Healthy Marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants

This program works on strengthening families, with a range of different approaches. Under the HEART (Helping Every Area of Relationships Thrive) opportunity, projects support activities to promote healthy marriages and/or relationships to ultimately strengthen families. Under the READY4Life (Relationships, Education, Advancement, and Development for Youth for Life) opportunity, projects provide comprehensive services that help youth build healthy relationship skills now and for the future (including dating, marriage, and co-parenting) while supporting positive socioemotional development and successful transitions to young adulthood. Under the FORGE (Family, Opportunity, Resilience, Grit, Engagement) Fatherhood opportunity, projects support activities to promote responsible fatherhood under each of three broad categories of promoting or sustaining marriage, responsible parenting, and economic stability activities. For the Child Welfare Services to Tribal Families at Risk of Child Abuse or Neglect Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Child Welfare (TTCW) opportunity, projects support Tribal governments in designing and implementing demonstration projects that strengthen collaboration between TANF and Child Welfare systems.

Under the Healthy Marriage Promotion provision of the legislation, all public and private entities are eligible to apply (including, state, territorial, local, and quasi-governmental agencies, Native American tribal governments and tribal organizations, nonprofit organizations, independent school districts, public, private or Tribal institutions of higher education, and for-profit entities). Eligible applicants under Responsible Fatherhood include: states, territories, Native American tribes and tribal organizations, and public and nonprofit community entities (including public and private nonprofit post-secondary educational institutions). Individuals (including sole proprietorships) and foreign entities are not eligible.
Faith-based and community organizations that meet the eligibility requirements are eligible. The eligible applicants under the Tribal TANF and Child Welfare Services program are: Indian tribes and Alaska Native regional non-profits that administer a Tribal TANF program or a consortia of two or more Indian tribes.

Persons who may benefit from the assistance includes, individuals, couples, and youth in need of assistance with Healthy Marriage services.

For the Responsible Fatherhood programs, beneficiaries are fathers (with children who are up to age 24) interested in Responsible Fatherhood activities, including parenting education, economic stability services, and marriage and relationship education (recipients may not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, age, disability, or religion) .

Tribal TANF Child Welfare funds assist in the efforts to enhance and expand the ability of tribes and tribal consortia to assist tribal families at risk of child abuse or neglect of child welfare services and services under tribal TANF.

The competitive award for all three programs under this listing was conducted in September 2025 for a 5-year project period. We do not anticipate the making of new awards until 2030, assuming congressional appropriation. The award procedure is: Each application is reviewed against four factors: eligibility, application deadline, required electronic submission or waiver requested and approved, and the Award Ceiling. If the applicant does not meet all of these factors, then it is disqualified from the merit review process. After the initial review, applications are reviewed and evaluated by merit review panels using only the criteria described in the Application Review section of the NOFO. Each panel is composed of experts with knowledge and experience in the area under review. Generally, review panels include three reviewers and one chairperson. While the merit review scores and their ranking are not binding, ACF does consider them when selecting projects for funding. Scores and rankings are only one element used in the award decision-making process. Other criteria are explained in the Program Description section and the Application Review section of the NOFO. For example, ACF may reserve the right to evaluate applications in the larger context of the overall portfolio by considering geographic distribution of federal funds (e.g., ensuring coverage of states, counties, or service areas) in its pre-award decisions. ACF will complete a review of risk posed by applicants as described in 45 CFR 75.205, or on or after October 1, 2025, 2 CFR 200.206. ACF may elect not to fund applicants with management or financial problems that would indicate an inability to successfully complete the proposed project. In addition, ACF may elect not to allow a prime recipient to subaward if there is any indication they are unable to properly monitor and manage subrecipients. Applications may be funded in whole or in part. Successful applicants may be funded at an amount lower than req

All awards were approved/disapproved by September 2025.