Looking to Make Federal Legislation Evidence-Based?

Results for America’s new tool – the Federal Evidence-Based Legislative Inventory – is an easy way for Congressional offices, state and local governments, and nonprofit partners to find good examples of evidence-based legislation.

You can view the real-time status of every bill, filter by issue area and see where bills include evidence-related provisions. The inventory helps lawmakers and their staff draft new evidence-based bills, reintroduce existing bills, and find model language to guide federal investment in effective solutions for the American people.

Helping Leaders Find, Fund and Implement What Works

Results for America helps government leaders find, fund and implement solutions that work to accelerate upward economic mobility and improve lives. When federal, state and local government decision-makers increase their use of evidence and data in budget, policy and program decisions, results improve.

The Federal Evidence-Based Legislative Inventory helps accelerate that progress. Government leaders don’t have to start from scratch. They can build on previous legislation. They can learn from what has worked elsewhere. They can also include impact requirements that steer dollars to solutions that deliver better results.

How to Use the Federal Evidence-Based Legislative Inventory

To search for relevant legislation, filter by Session, Chamber, Sponsor, Cosponsors, Committees, Evidence Provision and Issue Area.

Each bill displays up to three badges indicating its related evidence provision: Includes an Evidence Definition, Defines and Prioritizes Evidence and Builds Evidence. Additional issue area badges highlight the policy areas the legislation addresses.

Click the legislation to view additional information, such as a summary, sponsorship and information about how it advances evidence.

This tool is updated on a quarterly basis, and includes legislation from the 118th and 119th Congress. If you know of legislation that should be included in the Federal Evidence-Based Legislative Inventory, we encourage you to flag it for our team’s review. For questions about navigating this resource or to suggest legislation for inclusion, please contact our team.

Understanding the Evidence-Based Legislative Inventory

Results for America assesses federal legislation for three major criteria:

Legislation that includes an evidence definition

Clearly defining “evidence” is a key step in ensuring that federal grant programs are investing in what works. By determining what counts as evidence under statute, federal agencies can then evaluate and score proposals against a clear standard and set expectations for applicants. In order to define evidence in legislation, bills can:

Reference an existing evidence definition in statute. Example
Develop a new evidence definition. Example
Direct federal agencies to develop a definition Example

All three of these examples are included in the inventory.

For more information, review Results for America’s evidence definitions, and view examples of evidence definitions under current law in Results for America’s Federal Evidence-Based Spending Guide.

Legislation that defines and prioritizes evidence

In addition to defining evidence, prioritizing evidence helps ensure that a greater proportion of government dollars are invested in strategies proven to improve outcomes.

There are two broad approaches to prioritizing evidence for federal grant programs in legislation:

Requiring that grant funding be used to support evidence-based programs. Example
Establishing a preference for grant applications that meet the government’s evidence definitions (e.g., Evidence Preference/Allocating Bonus Points). Example

For more information, view examples of federal programs prioritizing evidence under current law in Results for America’s Federal Evidence-Based Spending Guide.

Legislation that builds evidence through evaluation

Funding program evaluation helps build evidence to inform the field about what works, for whom and under what circumstances. Evaluation results show how specific interventions affect outcomes and provide important insights into program design.

There are several ways legislation can promote building evidence through evaluation:

Funds can be reserved and/or authorized for rigorous evaluation of federal grant activities. Legislation may also require independent evaluations, and give agencies clear authority to procure and pay for third-party evaluations.
Funds can be made available for technical assistance, training or additional grants to help agencies and/or grantees implement evaluations.
Funds can be used to establish a board, commission or advisory group to set evidence priorities, advise on research and evaluation methods and disseminate results.
Funds can be used to build or expand a clearinghouse, public evaluation database, open data portal or data-sharing system.

For more information, view examples of federal programs building evidence under current law in Results for America’s Federal Evidence-Based Spending Guide.

Results for America’s Shifting Dollars Technical Assistance^SM

Our Shifting Dollars Technical Assistance℠ is available to leaders at every level of government to better integrate data and evidence into their decisions.