HMRF Evaluation

HMRF Evaluation at MER

The Office of Family Assistance (OFA) will soon be accepting applications for their next five-year funding cycle for Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) programs, which awards a total of $150 million per year to programs providing services related to parenting, healthy marriages, and relationships. If you are seeking an evaluation partner to help you plan, design, fund, and measure your program’s outcomes, the experts at Midwest Evaluation and Research are here to help.

2025 Funding Opportunities

OFA has posted funding opportunities for the following three grant types:

  • FORGE Fatherhood (Family, Opportunity, Resilience, Grit, Engagement – Fatherhood): Funding for programs that serve adult fathers who have children ages 24 and younger and promote marriage or sustaining marriage, responsible parenting, and economic stability
  • HEART (Helping Every Area of Relationships Thrive – Adults): Funding for programs that serve adults and promote healthy marriage education, relationship skills, and job and career advancement opportunities
  • READY4Life (Relationships, Education, Advancement, and Development for Youth for Life): Funding for programs that serve youth in high school, late adolescence, and early adulthood (ages 14–24) and promote healthy relationship and marriage education

MER's Experience

Our team of valued experts has been serving HMRF programs for 15 years, so we understand the needs and challenges that programs face. In the current 2020–2025 grant cycle, we serve as the evaluators for 12 HMRF programs. By conducting randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental evaluations, and descriptive analyses, we help our clients showcase the full impact of their programs. Additionally, several of our experts work directly with OFA to provide training and technical assistance to HMRF grant recipients.

MER incorporates continuous quality improvement (CQI) in all our partnerships. Through the CQI process, our evaluators can help your staff identify metrics, set targets, and make progress toward those targets to ultimately achieve your program’s outcomes. 

Contact us!

If you are interested in working with MER to help your program win HMRF funding in 2025, please complete the interest form below.