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I work for a pass through that ensures compliance with OMB, but I would love to work for the Feds. where I am now, the grants administration position is greatly inferior to the program officer, which seems a bit backwards to me.

either way, great recommendation about getting policy experience. not certain how i would get that working as a pass-through but i'm going to take a look. any recommendations on ways outside of the Fed govt?

Do you work for the fed govt now? I personally really like being on the giving end of grants as a fed, rather than having to stress about the next grant we need to win.

I would suggest you build up some policy experience as well. At least that's how it works in our agency. You monitor grants to make sure they're following OMB guidelines, but you also (if you want to move up) develop an area of policy/program administration expertise. So it's about effectiveness as well as simple compliance. Then you may eventually become a lead for that program and so on.

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