USVI Grant Management Capacity Building
Executive Summary
The United State Virgin Islands (USVI) faces ongoing challenges in the provision of health and human services for their citizens. A number of sentinel events have contributed to the loss of human capital and infrastructure, while agencies have had difficulty performing essential public and behavioral health and human services activities. These sentinel events have also decreased the governments’ ability to efficiently spend federal funds. Thus territorial agencies have not been able to perform at their highest level to provide quality services to their citizens.
The Innovation: The team developed a prototype for a grants management monitoring and tracking system. This low tech solution will allow the staff of health and human services agencies to easily monitor the federal funding that is awarded to them, track how the funding is being spent, and track requirements that must be met.
While exploring the utility and feasibility of this proposed project, the team learned that most federal agencies were experiencing the same difficulties working with USVI staff in terms of achieving program goals and spending federal funding. USVI agency staff are excited about utilizing this new tool to assist them with better organizing their agency grant function and working their colleagues who operate programs.
A project supported by the: HHS Ignite Accelerator
Team Members
Michelle S. Davis (Project Lead), HHS OASH
Cheryl Donald, HRSA
April Smith-Hirak, HHS OASH
Nicole Meyers, ACF
Dennis Romero, SAMSHA
Samuel Taveras, CDC
Milestones
June 2015: Project selected into the HHS Ignite Accelerator
July 2015: Time in the Accelerator began
September 2015: Time in the Accelerator ended
Project Sponsor
Karen DeSalvo, HHS Acting Assistant Secretary for Health
Additional Information
Contributing Partners:
Katie Sellers, Association for State and Territorial Health Officers (ASTHO)
Basil Ottley, Director of Policy, Office of Insular Affairs, Department of Interior
