McAllister & Quinn is a bipartisan government relations and grants consulting firm based in Washington, D.C.
We represent a wide variety of clients including associations, nonprofits, higher education institutions, advanced technology companies, corporate and healthcare clients located across the country. Our team is a highly-experienced group of former senior level congressional staff members, as well as Federal agency, nonprofit, higher education, healthcare, and development professionals.
Increasing Funding for Existing Programs
McAllister & Quinn’s senior leadership has decades of experience working with Congress to direct funding toward our clients’ priorities. In particular, McAllister & Quinn professionals have worked with individual members of Congress and the Appropriations Committees in both the House and the Senate to increase individual budget lines in the annual bills funding the Departments of Defense, Energy, Interior, Health and Human Services, and other key departments and agencies. McAllister & Quinn, helps clients effectively plan, execute, and achieve their Federal funding goals.
Working with Federal Agencies
McAllister & Quinn has a proven track record of working with clients and federal agency program manager to assist them in protecting federal funding for existing programs of interest, as well as securing additional funding for programs of interest through the congressional authorization and appropriations processes–sometimes termed as “plus-ups.” This dual track approach of working both with Congress and agency officials has yielded results for our clients, including over $700 million since 2018 in budgetary plus-ups for research and development initiatives.
Advancing Client Priorities Through Legislation
The McAllister & Quinn team can help ensure that client priorities are included in legislation. For instance, McAllister & Quinn worked in coalition with other similar mid-sized to large nonprofits to ensure that they received critically needed Federal assistance through a COVID-19 relief package. This effort took place over several months and involved building congressional champions to support legislative priorities, collaborating with multiple nonprofit membership associations, as well as working directly with House and Senate leadership and multiple authorizing committees.
Establishing New Grant Programs
McAllister & Quinn has a successful track record of working with Congress to establish new grant funding programs to support our clients’ goals and objectives. Typically, these efforts involve working with the committees of jurisdiction in the House and Senate, coordinating with the Federal agencies where the programs will be housed, and building coalitions in support of the new program. New programs can be formed through authorizing legislation or through the congressional appropriations process. With McAllister & Quinn’s assistance, our clients have gained new sources of stable Federal funding to support their programs and developed productive relationships with their congressional representatives and key agency personnel.
Highlights & Accomplishments
A nonprofit client received two major grant awards from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Recovery Challenge Grant, a grant program created in collaboration with McAllister and Quinn, to benefit nonprofits working with the Service to recover endangered species. McAllister & Quinn not only assisted in the establishment of this grant program, but has successfully advocated for increases to the program each year.
McAllister & Quinn led a consortium of eight R1 and R2 universities to help authorize (through the National Defense Authorization Act) and appropriate over $50M in funding for the Manufacturing Engineering Education Program (MEEP).
Working on behalf of a nonprofit client, McAllister & Quinn helped establish a new federally funded maternal mental health hotline through the Health Resource & Services Administration. The hotline will fill a critical void, enabling callers to receive 24-hour emergency mental health assistance.
McAllister & Quinn worked with members of Congress to successfully add a topic to the Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (PMRP) on behalf of one of its clients. Then, in partnership with a public university, we assisted them with crafting their preapplication and full application, which garnered them a $3M award for their research.