Honored and humbled to be named a 2026 Top Lobbyist by the National Institute for Lobbying & Ethics (NILE) for the second year in a row.
This recognition belongs to our clients, who trust us with causes that matter, and to the colleagues I’ve worked alongside in federal agencies, on Capitol Hill, and in state legislatures across the country. Most of all, it belongs to the smallest children and families whose voices are too often unheard in the halls of power. Giving them a seat at the table is the privilege of my career.
Moments like this make me reflect on what this work really is.
“Like it or not, we’re all in sales now,” Daniel Pink wrote. Nowhere is that truer than in the marble hallways of Congress. Advocacy is the selling of an idea to those who hold power. The fundamentals are familiar: understand what the other person needs, frame your ask around their interests, and make it easy to say yes.
But in Washington:
🔹 The close isn’t one signature. It’s dozens of staffers, members, and chairs, each deciding your idea is good and saying so publicly.
🔹 You rarely close alone. You lead coalitions of partners, grassroots advocates, and validators, each carrying the pitch into a different room.
🔹 The sales cycle is measured in years, not quarters.
🔹 Your product will change. The bill you introduce is a prototype, refined by the very people you’re pitching.
Advocacy is also democracy at work. It is protected in the First Amendment’s right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” It isn’t the exclusive tool of the powerful. It’s open to anyone willing to prepare a strong case, build the right relationships, and make a good ask. At its best, it translates suffering into statute and individual stories into systemic reform.
Those skills are relational, they can’t be outsourced to a machine, and they are learnable. That’s why I write the How Power Moves newsletter. How decisions actually get made, what turns a “no” into a “yes,” and how those lessons apply far beyond Capitol Hill: in the boardroom, in the community, and at the kitchen table.
The laboratory is Washington. The lessons belong to everyone.
Thank you to NILE and to everyone who makes this work possible. 🙏
#Advocacy #PublicPolicy