Sponsors (8)
The bill increases transparency and evidence-based oversight of grants—potentially improving value for taxpayers and alignment with community needs—but raises administrative requirements and favors better-resourced recipients, risking reduced access for smaller organizations and possible delays or higher short-term costs.
Nonprofits and local governments will receive clearer grant purposes and intended outcomes, improving transparency and helping align funded activities to community needs.
Taxpayers will likely get better value from federal grants because agencies must evaluate program effectiveness and publish results to inform future funding decisions.
Grant recipients (especially nonprofits and small organizations) will have access to agency technical assistance authority to help meet evidence-based requirements, easing compliance burdens for some recipients.
Smaller community organizations and some local governments may lose competitiveness for grants if they lack prior evidence or evaluation results, concentrating funding with larger, better-resourced recipients.
Grant recipients (nonprofits, small-business owners, local governments) will face added administrative burdens from mandatory evaluations, reporting, and adherence to federal evaluation standards.
Taxpayers and program beneficiaries may see higher program costs or delayed awards while agencies develop and implement evidence standards and evaluation frameworks.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires covered federal agencies to require and prioritize evidence-based practices in covered grants, run and publish evaluations, and follow OMB guidance issued within one year.
Introduced January 13, 2026 by Rudy Yakym · Last progress January 13, 2026
Requires certain federal grant-making agencies to make evidence-based practices a routine part of grants that fund services to the public. Agencies must write clear purposes and outcomes into funding notices, favor applicants with evidence-based approaches or strong community ties, require grantees to use evidence-based practices in service delivery, run evaluations during the grant period, publish results, and use findings to shape future funding. The OMB Director must issue guidance within one year on how agencies may define and apply “evidence-based.”