The Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation-Strong Start (MIHOPE-Strong Start) is the largest random assignment study to date to examine the effectiveness of home visiting services on improving birth outcomes and infant and maternal health care use for expectant mothers. The study includes local home visiting programs that use one of two national evidence-based models that have been effective at improving birth outcomes: Healthy Families America (HFA) and Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP). This report presents an early examination of the baseline characteristics of families and local home visiting programs in the study. Specifically, the report presents descriptive information on 1,221 families for whom data are available, representing about 40 percent of the final sample, and discusses select characteristics of the local programs participating in the study. To provide context for understanding the types of families and local programs described, the report also details the process by which the study team recruited local programs for participation.