Our Background

In 2003, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Grants Online Program Management Office (PMO) initiated a software development project with a mission to provide NOAA with a single unified grant processing and administration system, using an electronic solution that would reduce processing time and increase efficiency. That project produced the Grants Online application and the mission of the PMO has expanded to support most Department of Commerce (DOC) grant making bureaus. Grants Online, custom developed for NOAA, has been in operation at the Department of Commerce (DOC)/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) since 2005.

Grants Online serves over 13,000 Federal staff and Grant recipient users with approximately 2000 proposal reviewers, some of whom are also Federal staff or Grant recipient users. Grants Online users are diverse and can be divided into five major categories with regard to functional requirements, support needs, and training needs. There are two major categories of non- Federal users: grant recipients and proposal reviewers. Within DOC there are three additional functional categories of users: Program Office users, Grants Management users, and Finance Office users.

Our Customers

The Grants Online Program Management Office (PMO) provides support to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other Department of Commerce bureaus including, the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA), the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), the Internal Trade Administration (ITA), the U.S. Census Bureau (Census) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). As such, we provide training materials and resources for the Grants Online tool across the grants life cycle.