Pilot IRS- TaxPayer First Act Prov 1401 VITA Grants Management System

This RFI is part of the Pilot IRS Program. 

PILOT IRS- Request for Information (RFI) 2032H8-20-N-00020
Internal Revenue Service (IRS), TaxPayer First Act Prov 1401
VITA Grant Management System
High level Summary

This RFI is part of the Pilot IRS Program. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Office of the Procurement Executive is requesting information about innovative, enterprise-wide Grants Managements System. We are primary interested in: 1) Automate the Grants Management System process as much as possible; 2) provide grantee access to system; 3) provide simplified reporting;  and 4) a rough estimate of how much these tools would cost relative to their return on investment (ROI).
Background
The IRS Grant Program Office (GPO), administers the program for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA). The VITA grant was codified in July 2019 with the passing of The Taxpayer First Act. The Taxpayer First Act also allocated VITA Grant funding up to $30 million each fiscal year. The VITA Grant supports the VITA program by 50% funding of organizations who are to train volunteers to assist taxpayers with their tax return. With the increase in funding the IRS anticipates an increase in the number of organizations to support. Providing proper oversight, timely correspondence, administering the award timely, and ensuring the funds are available as soon as possible to the organizations are major concerns for the program. The IRS is looking for an end to end automated solution.
Specific Areas of Input Requested

IRS respectfully requests input from industry partners and other parties regarding the following inquiries/topics:

1. Provide summary background on any existing instances of grants managements system in the federal space that you have deployed in government/industry that complies or can comply with Federal Integrated Business Frameworks  (FIBF) Standards from Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 19-16, and if product is FEDRAMP cloud based including Treasury cloud.
2. Provide summary end-to-end process information on how many users the system can handle when processing the pre-award stage, online grantee access, the applicant evaluation stage, Federal Award Identification Number (FAIN) generation, ranking, and the grant award approval processes.
3. Provide summary of the automation opportunities including descriptions of existing or planned interfaces with required grants management support websites to include monthly uploads, reporting, history, and verification of expenditures.
4. Please also address costs, implementation strategies used, challenges and impediments encountered, implementation timelines, and performance metrics.
5. Provide any overarching recommended approaches for federal grants management.
6. Identify where a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) for contract cost to support this initiative would fall, with any notations for development, hosting, training and operations and maintenance
7. Provide potential ROI summary information that the IRS could reasonably expect to attain with the adoption and implementation of selected technologies in this space.

Disclaimer

This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes. This notice should not be construed as a commitment by the Government for any purpose other than market research. This announcement does not commit the Government to any contractual agreement. The Government is not seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited proposals. No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this announcement or any follow-up information requests.
Respondents will NOT be notified of the results of the analysis. All data received in response to this Sources Sought synopsis that is marked or designated as corporate or proprietary information will be fully protected from release outside the Government. The Government shall not be liable for or suffer any consequential damages for any proprietary information not properly identified. Proprietary information will be safeguarded in accordance with all applicable Government regulations. All documentation shall become the property of the Government and will not be returned.
The deadline for responses to this RFI is 08:00AM EST, Tuesday May 26, 2020. Responses should be forwarded via email to both the primary and secondary points of contact below. Responses shall not exceed 5 pages and shall not contain any brochures, advertising or any other type of extraneous, graphic literature or documents that have not been requested and are not relevant or essential in demonstrating the company’s ability to provide the required services. Vendors may provide links to relevant websites, as appropriate.
Vendors shall reference “RFI_IRS_TFA_1401_VITA_Grants_Management” in the subject line of their response as well as in the subject line of any other e-mail correspondence referencing this notice.

** THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT RESPOND TO PHONE CALLS. **

Thank you for your interest.

Contracting Office Address:
IRS, 1111 Constitution Ave. NW
Washington, District of Columbia 20024

Primary Point of Contact:
Marcy Almeida
Marcela.a.almeida@irs.gov
202-317-4087

Secondary Point of Contact:
Tonya Swanson
Tonya.C.Swanson@irs.gov
240-613-3836