This brief explores the purposes and potential uses of evidence for three discrete but complementary purposes: informing focus, finding what works, and spreading what works (increasing the use of better practices and reducing use of less effective or harmful ones.) In addition, evidence can be useful for building understanding of and trust in government.

The grants management landscape has changed over the past few decades, with new laws, administrative processes, technologies, and expectations for increasing the use of data and evidence to boost federal program the effectiveness.

The Trump Administration’s guidance to remove the data from the president’s budget is counterproductive—federal agencies should be increasing their use of performance information to improve results.