Proving to federal funders that taxpayer dollars were working — without a system to show it.
Federally-funded economic development program · competitive cohort model · multiple funding partners
The client
A federally-funded program for economic inclusion.
Technical assistance to cities implementing economic inclusion strategies, awarding grants to selected municipalities while providing coaching, convening, and expert consultation.
The challenge
Expanding into a second cohort without the evidence.
Preparing to move from pilot to a larger, more competitive cohort, the team struggled to manage stakeholders and demonstrate impact.
- No systematic way to track city engagement, so it was hard to see who needed support
- Funders lacked visibility into outcomes and how grant dollars translated to results
- Manual tracking of technical-assistance calls, compliance (MOUs, W-9s, ACH), and metrics across cities
- Different stakeholders needed the same data with different permissions
- Inconsistent documentation of outcomes
- No clear accountability system for cities, consultants, and staff
The solution
One database, four audiences.
A program management platform built on one principle: the same data should tell different stories to different audiences, with appropriate access controls.
Four tailored interfaces
City, Funder, Staff, and Admin views of one unified database — same truth, different permissions.
Automated engagement tracking
Each city is classified High, Low, or No engagement on objective criteria, flagging drops early enough to intervene.
Built in, not bolted on
MOUs, W-9s, and ACH details are tracked as core functionality rather than an afterthought.
The results
What changed.
- Data-driven transparency with federal partners, showing exactly how grant dollars translate to outcomes
- Objective engagement metrics that remove subjectivity from performance assessment
- The program manager could confidently advocate for expanded funding with concrete evidence
- Manual tracking eliminated; reporting streamlined through pre-built dashboards
- Infrastructure that scales to future cohorts without proportional administrative burden
Keep reading
Related work.
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