Sponsors (8)
The bill aims to improve the effectiveness and taxpayer value of federal grants by prioritizing and evaluating evidence-based, community-responsive programs, but it increases administrative burdens and risks disadvantaging small or innovative community providers.
Nonprofits and state/local governments will be more likely to deliver services using evidence-based practices because grant programs must prioritize and require those approaches.
Taxpayers could get better value from grant dollars because agencies must evaluate grant effectiveness and publish results to inform future solicitations.
Communities served (and the local governments that represent them) may receive programs better aligned to local needs because agencies must prioritize applications responsive to community needs and from organizations representative of the target community.
State and local agencies and grant recipients will face additional administrative costs and reporting burdens to develop definitions, frameworks, evaluations, and public reporting.
Smaller providers and community organizations lacking evaluation capacity may be disadvantaged in competing for grants as the prioritization of evidence-based practices favors organizations with evaluation resources.
Communities may lose out on innovative or promising but untested community-led practices because prioritizing 'evidence-based' approaches can narrow the pool of eligible or favored programs.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires listed federal agencies to require, prioritize, evaluate, and report on evidence-based practices for covered grants and directs OMB to issue guidance on the term.
Introduced January 13, 2026 by Rudy Yakym · Last progress January 13, 2026
Requires a set list of federal agencies to make evidence-based practices a central part of how they design, award, and manage certain competitive grants. Agencies must describe intended outcomes in grant notices, prioritize applicants who use or will use evidence-based approaches and who are responsive to community needs, require grant-funded services to use evidence-based practices, run periodic evaluations during grants, publish results, and report annually to Congress. The Director of OMB is directed to issue guidance within one year defining how agencies should interpret and apply “evidence-based.”