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Driving cross-government innovation: How the Tribal CX Pilot Team streamlines the grants process for major federal investments

The interagency Tribal Customer Experience (CX) Pilot Team is a shining example of how the government can meet the needs of underserved communities using lessons embedded in the Partnership for Public Service’s learning system, an ongoing source of knowledge and expertise that helps agencies implement large-scale federal investment programs. 

The team aims to dismantle the barriers and administrative burden in federal grant reporting that hinders tribal governments and indigenous communities from accessing needed funding.

Using customer experience research and strong cross-agency collaboration, the team employed two strategies in the Partnership’s Framework of Implementation Excellence  to deliver major federal investments.

Assembling the cross-government team

In December 2023, President Biden signed an executive order to improve the customer experience for tribal governments and indigenous communities in the U.S.

The Tribal CX Pilot Team complemented this directive as a cross-government group that includes staff from the Treasury Department, the departments of the Interior and Health and Human Services, and the Executive Office of the President.

A customer-informed research approach

The team prioritized listening to tribal communities to identify their main obstacles in applying for and receiving federal grants, speaking with over 100 individuals engaged in federal grant reporting across 43 tribes.

It also conducted 22 interviews to assess grant recipients’ needs. Interviewees included  diverse tribal members, and representatives from community-based organizations and federal and state grant-making agencies. In addition, the team attended the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Alaska Tribal Providers Conference to engage with Alaska Native tribal administrators from rural villages.

This research uncovered key challenges faced by tribal governments and indigenous communities, including:

• High staff turnover and difficulty recruiting, training and retaining skilled administrators

• Unreliable and limited periods of internet connectivity, which make filling out government grant applications frustrating because forms do not autosave as information is entered

• Unintegrated federal grant management systems, which force tribal administrators to navigate and manage separate accounts and verify identity on more than a dozen online portals

• Post-award reporting requirements that lack clear instructions and demand overly frequent check-ins

The team’s solutions

To address these challenges, the team developed and implemented four innovative solutions:

1. The Federal Grant Systems Hub is a first-of-its-kind tool to centralize grant information and resources in a user-friendly, public dashboard. It makes hard-to- find information and data easier to access for all federal grant recipients. Recipients can now view a complete list of their current grants and the online portals needed to administer them—all in one place. The hub is also designed for teams to use when training new grants staff.

2. Improvements to the digital identity verification system include expanded support from single sign-on providers. This support includes identity verification guides for tribal users, a new acceptance of tribal IDs, a live help desk and better user profiles within business accounts. The team also worked with the General Services Administration to expand in-person verification options at more than 18,000 U.S. Postal Service locations.

3. The Treasury Offline Report Template is an Excel template that can be downloaded and used for State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. The offline report is an alternative for tribes that lack access to high-speed internet. It was designed with useability at the forefront to accommodate remote tribes with unreliable internet.

4. Reduced reporting burdens, implemented by the Indian Health Services’ Behavioral Health Initiatives team, improved the follow-up grants reporting process to more flexibly align with teams’ capabilities. These improvements include offline report templates to accommodate various internet capacities, enabling users with limited grants portal access to write reports by hand, and a responsive ticket- request technical assistance support system.

Conclusion

The Tribal CX Pilot team is a great example of how an intentional approach to decreasing administrative burden for an underserved community can foster innovation to improve a system for all participants. By addressing the barriers for tribal audiences to access federal funding, the team is helping communities nationwide secure the support they are entitled to.

It is this kind of meaningful approach, one that centers the customer and promotes strong cross-agency collaboration, that makes the most impact when it comes to implementing major federal investments.

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