Education: Proven Process

The challenge for school system and university officials is to align the institution or system's priorities with federal goals. Carmen Group's education lobbying process involves identifying public policy trends and compatible initiatives. We work with school system officials, university presidents, deans, faculty and institutional advancement and development officers to determine projects that will not only have the greatest public impact, but also bring educational institutions the federal funding resources they need to fulfill their public roles and responsibilities.

The Research & Strategy phase of our process requires working with our education clients to offer insight into interests that compete for limited resources. We develop a roadmap for securing federal funding, while providing advice on how to leverage those funds with state, local and private capital, including identifying grant sources and other potential funding sources for alternative initiatives. With an achievable goal clearly defined, we advance to the Execution phase and begin to advocate for targeted federal assistance. At that point, our process calls for fully deploying the firm's resources at key junctures to optimize campaign success.

Upon victory, we immediately move into the final phase of our process, Future Positioning. We seek to share the accomplishment as broadly as possible among clients, Members and staff, constituents and communities and prepare the way for future success.

CG's process for accomplishing education lobbying missions includes:

• Strong client partnership with jointly embraced objectives
• Accountability in terms of status of each phase, cost of operations, expected return on investment (roi)
• Balancing academic initiatives with available federal funding resources
• Prioritizing key academic initiatives in order to ensure the best chance of success in advancing a project or program
• Matching initiatives with specific sources of revenue, or a relevant legislative "vehicle" that can advance a policy objective
• Assisting in determining the level of state, local and private funding to match Federal funding and a strategy to achieve it
• Advocating on behalf of the client before Congress, the Department of Education and other Executive Branch agencies and departments, the White House and other officials Tracking measures or provisions throughout the legislative process to ensure its ultimate passage
• Working with agencies to enable the release of targeted funds
• Providing support to grant teams, and working with academic staff to establish a basis for connecting institutional programs with federal resources