Fluxx’s Community Manager Shawn Garrison met with Art Johnstone and Michael Turner, the President and Vice President of Client Services at EMPH Partners.
About EMPH Partners
EMPH, which stands for the Emergency Management and Public Health Partners team is comprised of experts with nearly five decades of combined experience building and utilizing systems to manage grant funding, including experience using Fluxx Grantmaker to manage thousands grants, and tens of millions in grant funding.
Their particular area of expertise is working with partners to manage Federal pass-through grant funding, using Fluxx Grantmaker to offer sub-awards that meet the specific purposes and due diligence needs of each particular Federal grant program.
Build vs Buy Challenge Led EMPH to Fluxx to Help their Customers
A few years ago, Art and his team were working with a large national association that had recently been given a grant for $600,000 to distribute over a three year period, and they wanted a solution to streamline the process. They initially considered a custom solution, but given the time, scope and cost - they chose to leverage an off the shelf solution with grantmaking best practices in place. This led them to Fluxx - which to them, was the most robust solution that addressed the needs of their government clients.
After that initial experience with Fluxx, EMPH Partners began to use their Grantmaker solution for all of their government agency contracts. It continues to be their go-to solution for handling grantmaking with the government partners.
Tracking and Meeting Regulatory Requirements for Government Reporting
EMPH Partners have been leveraging Fluxx to create systems for the various grant programs for their customer base. For EMPH, one critical aspect that was key to their clients success was Fluxx’s ability to keep comprehensive due diligence records. Each record has detailed information about the amounts granted for each program, which employees accessed the record over the lifecycle of the grant, what changes were made, who made those changes, and similar specifics that help to maintain compliance. This level of detail is automatically recorded in the system, and helps to create transparency and accountability in regulatory reporting.
This level of detail helps in reporting with the government; if (or when) there is an audit, the records have an audit trail of the history of funding as well as detailed notes on the entire lifecycle of that record. This is vitally important, because if there is a discrepancy, then the agency may be “on the hook” for that funding. If they cannot demonstrate where the funding went, they may have to give that back. They knew that regulatory reporting and the transparency of record custody was a major area of importance that could severely impact the success of a project if not handled properly. This was a key feature that Fluxx provided out of the box and assured their clients that they could mitigate risks involved in accepting a large grant or funding opportunity from the Federal Government. EMPH Partners has never had a regulatory issue or charge back when Fluxx was the system of record..
Providing Scalability within Government Funding Opportunities
Over the years, EMPH Partners has encountered agencies that outgrew their software solutions because of the success of their grant applications. With Fluxx, they were never limited when they were looking to expand their funding opportunities, programs or impact. Initial success through using the Fluxx grants management system has given their agencies the ability to be more efficient and grow to more opportunities. The system has been flexible enough to open up more types of opportunities, accept more applications and scale up or down as needed. So as agencies have sought to open up new programs, Fluxx has been able to move in step with these agencies' needs. This additional expansion does not come with additional fees like other services, which makes budget and strategic planning easier for all stakeholders.
Other times, the need to implement a system like Fluxx has happened in the middle of the grant lifecycle. In the case of funding during the pandemic, EMPH helped agencies move to an automated system as they were granting out funds and with Fluxx’s data-driven approach, EMPH was able to leverage the system to collect the information, build out the grant and funding processes and successfully provide the reporting that was needed for these critical grants during that tumultuous period. Fluxx provided the visibility and control for EMPH to help their customers reach the programs that needed funding, while maintaining the regulatory reporting requirements to ensure compliance.
Adapting to the Changing Environment of Government Spending
As with any government entity, the ebb and flow of funding will fluctuate over time, depending on the political climate, or how certain programs are prioritized by the current administration. As such, EMPH found that their customers needed to adapt and adjust the scope of their grantmaking over time. EMPH and Fluxx working together has been instrumental in assessing the needs of the various agencies and adapting the system to right-size the grantmaking process over time. In this sense, Fluxx has been a true and trusted partner with EMPH in providing the tools to help make the government granting process transparent, compliant, and data driven.
For EMPH Partners, the relationship with Fluxx is an essential part of their business in helping government agencies get funding to the programs across the country that need it most.
If you are interested in learning more about EMPH Partners, here’s how you can find out more:
Art Johnstone, President
Emergency Management and Public Health Partners LLC
https://www.linkedin.com/in/art-johnstone-0b127b1b/
If you would like to learn more about Fluxx Grants management solution for government agencies, visit us at:
https://www.fluxx.io/grants-management-software-government
