To incorporate evidence into grantmaking, the White House and OMB  have encouraged agencies to use tiered evidence grants, which link  funds to an evidence framework. Smaller awards are used to test new and innovative service models;  larger awards are used to scale service models with strong evidence. To implement tiered evidence grants, the four agencies in our review add  evidence and evaluation requirements throughout the federal grant life  cycle. For example,
Preliminary evidence tier. Strong evidence tier. For DOL,  Education, and CNCS tiered evidence grants, every grantee was required  to contract with a third party evaluator to conduct an independent  evaluation of its service model and submit it to the respective federal  grantmaking agency at the end of the grant period. Agencies Identified Potential Benefits of Tiered Evidence Grants and Described Implementation Challenges

		Federal Agencies Identified Potential Benefits of Tiered Evidence Grants

Officials that we interviewed from the four agencies in our review  identified the following potential benefits of tiered evidence grants:
Provide incentives to implement service models that are supported  by evidence. Some of the grantees we  interviewed said that to monitor fidelity, they had to build new systems to  collect data—such as attendance data—on how their service models  were implemented. In some cases, grantees are required to submit an  evaluation plan as part of their grant application. Agency Officials and Grantees Identified Key Factors That Facilitate the Use of Tiered Evidence Grants

Officials from the four agencies in our review and grantees identified five  key factors that facilitate the use of tiered evidence grants by addressing  challenges in administering the evidence and evaluation requirements in  tiered evidence grants (see text box). As a result, HHS  developed a dissemination tool kit for grantees on communicating  evaluation results. Networks for grantees. By relying on ad-hoc collaboration, agencies using tiered evidence grants  may miss opportunities to capture and share lessons learned that could  strengthen and improve tiered evidence grant making government-wide. In our prior work on  collaboration, we reported that collaborative mechanisms, such as  interagency groups or collaboration technology, can be used to develop  policies, implement programs, and share information. Tiered evidence grants offer a means for  agencies to evaluate the effectiveness of their programs and for  Congress and agencies to fund programs based on proven and emerging  service delivery models. The Office of Management and Budget had no comments on the draft  report. The objectives of this report were to describe 1) key features  that tiered evidence grants add to federal grant processes, (2) benefits  and challenges of using tiered evidence grants, (3) key factors to facilitate  the use of tiered evidence grants, and (4) to assess the extent to which  the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and federal agencies are  collaborating on evidence and evaluation requirements in tiered evidence  grants. We focused on  programs that have operated long enough to show implementation results  and lessons learned—specifically those established prior to 2013. We  selected programs based on design features, including the size of the  grant award, whether programs had a matching funding requirement, the  timing of when the agency reviewed the evidence, and the number of  evidence tiers. We also interviewed national evaluation organizations that agencies  contracted with to provide technical assistance to grantees and conduct  evaluations across multiple grantees.
Why GAO Did This Study

The federal government spends more than $600 billion a year on grants to fund a wide range of programs and services, including those related to social services, education, and health care. To better integrate evidence and rigorous evaluation in federal grantmaking, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has encouraged federal agencies to use tiered evidence grant programs.
The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 includes a provision for GAO to periodically review its implementation. The objectives of this report are to describe (1) key features of tiered evidence grants, (2) benefits and challenges of using tiered evidence grants, and (3) key factors to facilitate their use, and (4) to assess the extent to which federal agencies collaborate on tiered evidence grants.
To address these objectives GAO identified the five domestic-focused tiered evidence grant programs that were established prior to 2013. GAO reviewed key documents and interviewed officials from these programs. GAO also interviewed grant recipients from three of the grant programs. GAO selected these grant programs using various criteria, such as the number of evidence tiers and their total amount of funding.

What GAO Found

Tiered evidence grants are a new policy tool federal agencies are using to incorporate evidence of effectiveness into grantmaking. Under this approach, agencies establish tiers of grant funding based on the level of evidence grantees provide on their models for providing social, educational, health, or other services. Smaller awards are used to test new and innovative service models; larger awards are used to scale service models with strong evidence. To implement tiered evidence grants, agencies add evidence and evaluation requirements throughout the federal grant life cycle, including conducting independent evaluations of the grantees' service models and disseminating the evaluation results.
Note: Some programs have two tiers—preliminary evidence and strong evidence.
Agency officials identified several potential benefits of using tiered evidence grants, such as providing incentives for grantees to implement service models supported by evidence and conducting evaluations to build the evidence base. Officials from the agencies in GAO's review and grantees also identified various challenges with tiered evidence grants. In some cases the agencies identified factors to mitigate the challenges. For example, grantees told GAO that they encountered challenges drafting evaluation plans (which describe the methodology and are generally required for the grant applications). As an example of how agencies addressed this challenge, the Department of Labor contracted with a program evaluation firm to provide grantees with technical assistance and increased the time for grantees to draft evaluation plans that accurately reflected their service models.
GAO has previously reported on collaborative mechanisms, such as interagency groups, that can be used to implement programs and share lessons learned. However, currently there is no formal mechanism administered by OMB for agencies to collaborate on tiered evidence grants. By relying on ad hoc collaboration, agencies may miss opportunities to capture and share lessons learned that could strengthen tiered evidence grantmaking.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that OMB establish a formal means for federal agencies to collaborate on tiered evidence grants. OMB had no comments on the recommendation.