Web Content Overhaul and API Integration

The Challenge

NIFA funding portfolio was a mess of convoluted pages. Some of the these pages were called "Program" pages, even though they didn't represent any funding program at the agency. Others combined multiple programs on a single page, thereby making it difficult for users to find a specific program without scrolling through walls of text. This was further confused by the fact that a whole separate content type called "Funding Opportunity" existed, and the connection between the two types was often unclear or nonexistent.

The Approach

Building off of the previous content audit, taking a hard look at the content we were left with, and working with our web business team and NIFA leadership, I established two guiding principles. NIFA's web content should 1) accurately reflect our funding portfolio, and 2) help users find, apply for, and manage funding. With these guiding principles in hand, we established a template for our new program pages. These templates used structured date to include the most important information for grant applicants right up front as well as contextual Drupal views which employed the Create Once; Publish Everywhere (COPE) approach to ensure that content is easily and dynamically updated across the site. We have been working through all of NIFA's 100+ programs to ensure that each one has a dedicated landing page. Additionally, we are close to launching the integration of the the grants.gov API on our site which will establish grants.gov as the canonical source of of truth for grants. The API will completely replace the need for the Funding Opportunity content type by creating entities in the back end which can use metadata to display dynamically and in context across the site.

The Outcome

This work is happening right now! At the time of writing, I have templated 45 programs and am currently working on another large batch. The devs are pushing the API modules to stage, and we will begin user acceptance testing in July. Once the API is live, we will methodically unpublish all Funding Opportunity nodes and establish redirects to corresponding program pages. We will also continue to identify use cases for new applications of the API and integrate accordingly.

I expect this work to:

• save hundreds of hours of NIFA staff time by making it easier to update content
• provide a single source of truth for applicants looking for funding
• increase traffic to grants.gov