Welfare reform in 1996 made sweeping changes to the national welfare policy, including a new emphasis on marriage as an area of societal and governmental concern. With the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which established the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, Congress wrote into law that marriage is the foundation of a successful society and promotes the interests of children. Congress was, in part, prompted to address this issue because of what it deemed a “crisis in our Nation” in the rate of pregnancies and births to unmarried women. In the legislation, Congress cited the negative consequences to children that result from these pregnancies and births, including greater risk for child abuse and neglect, higher rates of poverty, and lower educational aspirations. TANF was reauthorized under the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA), and signed into law in February 2006. DRA appropriated $150 million a year for 5 years in discretionary grants for the Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Initiative (Initiative). While the Initiative was established as part of TANF, the nation’s welfare program, it does not impose income limits for program participants. However, HHS designated a few priority groups for funding under the Initiative, including incarcerated fathers and low-income, unwed, expectant or new parents. In structuring the Initiative, HHS created two distinct grant programs—one relating to Healthy Marriage and one to Responsible Fatherhood—but with common aims. The Healthy Marriage program is aimed at encouraging the formation and maintenance of two-parent households to improve child well-being through healthy marriage promotion, and the Responsible Fatherhood program is designed to strengthen the role of the father as a means of promoting child well-being, specifically within the context of marriage. HHS has stressed that the overarching Initiative is not designed to encourage couples to stay in unhealthy marriages. In the legislation, Congress prescribed the “allowable” activities for the Initiative (see table 1). Given the broadness of these allowable activities, HHS developed examples of services grantees could provide, such as providing after-school programs for high school students and marriage education courses that incorporate information on financial literacy. Although providing services to victims of domestic violence is not an allowable activity (see table 1), organizations were required by DRA to describe in their grant application how their programs or activities would “address” issues of domestic violence, and commit in their application to consult with experts in domestic violence in developing their programs and activities. The DRA also required that organizations describe in their application what they would do to ensure and how they would inform individuals that participation in programs is voluntary. In fiscal year 2007 most of the funding, approximately $113 million, was used to support Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood demonstration grants, while the remaining funds were used for research, technical assistance, administrative costs, and other TANF-related activities (see fig. 1). As part of the agency’s overall research agenda, HHS has sponsored several impact evaluations of its programs. These evaluations are considered to be the best method of determining the extent to which the program, rather than other factors, is causing specific participant outcomes. Impact evaluations, which are awarded through a competitive bid process to experienced research firms, often are complex, multiyear studies that can be difficult and costly to undertake and require particular attention to both study planning and execution. Moreover, maintaining proper incentives to obtain and sustain the participation of populations that do not have financial and familial stability can be challenging. In previous work, we found that HHS has established a rigorous research agenda that regularly evaluates how well its programs are working. In particular, HHS has a diverse research agenda focused on TANF that includes research on strategies to help low-income individuals gain self- sufficiency. HHS awarded grants to a range of public and private organizations, but its awards process later contributed to challenges for these grantees. HHS shortened its awards process to meet a deadline specified in legislation that allowed 7 months to award grants. HHS awarded grants to a diverse set of grantees that provided direct services to program participants in 47 states, the District of Columbia, and American Samoa. However, as part of its awards process, HHS did not fully examine grantees’ programs as described in grantee applications, including the activities they planned to offer, contributing to challenges for some grantees as they were implementing their programs. HHS shortened its process to award grants by the end of the fiscal year (September 30). Under DRA, which became law in February 2006, HHS had to award grants in 7 months. Within this time frame, HHS had to perform several tasks related to the awards process. Specifically, HHS staff said they developed the grant announcements and the criteria for selecting grantees under tight time constraints and limited the amount of time organizations could apply for grants to fewer than the 60 days recommended in HHS’s policy manual. HHS officials, who told us they had not expected that more than 1,650 organizations would apply for funding, hired The Dixon Group, a management consulting firm, to receive applications, locate grant application reviewers, and assist with reviewer training. At the same time The Dixon Group was receiving applications, they also were selecting peer reviewers. Approximately 600 peer reviewers served on 40 to 50 review panels for 4 weeks during July and August. While the grant announcements stated that grant application reviewers should be experts, HHS allowed peer review of the applications and The Dixon Group and HHS characterized graduate students, professors, and practitioners as peer reviewers. Further, because individuals who were experts in the field of marriage and fatherhood applied for the grants, it limited the pool of available expert reviewers. We reviewed several of the resumes of the peer reviewers and found that while most had experience as federal reviewers, their professional and volunteer experiences were not always directly relevant to marriage and fatherhood services. For example, one peer reviewer had experience in nursing and another listed experience as a social studies teacher. To determine which organizations would receive funding, HHS developed guidance that outlined a five-part criteria for most grants, with each criterion worth a specific amount of points. Reviewers scored organizations’ applications using the guidance provided by HHS and by judging how well the applicant responded to each criterion. For example, a major criterion was the applicant’s “approach,” worth 40 points. For this criterion, applicants were asked to describe their approach to recruiting and retaining participants, their proposed activities, and time frames for accomplishing specific milestones. Applicants also were required to demonstrate that their proposed activities were consistent with the needs of their target population and that the rationale for the approach was based on the demonstrated effectiveness of similar activities. Finally, under their approach section, applicants also had to describe how they planned to address issues of domestic violence and ensure voluntary participation. For the “organizational profile” criterion, worth 20 points, organizations had to provide information that demonstrated their qualifications to serve participants, including organizational charts, financial statements, resumes, letters of support, and the qualifications of partnering organizations. As part of other criteria, applicants were asked to provide a budget and budget justification, and information on how they proposed to measure the outcomes of their programs. Applicants could receive up to 5 bonus points if they demonstrated prior experience in developing, implementing, or managing skills-based marriage or fatherhood education programs. See appendix II for a table of the criteria used for each type of grant. The peer reviewers used these criteria to score applicants, and HHS ranked the applications based on the scores. With some exceptions, applications that received the highest scores were awarded grants. HHS made exceptions to ensure, among other things, that grants were geographically distributed and reflected a diversity of target populations and communities served. In September 2006, HHS began notifying grantees of their awards, but experienced a setback when they had to reconvene review panels to rescore 31 applications. When scoring some applications, some reviewers incorrectly gave applicants zero points for the “approach” section. According to the grant announcements, if applicants failed to discuss how they would inform individuals that program participation was voluntary, as well as discuss specific issues relating to domestic violence issues, they would receive no points for the “approach” criterion. HHS discovered that reviewers had incorrectly interpreted whether applicants satisfied this portion of the “approach” criterion, and after clarifying the criteria, required that they rereview the applications. HHS awarded grants to a diverse set of grantees that included 216 different organizations—122 were Healthy Marriage and 94 were Responsible Fatherhood demonstration grants that provided direct services to program participants in 47 states, the District of Columbia, and American Samoa (see app. III). In responding to our survey, grantees selected multiple categories to describe their organizational type. The majority—89 percent of the grantees—classified themselves as nonprofits. However, faith- based, for-profit, and private organizations also received funding. Awards for Healthy Marriage demonstration grants ranged from $225,000 to $2.4 million, and awards for Responsible Fatherhood demonstration grants were for smaller amounts, ranging from $188,000 to $1 million. Over two-thirds of our survey respondents indicated that their organization had prior experience related to healthy marriage or responsible fatherhood activities. This experience included providing workshops for couples and singles, parenting classes, and relationship workshops for high school students. Some of these organizations also provided a broader array of other services to the community, such as mental health services and counseling services, and substance abuse treatment. Also, at least a dozen of the grantees had provided abstinence services and some Healthy Marriage grantees were previous recipients of grants from HHS for related purposes, including healthy marriage curriculum development and fostering healthy marriage within underserved communities. HHS’s grant awards process contributed to challenges grantees later faced implementing their programs.