ASK BlueJae Consulting is the operations and grant compliance partner for nonprofits, schools, and workforce organizations. From GATA prequalification to single audit readiness, we build the systems behind your mission, so funders renew instead of question.
Founder · Est. 2016
Janae founded ASK BlueJae in 2016 with one promise: Simple & Streamlined Solutions. For a decade she has built the operations behind other people's visions, launching businesses for new founders, serving as the right hand to CEOs and executive directors, turning expertise into courses and products, and directing nonprofit programs, including designing L.E.N.A. Business in a Box, her signature youth entrepreneurship program.
Today that decade converges in one practice: helping Illinois nonprofits win, manage, and keep their grant funding. From GATA prequalification and the ICQ to Uniform Guidance, subgrantee monitoring, and single audit readiness, Janae builds the compliance backbone that turns funded organizations into repeatedly funded organizations.
Her philosophy is on every page of this site: compliance is not paperwork. It is the growth strategy hiding in plain sight.
— Janae McEwen, Founder
ASK BlueJae has never changed its job, only its altitude. Every era below built the expertise Illinois nonprofits hire today.
Founded as a virtual assistant practice. Helped founders launch: branding, web, social, and the operational backbone underneath it all.
Right hand to CEOs, founders, and executive directors. Learned how decisions get made, and how they fall apart without follow-through.
Built an e-commerce operation and turned the process into courses. Documentation became product; expertise became scalable.
Mobile notary discipline meets nonprofit program direction, including designing L.E.N.A. Business in a Box, a youth entrepreneurship program with funder-grade reporting built in.
Full focus on nonprofit grants: GATA, ICQ, SAM.gov, Uniform Guidance, subgrantee monitoring, and audit readiness. The decade, distilled.
Engagements are tiered by organization size and scope. Every engagement leaves you with documented systems, not dependence.
Executive-level operations leadership without the executive payroll. Monthly retainers covering operational systems, staff workflows, board reporting, and grant-cycle management.
Hands-on management of the obligations that follow the award: GATA prequalification and ICQ, SAM.gov registration, drawdown management, subgrantee monitoring, corrective action plans, and single audit readiness.
The anniversary entry point. A structured review of your registrations, policies, files, and reporting against what your funders will actually check, delivered with a prioritized corrective roadmap.
Live and on-demand training for Illinois nonprofit teams: GATA fundamentals, the Uniform Grant Agreement, budget narratives, documentation discipline, and audit preparation. Built for boards, EDs, and program staff.
The Grant Budget Narrative Toolkit built on The Continuity Framework, the Grant Readiness Toolkit, and the GATA Portal Checklist. Client-ready PDFs and working Excel systems you keep forever.
Our signature youth entrepreneurship program, available to license or implement. High school students register real businesses, open bank accounts, and make first sales in a 12-week cohort, with funder-grade outcome tracking included.
C-suite operational leadership on a part-time, contract basis. You get 15+ years of Illinois nonprofit operations, GATA compliance, grant management, and program strategy, without the cost, benefits, or hiring risk of a full-time executive.
Every engagement begins with a complimentary 30-minute discovery call. Custom project pricing is available for one-time compliance audits, SOP development, and staff training.
Most executive directors treat operational leadership as an expense they have to raise separately. Usually they do not. Under 2 CFR Part 200 and Illinois GATA, the compliance, fiscal oversight, and program management work a Fractional COO performs is an allowable cost when it is correctly classified, placed in an approved budget, and documented. There are four routes:
If you have elected the de minimis rate or hold a NICRA, the retainer is paid from recovery you are already entitled to claim.
When the scope ties to a specific program, the retainer becomes a budgeted line under Contractual or Professional Services.
Chargeable direct when integral to the project, named in the approved budget, and not also recovered as indirect.
When one COO supports several grants, the cost is split in proportion to the benefit each award receives.
Bring your current award list to a discovery call. We will tell you which route fits and what it would take to place the line.
Find the Money in My BudgetEvery line we help you place is written through the four questions a reviewer is actually asking: What does it cost and how was that number built? What does the money make possible? Who is better off? What keeps running after this award ends? When your budget answers all four, funders stop asking questions and start renewing awards. The framework anchors our toolkits, our training, and every narrative we build.
A decade of building businesses, programs, and compliant operations, told one lesson a week. Follow along on LinkedIn with #10YearsofASKBlueJae.
Perfection is not a prerequisite. Systems are.
Anyone can launch. Operations decide who survives.
Leaders need decisions made executable.
One funding stream is a single point of failure.
Documented expertise scales without you.
The L.E.N.A. story, and the licensing launch.
In compliance, close enough is a finding waiting to happen.
Introducing The Continuity Framework.
Clean books make funders compete to keep you.
The relaunch, and where ASK BlueJae Consulting goes from here.
New lessons publish Wednesdays on LinkedIn. Subscribe to the Simple & Streamlined Newsletter to get each one with the week's resource.
Learn. Execute. Network. Advance. A complete, field-built youth entrepreneurship program for grades 9 through 12, ready for schools, districts, workforce boards, and youth-serving nonprofits, and aligned with youth workforce funding priorities.
Book a 30-Minute Discovery CallTwelve questions, about three minutes, no email required. You will get a readiness score, your weakest areas named, and the specific next steps to close them. This is the same diagnostic frame we use at the start of a paid engagement.
Tell us where your organization is: pre-award, newly funded, or renewal-nervous, and we'll match you to the right starting point.
Book a 30-Minute Discovery CallPrefer email? Reach us at askbluejae@gmail.com