and this gets back to that siloed approach.

And not only does that create, you know, a lack of efficiency, a lack of, you know, being able to roll up data. It also is a financial drain. We were spending about three and a half million dollars a year on licenses for these systems, where we could, you know, consolidate maybe not to, you know, a single solution, but a handful of solutions.

And as we consolidated down to a handful of solutions, it was critical that these systems could share data, either directly with each other or to a data lake or a data repository.

One of the real problems whenever you start talking about grants management systems is the the push and pull or the rub between the accounting financial folks and the programmatic folks.

And the financial folks will say, you know, our accounting system has a grants module. Why do we need a separate grant system? Well, those grants modules are are, you know, built in data repositories within the grant system. They're not the workflow tools that grant professionals actually need for researching, pursuing, applying for grants, or managing a grant post award doing reporting and monitoring and close out and all those things. So that's a that's a big, upward, battle that we've all been fighting for years is trying to educate on the difference between a a grant data module and an accounting system and a purpose built, you know, workflow solution.

Well, thank you for doing that. It's, it's it's a it's a theme that has been very important to my colleagues and I at Submittable for a long time. Like, where our thesis is certainly that there is, you know, with this renewed interest in government efficiency, taking a look at technologies like a grants management platform can really be hugely influential in terms of finding efficiency and and saving money and, you know, providing better digital services and constituent experience. And so we're super excited in a sense that, you know, that this renewed interest in finding ways to function more efficiently and effectively and and more, you know, with with less expense.

You know, we we feel like, you know, technology is kind of right at the heart of a lot of this. It's it's not all of it. There certainly has to be things like process improvement and willingness to change workflows and and ways of working, but we feel pretty strongly that technology can be a can be a catalyst for for this level of change and efficiency.

No. I I couldn't agree more, and and I really look at, grants management as a as a three legged stool. And, those legs are made up of people, policies, and procedures, and systems.

And all three of them have to be in place, to be successful. You know, too many times we've heard a jurisdiction say if I just got a system, it would fix all my problems. Well, if you don't have the policies and procedures, internal controls and the people to operate the system, you really haven't fixed anything. And so you you need to address through through all three.

I think the important thing about systems right now, when I laid out, you know, understanding your portfolio, doing loss opportunity analysis, looking at scenarios and everything else, that's one of those areas where, you know, you really need an IT tool to do that work. Like, that's not something you can, you know, just continually be, you know, knocking on doors and trying to pull paper copies of grant awards. You know? It's just a very efficient process.

And I do think where jurisdictions need to look at tightening their belt a little bit, consolidation of solutions. Some state governments like I in Arizona where we had twenty three, can you cut that number in half and still function, at a very high level but at a much more reduced cost? But I think I think the biggest parts of, system consolidation is the ability to, roll up and analyze and visualize data. And then also, you know, the we haven't really talked about it today, Sam, but it's the, it's the the customer experience. If you think about a local government professional who needs to have logins to twenty three individual state agency systems, you know, know how they all operate, know, you know, where a funding opportunity is gonna be posted. That's a terrible user experience, and that's one of the areas where states can really make, you know, drastic improvements by consolidating to a one or a handful of solutions.

Yeah. I I agree with you, Matt. And so with all of this motivation, like, coming from the federal government and and now state and local governments to be more efficient, like, what are the remaining barriers to achieving this vision of, like, fewer systems and, you know, better better integration among systems that ultimately lead to that better user experience that you were describing?

You know, we we talked earlier about the the impacts of, DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. I've I've stated previously that I think the, committees on government efficiency and councils on government efficiency that are popping up at the state level are ultimately going to be, more impactful on, you know, how we do business at the state and local government level.

Certainly, we've seen, you know, coach committees already having hearings, already passing legislation, already, you know, introducing bills. As as far as, you know, what are the obstacles, the obstacles are really just breaking down the silos. You know, coming to the realization that, yes, you know, our particular grants, you know, my grant portfolio might be slightly different than your grant portfolio. But for the most part, the core pieces, there's an application, there's award, there's payments, there's reports, are the same. And we need to start focusing on the similarities of our grant programs and not just hanging on to the differences in our grants programs.

And that's where we can really come together and, you know, streamline application, streamline reporting, streamline closeout, you know, really think about the, the end user experience, and advocate from within our organizations, you know, instead of trying to hang on to, you know, the the legacy product or the legacy policies and procedures that we've always utilized.

Yeah. And so to help achieve that vision, what do you think that, you know, technology vendors like Submittable and consultants like with O'Brien, what can we do to contribute towards, achieving that level of, like, standardization and better process and and sort of improving that end to end user experience of of applying for and and and, seeking grant funding?

So I think, one of the things, many of us are guilty of, especially on the private sector side, is, explaining the differences.

You know, trying to constantly reinvent the wheel.

You know, when you think about, you know, policies and procedures, internal controls that are two CFR uniform guidance compliant, It's it's it's all the same. Like, you know, every jurisdiction needs, you know, policies on conflict of interest and procurement and duplication of benefits, etcetera, etcetera. And I think too many times instead of focusing on capacity building and training and trying to lift up the grants community as a whole, we're we're trying to exploit, you know, we can develop something for you, you know, specific for your use case. And that's really created this environment where people, you know, think like they have to build their own thing, have their own materials. So that's one area.

I think with with systems, it's it's understanding, what your system does well, what your system maybe doesn't do well, and not trying to try to do all things for for everyone. There are solutions that are, you know, very much focused on pre award grant research and pursuance. There are systems that are very much focused on on post award.

But the key thing with all of these systems is, you know, making sure that they are easily implementable, making sure that the end user experience is as positive as possible, and making sure that, you know, a system and the data within the system can communicate with other solutions, whether that be, you know, a procurement solution, accounting solution, etcetera.

You know, we we all need to kind of remember that while there are those of us that are full time grants professionals, the vast majority of people working with grants, it's a other duty as assigned, and they don't have, you know, the the time and energy to devote to a six month, you know, full time implementation of a solution.

You know, they don't have the time to build out custom forms and, you know, spend half of their day, you know, trying to manage a solution. So we really need to make things as as easy and as simple, as possible for for any of the users regardless of, you know, their past experience, their capacity, or their time commitment they have going forward.

That's a fantastic answer, Matt.

Before I leave you, I just wanna ask one last question. That is if if you are a state or local government, employee out there, like, what is the best way to reach out to you, and and what are some of the types of engagement that, with O'Brien can can help these organizations with?

No. I I appreciate that. So I'm really proud of the fact that with O'Brien's, has what we call the Center for Grants Excellence.

And it's a page where we are putting additional training material.

We are putting collateral. I'm trying to put my, my money where my mouth is. And when I talk about not reinventing the wheel, we are putting templates of policies and procedures and collateral out there for anybody to, consume.

So they can just go to the the Wood O'Brien's website, and find that. Or somebody can, you know, reach out to me directly at m Hansen, h a n s o n, at Wood O'Brien's, dot com. I I really think this is an opportune moment for people to, take a hard look at their existing grants enterprise and reposition yourself going forward, whether that is repositioning because opportunities are drying up or repositioning yourself because there's a whole, you know, new bunch of opportunities in front of you.

And we can help do that, you know, when I talked about loss funding, analysis and doing that scenario planning or, you know, even further downstream doing staff training and and post award management.

Yeah. And and there may not be a better time in the coming, many years to think about that repositioning than there is right now with all of the changes taking place across the across the sector. So, Matt, thanks a lot, man. This has been such a great informative conversation. I really enjoyed it. And I will look forward to continuing to see your words of wisdom out there on LinkedIn and, and seeing you on stage at all of the the conferences that we go to.

I really appreciate it, Sam.

Thanks. Every time I talk to someone who's a true insider of government grant making, I feel hopeful about the future of the sector. Yes. There is rapid change happening right now, but the people doing this work day in and day out are incredibly sharp and dedicated.

And if they're given the resources that they need, I think they can break down the silos and build partnerships that will make grant programs across the country stronger and more resilient. And that benefits all of us. That's all for me today. Thanks for tuning in to Impact Audio produced by your friends at Submittable.

Until next time.