Smart Start is a statewide initiative to ensure that all of North Carolina's children arrive at school healthy and ready to learn. A formative evaluation assessed, from the perspective of local participants in the original twelve Smart Start sites, how well these process goals are being met in the implementation process. Focus group and individual interviews were conducted with 53 local Smart Start participants, including parents, providers, non-profit and business personnel, board members, board chairpersons, and executive directors. Two broad process goals which are central to Smart Start were discussed in the interviews: non-bureaucratic decision-making and broad-based participation. Each of these process goals were then explored in terms of five factors which interviewees identified as keys to success to determine strengths and weaknesses in the implementation process and suggestions for improvement. These five key success factors for broad-based participation are non-agency participation, trade-offs in the decision-making process, managing potential conflicts of Interest, the role of the executive director, and combating burnout. It was determined that non-bureaucratic decision making was helped or hindered by local control, state management practices, politicization, systems change, and inter-agency collaboration. (JPB)