Upcoming Webinars
Fraud Guardrails for Your Grants Program
Date: October 22, 2025
Time: 1 - 2 p.m. Eastern (12 - 1 p.m. Central)
Location: Microsoft Teams (Virtual)
Discover guardrails to help protect your grants program against fraud risk.
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As the landscape of Federal grant funding undergoes sweeping change, states are increasingly responsible for combating fraud and inefficiencies in their grant programs. The consequences of mismanaging these funds can be severe, resulting in lost funding and taxpayer confidence. As discussed in our last webinar, the updated Uniform Guidance now places more responsibility on states to assess and manage fraud risk among their subrecipients.
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This webinar focuses on giving you the tools you need to succeed. We'll share practical and actionable strategies for implementing "fraud guardrails" within your grant program. Using a key case study, we will provide policies and practices for establishing systems to safeguard your grant funds, stay compliant with Federal mandates, and protect your agency from reputational risk.
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A Q&A session will follow the 1-hour presentation.
About the Speakers
Mariberth Vander Weele is the Founder and CEO of Vander Weele Group, where she has overseen grants oversight programs in more than 20 states. She is a recognized thought leader, speaker, and author known for her ability to drive strategic and tactical change in large organizations. Among her roles, she has served as the outsourced Inspector General of the Public Building Commission of Chicago. Prior to founding the firm in 2003, Maribeth authored a nationally acclaimed roadmap for the reform of the $3.8 billion Chicago Public School system. She subsequently served on the CPS
turnaround team, overseeing Internal Audit, investigations, Safe Schools and truancy programs, and the Ombudsman’s Office. Appointed Inspector General in 1998, she managed a staff that built construction, procurement, and employee misconduct investigative units. She later served as President of the Illinois Association of Inspectors General, where she spearheaded training programs for Inspector General offices throughout the state. Maribeth has served on multiple state, county, and city panels. A former award-winning journalist for the Chicago Sun-Times and author of the book, Reclaiming Our Schools: The Struggle for Chicago School Reform, Maribeth has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, Teacher Magazine, Education Week, and in the book, Extraordinary Ordinary Women Making a Difference. Her work is cited in the book, Battling Corruption in America’s Public Schools, and in many other publications.
Elizabeth Mackay, Esq., CFA, serves as the Vander Weele Group's Director of New Initiatives, leading the firm’s growth and service development efforts in emerging industries. Since 2023, she has focused on developing training programs and educational content for state agencies and utilities participating in new Department of Energy grid resiliency programs. She also serves as a project manager for several of the firm’s fiscal oversight engagements, including with the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency. Liz is a regulatory and compliance expert with more than 10 years of
experience in state and Federal procurement; internal audits; waste, fraud, and abuse prevention and mitigation; and disaster recovery programs. She has been invited to speak at national conferences in both the government and private sectors, including by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the National Hurricane Conference.
About the Vander Weele Group
The Vander Weele Group provides oversight and monitoring services for large-scale federally funded grants programs in infrastructure, education, human services, labor, economic development, and other programs. Our experienced grant practitioners equip program managers with tools, strategies, and systems to oversee Federally funded programs, freeing them to focus on program quality.