How to Advocate for Development Capital – the Lifeblood of Every New Initiative

By CJ Evans, Managing Director, American Diversified Enterprises, Co-Founder, Alternative Fuels & Chemicals coalition
Special to The Daily Digest

What Can You Do to Expand Access to Development Capital?

A lot.

It is neither too late nor too early to begin advocating for federal financing to expedite the development and deployment of projects that will mitigate the climate crisis.

The lack of development capital is the major obstacle standing in the way of moving worthwhile projects forward.

It also is the major reason that far too many projects that could make a difference fall into the valley of death because of the lack of this capital.

Here are some tips on what you can do:

• Use the accompanying article – the Development Capital, the Lifeblood of Every New Initiative, Is Much Too Hard to Obtain – to stimulate awareness about this issue and draw attention to it.
• Use it as a springboard to acquaint your Members of Congress and the staff and members of the House and Senate committees with oversight of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its annual appropriations – the House Committees on Energy and Commerce and Science, Space, and Technology and the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources as well as the House and Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittees – to begin discussing legislative and appropriations language to provide development capital funding.
• New legislation can be initiated at any time; however, it can be a much more time consuming, complex, and often frustrating and disappointing way of trying to advance an initiative than if an initiative can be incorporated into an annual appropriation request for one of the federal agencies.
• Requesting federal funding for development capital is an appropriations request, which follows a well-established format and (a sometimes delayed but conclusive) timeline each year.
• Even though the annual appropriations process does not begin until mid-February, it is not too early to begin laying the groundwork for making a successful request.
• There are five building blocks to developing effective relationships with Congressional staff, if you do not already have relationships in place. See the Five Cs
• It is important to begin this process before you ask for something and, most definitely, before legislation is moving through committee and heading to the floor.
• It also is useful to know how best to advocate for a cause.
• Two articles with tips on how to lobby effectively, which I have developed over 40+ years as a registered lobbyist, were published earlier this year: Sustainability, innovation, and the bioeconomy: How to lobby for favourable government policies and 15 steps to successfully lobbying government for your cause.

Here the Five Cs to developing an effective relationship with Congressional staff:

1. Connection: To be effective, you need to know who you can speak with, who will listen to your request, and who can help advance your request. This will be one or more of the staff people in the offices of your Representative and Senators and the professional staff who work in the committees and subcommittees that have oversight for the issues of interest to you.

Begin by following the links to Find your Representative and Find your Senator.

Click on the link to their websites. Next, click on “Contact.” You will be given several options: fill in a form to make a request, get assistance, schedule an appointment, sign up for email updates, etc. All of these options can be of use at some future point, especially filling in the form to make a request.

Initially, however, you want to connect with the staff member with whom you can develop a working relationship going forward. Hence, scroll to the bottom of the page to view the office’s Washington, DC office phone number.

Call the office and ask for the name and email address of the staff or staffers working in the areas germane to your issue; in the case of development capital, it will be the legislative aides (LA) for energy and appropriations.

Email the staff.

Keep in mind that staff receive an enormous number of emails, so it is helpful to have a subject line that conveys your issue of concern – say, ECONOMIC-GROWTH,  JOB-CREATING PROJECTS NEED YOUR HELP – and a message that is clear and concise.

Tell the staff person who you are, what you do, the issue that is of interest to you, and why you are reaching out.

Print out and attach (more effective) or provide a link to the Development Capital, the Lifeblood of Every New Initiative, Is Much Too Hard to Obtain article in Biofuels Digest.

2. Cultivation: Most people reaching out to their Members of Congress and their staff need or want something. Hence, it is best to start by being a little different.

Staff are the people who are directed by their Members to carry out the initiatives that the Member wishes to undertake. They also are on the front line of all the requests received by a Member’s office.

It is their job to sort through these requests, to find those that have a possibility of resonating with their Member, present it to the Member, and follow the Member’s direction to ignore it, explore it further, or take action.

In short, staff are the most important people with whom you can have contact.  They are the people who ultimately get things done in Congress.

Because staff are pummeled with requests, need to deal with many issues, and have to learn enough about each issue to be able to inform their Member about the opportunities related to an issue, helping them learn more about the issues that are of concern to you is a plus … and welcomed by staff.

The first job of an effective lobbyist is as an educator: providing accurate, verifiable information in a succinct, easy to absorb in a way that –  very importantly –  selects the facets of an issue that are most likely to resonate with the worldview and priorities of a Member’s office, to help staff and the Member better understand the issues you wish to discuss.

Offering to be a resource also is a big plus. It provides staff with a means of learning more about an issue should their Member ask. It also is a clear indication that the relationship you are seeking to develop is a two-way street.

You would not be reaching out to a staff person if, at some point, you are going to want something, to request something.

But you are beginning the outreach by offering something of value in return: you, as a source of reliable, additional information on an issue about which the staff person will need to know more, including the varied views from industry participants, stakeholders, and opponents.

You will do well to be forthright and candid about each of these views. Be honest about your views and biases. But be open about what other views need to be taken into consideration and where a staff person can learn about those views.

Doing so will go a long way toward developing a trusted – and greatly appreciated – relationship with staff and advancing the initiatives that you wish to present.

3. Communication: Recognize that staff are extremely busy, get besieged by multiple emails and meeting requests, and have to work long hours. Be very discreet, therefore, in the number and content of the emails you send. Be sure they are short, productive, and advance the initiatives for which you wish to seek the support and engagement of the staff person.

Be sure to provide updates on news articles, social media posts, and announcements about the issues on which you wish to work with the staffer. This, to provide ongoing, worthwhile, and productive contact.

Be sure to provide the staff person with the information and background – in a succinct, compressed way – on the issues you wish to seek support.

The rule here is to provide a summary of the information you wish to and can share but to keep content short – no more than a one-page bullet point list – and let the staff person ask for more detail if and when it is needed.

Be sure as well to let the staff person know, once rapport has been developed, the specific issue in which you are interested, your request related to that issue, and very helpfully, suggested legislative language that can be used to address the issue.

4. Congratulations: Keep track of the legislation that each office, and each committee and subcommittee is advancing. When that legislation moves to the next step – voted out of committee, advanced to floor consideration, approved on the floor, sent to the President for signature and enactment – be sure to congratulate staff on their efforts in advancing the legislation.

Staff typically receive very few plaudits. The Members are the ones who take credit for the work of staff. Recognizing staff for the key roles they play and for being the ones who are the glue who hold Congress together and make things happen, is something that is both needed and appreciated.

This goes for any issue on which staff is working, not just the issues that are of interest to you.

5. Celebration: Be sure to let staff know when their efforts in helping advance an issue of importance to you is successful.

Staff cannot accept gifts, but an email of acknowledgement and thanks is important.

If you plan to be in DC or, better yet, make it a point to travel to DC, to set up a meeting with the staff responsible for successfully advancing your issue, and invite them to lunch or to have a drink with you (Dutch treat) as a thank you.

If you plan a celebration event, do so in DC so you can invite the staff who made it happen, and to call attention to them during the event, to thank them for their contributions that made it possible.

Be sure to make the staff who make every victory possible – even if it is less than you wanted, say, only 5% of what you wanted, which still is a victory – a part of our celebration, since no matter how much you accomplish, it nevertheless is a victory, and often due in large part to the staff with whom you cultivated, communicated, and worked.

• The same goes for the professional staff on the committees and subcommittees that have jurisdiction over the U.S. Department of Energy – the House Committees on Energy and Commerce and Science, Space, and Technology, and the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
• Should you have additional questions about how to advocate for federal funding for development capital, please see the lobbying tips in the articles on: Sustainability, innovation, and the bioeconomy: How to lobby for favourable government policies and 15 steps to successfully lobbying government for your cause.