HR7025-119

What This Bill Does

The Evidence-Based Grantmaking Act adds a new title 5 section 316 for covered grants at major agencies including Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, HHS, Homeland Security, HUD, Interior, Justice, Labor, Transportation, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, EPA, and SBA. For each covered grant that funds services to the public or a specific community, agencies must define the grant purpose and intended outcomes in notices or requests, prioritize applicants that use evidence-based practices and show the funds will achieve the grant purpose, prioritize community-responsive applicants located in or representative of the served community, require recipients to use evidence-based practices, and have evaluation officers conduct periodic evidence-based evaluations during the grant term. Evaluations must assess whether funds achieve intended outcomes, be conducted under a process, be made public, and inform future funding notices. Evaluation officers must follow federal program evaluation standards using impact, outcome, process, implementation, and formative evaluation where appropriate. Agency heads must report annually to Congress and may provide technical assistance. The bill also requires each agency to publish proposed definitions and frameworks, take public comment, phase in framework implementation after five years, report to OMB on implementation plans and covered grant lists, and have OMB report annually to Congress on use of the frameworks.

Who Benefits and How

Communities served by federal grants benefit if grant money flows toward programs with evidence of effectiveness and applicants rooted in the community. Community organizations, nonprofits, local governments, universities, and service providers with evidence-based models benefit from priority in federal competitions. Congress, OMB, agency evaluation officers, and taxpayers benefit from clearer outcomes, public evaluation results, annual reporting, and feedback loops for future grants. People receiving federally funded services benefit if programs are required to use evidence-based practices rather than untested approaches.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Covered agencies must rewrite notices of funding opportunity, define intended outcomes, create evidence frameworks, conduct evaluations, publish results, report to Congress, provide technical assistance, and coordinate with OMB. Grant applicants must document evidence-based practices, community responsiveness, and outcome alignment. Recipients must implement evidence-based practices and participate in evaluations. Smaller organizations may face application and data burdens if they lack evaluation capacity, even though agencies may offer technical assistance.

Key Provisions

• Requires covered agencies to define grant purposes and intended outcomes in funding notices.
• Requires priority for applicants using evidence-based practices and serving community needs.
• Requires covered grant recipients to use evidence-based practices in public or community services.
• Requires agency evaluation officers to conduct periodic evidence-based evaluations during grant terms.
• Requires evaluation results to be public and used in future grant design.
• Requires annual agency reports to Congress and OMB reports on framework use.
• Requires public definitions, agency frameworks, and phased implementation for evidence-based grantmaking.