Like in many non-profits, I was hired to wear many hats. So after a year in Americorps. I joined full-time to both build out the organization’s information systems and manage a federal grant awarded to the organization. In one role, I was modernizing the architecture of the organization’s information systems as efficiently as possible. In another role, I was navigating the complexities and slow-moving change of large bureaucracies. Building software in this time-constrained and money-constrained environment was transformative. It required me to be resourceful and hack together solutions.
In my systems analyst work, I evaluated off-the-shelf software, some of which we bought, but mostly found lacking. As a result, I took on the task of developing a custom student information system. Using zero-cost platforms, I leveraged Google Apps Script, Google Spreadsheets, Google Forms, and external flat files and APIs, to make a web application that enabled staff to see program operations in real-time. Staff could log onto a spreadsheet only they had access to, that was designed to look like a web application, and view informaiton about participants in the program. I worked with all the department leads and built out tools to handle rostering, grading, taking case notes, tracking restorative behavioral interventions, updating contact information, and more.
As part of this massive and resoureceful undertaking, I picked up on functional programming, thanks to Bruce McPherson who built an Apps Script library called fiddler, that transforms a spreadsheet into a dataframe.
In my grant management work, I transitioned the organization to comply with the latest federal workforce law, The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. WIOA was passed in 2014 and supplanted WIA – passed in 1998 – as the primary federal legislation on workforce development in the US. The legislation is long and updated periodically as guidance shifts. I led trainings following the guidance established by WIOA and the Department of Labor (DOL), the primary body administering WIOA. As part of standard audits stipulated in the grant award, DOL conducted two audits in my time there and had zero findings. If you don’t come from grant world, this means they found our program was completely in compliance with those guidelines.