Simpler.Grants.gov brand launch

[widal001]

Summary

Identify requirements for new brand assets & delivery to HHS OG. Provide content for Grant.gov communication strategy supporting deployment of update branding & align schedules to roll out updated branding across Simpler Grants.gov and community engagement resources within Quad 1.

Press release

It won't be just the exciting new features & functionality that catch your eye when you check out recent updates on Simpler.Grants.gov. There's a new logo, a five-pointed star, a timeless symbol of of trust & guidance, that speaks directly to the accessible and purpose driven changes underway. Simpler.Grants.gov's new branding can be found across their site, digital newsletter, and x3/year "Big Demo" event sharing updates on the work. The striking colors and designs are simple yet multi-faceted, positioning Simpler.Grants.gov as a trusted, innovative, and approachable organization, dedicated to making grants easier to access for grant seekers, more efficient for grantors, more accessible for underserved communities, and transparent to the public. And, if you're very lucky you might get yourself a tote bag!

Acceptance criteria

• [ ] Identify branding asset requirements for use.
• [ ] Generate assets to specifications
• [ ] Provide recorded instructions for Office of Grants usage of new branding assets
• [ ] Roll out updated branding on Simpler.Grants.gov
• [ ] Deploy updated branding in Simpler.Grants.gov community engagement correspondences & resources

Metrics

Confirming benchmarks with Grants.gov Branding & Comms

• Website Traffic: Changes in the number of simpler.grants.gov visitors, page views, and average session duration.
• Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who leave simpler.grants.gov after viewing only one page – a potential indicator of misalignment between expectation and brand messaging.
• Social Media Engagement: Monitor likes, shares, and comments to gauge the social traction of Grants.gov content that includes the rebrand.
• Email Open and Click: Through Rates | Measures the effectiveness of email campaigns post-rebrand.

Assumptions

1. Updated branding assets will be provided to HHS OG for existing Grants.gov, but Deliverable scope does not include implementation there.
2. Success metrics/KPIs captured at deployment will extend those benchmarked by Grants.gov. Metric not currently captured are beyond the scope of this Deliverable.
3. Future Quad will include Brand Equity Study to evaluates how consumers value the brand in terms of quality, reliability, and trust.

Dependencies

1. Fulfillment of the Quad 1 delivery timeline requires rebranding Communication Strategy that allows for Simpler Grants.gov to roll out updates before Dec 10, 2024.

[margaretspring]

Sprint 1.2 updates

Status: 🟢 On track

Sprint goal

Confirm Brand roll out. Ready for transition into asset generation & roll out execution.

Accomplishments

• Draft & get Simpler.Grants.gov Brand Roll out reviewed & approved
• Layout Brand development aspects of roll out plan in GitHub
• Review Brand finalization
• Confirm coordination with Marc as backup HHS Point of Contact with Adriana's new position.

Rollover

• N/A

Risks

• Determining level of effort to roll out in technical implementation.

Sprint 1.3 goals

• Start generating the new brand assets & confirm planning for Simpler.grants.gov site rollout

[lucasmbrown-usds]

Thanks! A few comments, but overall looking Good!

1. We're generally trying to keep the Agile Deliverables specs to having 3 or fewer Acceptance Criteria and 3 or fewer metrics. It's okay to have more here, but just note that for future AD specs. The motivation is to keep things simple, easily understandable for everyone involved, and focused on the top priorities.

2. "for existing Grants.gov" - I know this has been discussed before, but I'm not 100% sure we want to rebrand existing Grants.gov. There might be some value in making it obvious when you're on the "new and improved" site -- we don't want people reporting bugs about the old site. Or having a subpar experience applying and blaming the new effort for it.

3. Are we able to link to the list of assets we're planning to generate?

4. Also, the metrics here have a little bit of ambiguity in them. Our goal in defining metrics in advance is to have very little ambiguity about how we'll interpret them when the time comes to decide whether we've achieved them or not.

For instance, "Changes in the number of simpler.grants.gov visitors, page views, and average session duration" - what changes? What would be defined as successfully meeting the metric? We could rephrase to say something like, "simpler.grants.gov visitors increases by 10% in the month after brand rollout compared to the previous month". That leaves very little ambiguity about measurement. Or "Monitor likes, shares, and comments" - on which channels? Twitter, LinkedIn, etc? Do we have access to those analytics, and can we start tracking baseline numbers now?

Would love to rewrite these as very clear statements of "X precisely defined metric will increase/decrease by Y percent/amount." It's also completely fine to say that we'll use the deliverable to establish a baseline metric (as we did in the Search AD and others).

Otherwise, LGTM!

[mxk0]

@margaretspring

• Remove references to Grants.gov
• Add link to asset repository to Deliverable description or as a comment
• Update metrics to be more about setting baselines (simple metrics we already have GA4 tracking in place for)
• Establish a plan for longer-term qualitative metrics