Answers to the questions we hear most.

Who is Lightning Grant built for?

Lightning Grant is post-award compliance and reporting software built specifically for HUD grants that report through HHGMS — the Healthy Homes Grants Management System.

Available now: HHP (Healthy Homes Production) grantees, including both current FY2024 grantees and FY2026 applicants including Lightning Grant as a line item in their applications.

Coming soon: LHR (Lead Hazard Reduction), LBPHC (Lead-Based Paint Hazard Control), and OAHMP (Older Adult Home Modification Program) — the other OLHCHH programs on HHGMS.

Is Lightning Grant for CDBG, HOME, ESG, or HOPWA grants?

No. Those programs report through IDIS, not HHGMS. They're different HUD systems with different field structures and different mechanics. Lightning Grant is specifically designed around HHGMS and won't help with IDIS-reported programs.

If you're primarily managing CDBG-family programs, tools like Neighborly Software are built for that. Lightning Grant is the specialist for HHGMS.

Can Lightning Grant help with our grant application?

No. Lightning Grant is a post-award tool. Once you've been awarded a grant, Lightning Grant handles the compliance and reporting work throughout the performance period.

For applicants, the most useful thing to know: if you include Lightning Grant as a line item in your FY2026 application budget, we're grant-fundable from day one of the 42-month performance period and pre-approved by your GTR. Adding us post-award requires a budget modification.

We're a small organization with one part-time grant manager. Are we too small?

Small organizations are often where Lightning Grant provides the most value. When compliance work sits on top of someone already wearing three hats, the hours Lightning Grant saves per month matter proportionally more. Our pricing scales with grant size, so smaller grants pay less.

We're a large organization with a dedicated compliance team. Do we still need Lightning Grant?

Depends on what your team is spending time on. Even organizations with strong compliance capacity often have staff reconstructing reports from spreadsheets at quarter-end, chasing invoices through QuickBooks, or rebuilding match documentation for a Single Audit. Lightning Grant handles those mechanical parts, which frees your team for higher-value work like program design, GTR relationships, and application preparation.

Larger organizations sometimes benefit more from Lightning Grant because they have multiple concurrent grants and the coordination burden compounds.

What does Lightning Grant actually do?

Three main things:

• Absorbs documents. Your team forwards HHP-related documents — invoices, assessments, applications, payroll, QuickBooks payment lists — to your organization's private Lightning Grant email address.
• Classifies and allocates. AI reads each document and proposes classifications across four dimensions: budget line, direct/indirect, federal/match, and unit reference. Your team reviews and approves.
• Generates reports. SF-425 federal financial reports, HHGMS Part 3 performance data, and LOCCS drawdown packets — all generated from the same approved ledger, so they reconcile with each other automatically.

Do we have to change how we work?

Very little. If your team can forward an email, they can use Lightning Grant. We meet you where you already work — through your existing email, your existing QuickBooks, your existing document flow — rather than requiring you to adopt a new system for daily work.

What changes: quarterly reports build themselves throughout the quarter instead of getting reconstructed at deadline.

What happens if the AI classifies something wrong?

Nothing books without your team's approval. Every allocation waits in a review queue until a human approves it. Corrections during review train the system to do better next time, but the accountability is always yours — no allocation reaches your books or your reports without human sign-off.

Does Lightning Grant replace our QuickBooks?

No. QuickBooks stays your accounting system. Lightning Grant sits alongside it, absorbing your QB payment lists and other documents, and producing the HUD-specific reports HHGMS and LOCCS require. QuickBooks handles your general ledger; Lightning Grant handles your grant-specific compliance and reporting.

Does Lightning Grant handle project management, contractor communication, or scope-of-work planning?

No. Lightning Grant is a compliance and reporting tool, not a project management system. You don't need to send us work plans, scope documents, contractor communications, progress photos, or GTR correspondence. Keep those in your existing systems.

Send us documents that feed a reportable number or an audit trail. That's the boundary.

Can multiple team members use Lightning Grant?

Yes. Grant managers, finance staff, program directors, and executive leadership can all have accounts with role-appropriate access. Changes are tracked to specific users so there's a clear audit trail of who did what and when.

Does Lightning Grant use AI?

Yes. Lightning Grant uses AI to read documents, extract data, and propose classifications. AI does the tedious reading and math. Your team makes every actual decision and approves every allocation. We describe this as "AI-assisted, human-approved."

We think that's the right model for federal grant compliance work. Auditors need accountability, and accountability requires human decision-making.

Which AI does Lightning Grant use?

We use Anthropic's Claude for our AI processing. Anthropic is a US-based AI safety company. Our commercial agreement with Anthropic prohibits using your data to train AI models. If we ever change AI providers, we'll do so in a way that maintains the same data protection commitments.

Does the AI ever make final decisions or submit reports on its own?

No. The AI proposes; your team approves. Nothing reaches your books, your reports, or HUD without human sign-off. This is deliberate — federal grant compliance requires human accountability, and we've architected Lightning Grant around that requirement.

What happens to our data when Lightning Grant sends it to the AI?

Data is transmitted to Anthropic's servers via encrypted API calls to be processed. Under our commercial agreement with Anthropic, your data is not used to train AI models, is not shared with third parties, and is subject to strict retention limits. Full details are in our data protection agreement.

For customers with heightened data sovereignty requirements, we can discuss additional safeguards on a case-by-case basis.

What if the AI makes a mistake on our reports?

AI mistakes get caught during your team's approval process — that's why the human-approval step is required. If a mistake does make it through approval and into a submitted report, the accountability sits with your organization (as it would with any tool), but Lightning Grant's audit trail makes errors traceable and correctable.

In practice, we've found that AI-assisted classification with human review catches more errors than fully manual work does, because the AI is consistent and the human review focuses attention on the specific proposals rather than starting from scratch.

Where is our data stored?

On US-based cloud infrastructure. The application and your retained source documents run on Fly.io in Chicago; the database is hosted by Neon on AWS in US East (Ohio); and the dashboard is served by Vercel. All customer data stays in US regions, and each of those providers publishes a SOC 2 Type II report.

How is our data protected?

Data is encrypted in transit using TLS 1.2 or higher. Data at rest is encrypted using industry-standard encryption. Each customer's data is isolated — no customer can see another customer's records. Access within Lightning Grant is limited to authorized personnel with need-to-know access, and every access is logged.

Do you sell or share our data?

No. Your data is used only to run Lightning Grant for your organization. We never sell customer data, never share it with third parties for marketing purposes, and never use it to train AI models. These commitments are in our data protection agreement.

Do you have SOC 2 or FedRAMP certifications?

The infrastructure we run on — Fly.io, Neon, and Vercel — is SOC 2 Type II audited. Lightning Grant as an application does not yet hold its own SOC 2 Type II audit — we're a young company, and formal audit is on our roadmap but not immediate.

For prospects with specific certification requirements, we're happy to walk through our current controls and roadmap. Our application-layer security is designed to support customers' compliance obligations even without our own formal audit.

Can we export or delete our data?

Yes. Customer data can be exported at any time in standard formats. Upon contract termination, data is deleted according to the terms of your service agreement, with retention only for what's required for legal or audit purposes.

Do you sign data protection agreements?

Yes. We require a signed data protection agreement before any customer data lands on our servers. The agreement covers data handling, security commitments, breach notification, and termination rights. We can share a template for your legal team's review before you commit to onboarding.

What does Lightning Grant cost?

Our pricing is $5,000 for one-time onboarding plus $100/month per $100,000 of grant size, capped at $2,000/month.

Examples:

• A $1M grant: $5,000 setup + $1,000/month × 42 months = $47,000 total over the grant period
• A $2M grant: $5,000 setup + $2,000/month × 42 months = $89,000 total over the grant period
• A $5M grant: $5,000 setup + $2,000/month (capped) × 42 months = $89,000 total over the grant period

All pricing sits below the federal simplified acquisition threshold, which typically simplifies procurement for government and nonprofit buyers.

Can we pay for Lightning Grant with grant funds?

Yes, in most cases. Lightning Grant costs are typically allowable as direct administrative costs on HHP grants. If you include Lightning Grant as a line item in your approved budget (either at application or through a budget modification), the costs are grant-fundable throughout the performance period.

Direct administrative costs are subject to caps — usually 10% of federal share for HHP grants. If your admin cost bucket is tight, we can discuss how Lightning Grant fits within your specific budget structure.

What's included in the onboarding fee?

The $5,000 onboarding fee covers setup of your grant in Lightning Grant, initial configuration of your budget and reporting structure, training for your team, and support during your first quarterly reporting cycle. It's a one-time fee, not recurring.

What's the contract length?

We typically match contract length to your grant performance period — often 42 months for HHP grants. Contracts are cancelable with reasonable notice if Lightning Grant isn't working for your organization.

Is there a free trial?

We don't offer a self-serve free trial because HHP compliance work is complex enough that a trial without proper setup wouldn't be useful. Instead, we offer a live demo where we walk through Lightning Grant using your organization's specific grant context. If it's clearly not a fit, we say so directly — we'd rather have zero customers than the wrong ones.

How long does onboarding take?

Typical onboarding is two to three weeks from signed agreement to production use. Setup involves configuring your grant structure in Lightning Grant, training your team on the email-forwarding workflow, and running through a test cycle before we go live.

Can we start mid-grant, or do we need to start at grant inception?

Either works. Mid-grant onboarding is common — many customers come to Lightning Grant during their current performance period rather than starting at day one. We can either backfill historical data or start midstream and pick up from your current position. Your existing units cycle through closeout naturally over the remaining performance period.

What does our team need to do during onboarding?

Not much. We handle the technical setup. Your team's involvement is mostly (1) sharing your grant documents so we can configure the budget and reporting structure, (2) participating in a short training session on the email-forwarding workflow, and (3) reviewing the first few weeks of AI classifications so we can calibrate to your specific patterns.

Total time commitment from your team is usually five to ten hours during onboarding, then normal operations after that.

What if we have multiple concurrent HHP grants?

Lightning Grant handles multiple concurrent grants in a single account. Each grant has its own budget, unit registry, and reporting outputs, but staff can move between grants without switching tools.

Who founded Lightning Grant?

Lightning Grant was founded by Pierce Stowman. Pierce built Lightning Grant after seeing how much time HHP grantees spend reconstructing reports at quarter-end. The company is a Delaware LLC, foreign-registered in Alaska.

Who are your customers?

Our first customer is Fairbanks Neighborhood Housing Services (FNHS), an Alaska-based nonprofit and current HHP grantee. Matt Allen at FNHS has been closely involved in Lightning Grant's product development. Matt is available for reference conversations with serious prospects.

How new is Lightning Grant?

Lightning Grant is a young company. We're transparent about that. What we lack in years of history, we make up for in specialization — Lightning Grant is built specifically for HHP compliance, by people who understand the domain deeply.

For prospects who value working with an established vendor above all else, we may not be the right fit. For prospects who value domain expertise and product-market fit, we're a strong candidate.

What happens if Lightning Grant goes out of business?

A fair question to ask any young software vendor. Two answers:

One, we're structured for stability. Founder-committed, no venture pressure, focused on a real customer need. We're building for the long term.

Two, our data protection agreement includes commitments around data export and continued access in the event of company transition. Your grant records don't get held hostage — they're yours, and we have contractual obligations to make sure you can retrieve them.

How do we reach Pierce directly?

Email works best. Reach Pierce Stowman at pierce@lightninggrant.com or by phone at (207) 337-3751. He handles all sales and customer relationships personally.