Federal grant programs / Department of Health and Human Services

Healthy Marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood Grants (93.086)

Also known as (HMRF)

• Awarded, FY 2021 to 2025$493 million
• Grant awards241
• Typical award$1.3 million
• Awarded in FY 2025$106 million
• Size rank378 of 1824
• Type of assistanceProject grants (discretionary), dissemination of technical information

Key findings

• Annual funding fell from $115 million in fiscal 2021 to $106 million in fiscal 2025.
• It is the 378th largest of 1,824 federal grant programs by five-year awards.
• The 20 largest recipients received 37% of the money.
• Awards went to recipients in 41 states and territories.

What the program funds

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.

From the federal Assistance Listing. Read the full listing on SAM.gov.

Open opportunities

No opportunity under this program is open or forecast on Grants.gov right now. Programs often post once a year, so the funding history below shows what to expect.

Rules from the program listing

Who can apply

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.

What the money can and cannot pay for

Healthy Marriage Promotion activities include the following: (I) Public advertising campaigns on the value of marriage and the skills needed to increase marital stability and health. (II) Education in high schools on the value of marriage, relationship skills, and budgeting. (III) Marriage education, marriage skills, and relationship skills programs, that may include parenting skills, financial management, conflict resolution, and job and career advancement. (IV) Pre-marital education and marriage skills training for engaged couples and for couples or individuals interested in marriage. (V) Marriage enhancement and marriage skills training programs for married couples. (VI) Divorce reduction programs that teach relationship skills. (VII) Marriage mentoring programs which use married couples as role models and mentors in at-risk communities. (VIII) Programs to reduce the disincentives to marriage in means-tested aid programs, if offered in conjunction with any activity described in this subparagraph.

Continue reading on SAM.gov

Matching requirements

This program has no statutory formula. Matching requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing. MOE requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing.

Award range and average, in the agency's words

For the FY 2025 cohort, the range of assistance under HM program is $410,000 - 1,250,000. The range of assistance under RF program is $450,000 - $1,250,000. The average award is $215,000 per budget period for TTCW.

Quoted from the program's federal Assistance Listing. The notice of funding opportunity is the official source for each competition's rules.

Who usually wins

Nonprofits received 80% of the money, colleges and universities 13% and state and local governments 3.2%.

By state

35 states have a page for this program: those that received at least $1 million or 10 awards.

Award amounts are federal obligations reported to USAspending.gov for fiscal 2021 to 2025; see how our data works.