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Ascension is seeking an experienced Federal Program Manager to lead and coordinate a multidisciplinary team supporting HHS/ACF’s Division of Community Discretionary and Demonstration Programs.

This individual will serve as Ascension’s primary management lead for an integrated capacity-building program encompassing project management, technical assistance and training, grant-program support, monitoring and evaluation, data analytics, annual grant competitions, communications and outreach, policy support, systems coordination, and transition activities.

The ideal candidate is an accomplished Federal professional-services manager who understands how to organize and oversee multiple concurrent workstreams while maintaining control of schedule, cost, quality, risk, staffing, deliverables, and customer expectations.

This is not simply a scheduling or administrative project-management position. Ascension is seeking someone capable of managing a complex Federal mission-support environment involving grant programs, subject matter experts, analysts, trainers, communications professionals, program specialists, consultants, and other functional staff.

The successful candidate should be comfortable working with senior Government stakeholders, translating broad program objectives into executable work plans, identifying emerging risks before they affect performance, and ensuring that individual technical workstreams remain integrated with overall DCDDP priorities.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Federal Program Manager will provide overall management, coordination, and performance oversight for Ascension’s support of the DCDDP Capacity Building program.

The position will have primary management responsibility for establishing the project’s operating framework; coordinating staff and subcontractor activities; maintaining the integrated schedule; monitoring labor and expenditures; managing risks, issues, decisions, and action items; assuring deliverable quality; and providing the Government with timely visibility into project performance.

The Program Manager will lead development and implementation of the comprehensive Program Capacity Building Plan, facilitate project initiation activities, establish recurring management controls, and ensure that Ascension maintains sufficient personnel and resources to support all required workstreams.

The role will oversee activities supporting:

• Project management, planning, and quality control;
• Technical assistance, training, and recipient capacity building;
• Monitoring, evaluation, risk analysis, and performance analytics;
• Annual Federal grant competitions and NOFO-related activities;
• Communications, outreach, and stakeholder engagement;
• Policy development and grants administration support;
• Systems coordination, training, user support, and change management;
• Domestic recipient-site activities and approved travel; and
• Contract transition and knowledge transfer.

The Program Manager must operate effectively in a Federal environment in which multiple deliverables, stakeholders, deadlines, regulatory considerations, and workstreams may be active simultaneously.

Position Responsibilities and Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

The Federal Program Manager will:

• LEAD overall program execution and serve as Ascension’s principal management interface for the DCDDP engagement.
• DEVELOP and maintain the comprehensive Program Capacity Building Plan, implementation roadmap, project schedules, management controls, staffing approach, and associated planning documentation.
• FACILITATE the contract kickoff meeting and ensure appropriate agendas, presentation materials, meeting documentation, decisions, action items, and follow-up activities are completed within required timeframes.
• CONDUCT and facilitate biweekly management meetings with the COR and designated DCDDP stakeholders.
• COORDINATE up to approximately 24 ad hoc project-management meetings annually, as directed.
• PREPARE or oversee meeting agendas, executive presentations, status reports, decision logs, meeting minutes, action-item trackers, and follow-up documentation.
• DIRECT multiple simultaneous technical and programmatic workstreams spanning technical assistance, grant support, monitoring, analytics, communications, policy, systems coordination, and operational support.
• ESTABLISH integrated schedules, milestones, dependencies, responsibilities, and performance measures for contract activities and deliverables.
• MONITOR staffing levels, workload distribution, labor utilization, subcontractor performance, and resource requirements.
• TRACK actual labor hours against planned hours by employee and labor category.
• MONITOR actual costs, costs to date, estimated cost at completion, cost and schedule variances, event/activity costs, travel, and other direct costs.
• PREPARE or oversee required monthly performance and financial reports.
• ASSESS program performance against contractual objectives, milestones, quality standards, schedules, budgets, and Government expectations.
• IDENTIFY emerging program, staffing, technical, schedule, financial, stakeholder, compliance, and delivery risks before they adversely affect performance.
• DEVELOP and implement practical risk mitigation and corrective-action strategies.
• MAINTAIN risk, issue, action, decision, change, and dependency logs throughout the engagement.
• ESCALATE significant risks, decisions, resource constraints, or performance concerns to Ascension leadership and the appropriate Government stakeholders in accordance with contract authority.
• COORDINATE the work of Senior Technical Advisors, Program Specialists, analysts, training personnel, communications personnel, Panel Managers, consultants, subcontractors, and other project resources.
• ENSURE technical and programmatic specialists receive clear scope, schedule, deliverable, and quality expectations without creating an inappropriate personal-services relationship between Government personnel and contractor employees.
• INTEGRATE technical-assistance, grant-program, monitoring, communications, analytics, systems-support, and policy activities so that individual workstreams support common DCDDP program outcomes.
• OVERSEE delivery of approximately 24 annual capacity-building engagements and up to approximately 60 capacity-building products through the appropriate technical staff.
• COORDINATE annual grant-competition support activities, including management of potentially time-sensitive and concurrent NOFO, outreach, application-support, reviewer, panel-management, eligibility-review, and associated workstreams.
• MAINTAIN heightened management coverage during annual grant-competition periods, including required weekend emergency-point-of-contact availability.
• OVERSEE development of data-driven performance reporting, dashboards, monitoring tools, risk-assessment frameworks, and program-management decision-support information.
• COORDINATE activities involving Government systems and reporting tools such as GrantSolutions, OLDC, PPR, and other ACF/HHS-approved platforms while ensuring contractor support remains within the PWS’s consultative and coordination-focused boundaries.
• ENSURE deliverables are reviewed for technical accuracy, completeness, consistency, contractual compliance, and quality before submission.
• ENSURE applicable deliverables meet Section 508 accessibility requirements and Government formatting requirements.
• IMPLEMENT Ascension’s quality-management and quality-control processes throughout contract performance.
• PROTECT Government, recipient, proprietary, personally identifiable, and other sensitive information in accordance with applicable HHS/ACF requirements.
• COORDINATE contractor compliance with applicable FISMA, FIPS, NIST, privacy, records-management, CUI, HHS security, and Rules of Behavior requirements.
• ENSURE personnel complete applicable security, privacy, onboarding, credentialing, and annual training requirements.
• MAINTAIN accurate staffing rosters and ensure additions, departures, replacements, and other personnel changes are reported within contractual requirements.
• COORDINATE approved domestic travel, recipient visits, technical-assistance activities, monitoring activities, outreach, and other field requirements.
• MANAGE Government feedback on deliverables and coordinate revisions within required review and resubmission periods.
• DOCUMENT lessons learned after major milestones and incorporate lessons into continuous process improvement.
• PROVIDE senior Ascension and Government leadership with concise, evidence-based assessments of program status, risks, accomplishments, priorities, and decisions requiring attention.
• DEVELOP and oversee the Transition-Out Plan and associated knowledge-transfer activities near contract completion.
• ENSURE orderly transfer of documentation, Government information, project knowledge, access, deliverables, records, and responsibilities without interruption to DCDDP operations.