About Congress and Members of Congress
Before you get started, take a few minutes to find out about your Congressmen and the budget process. You should know the committees that your legislators serve on and their history of support for child survival. The budget process is complicated, but the information provided here explains the different stages of budget formulation and approval.
Membership of relevant committees in the House and Senate - Members of Congress take the most interest and have the most influence over issues that pertain to their committees, so it is especially important to target legislators on the relevant committees: the Foreign Relations Committee, which oversees international programs like USAID and the Global Fund; the Budget Committee, which allocates funds to specific committees; and the Appropriations Committee, which determines the specifics of committee spending.
Record of SCCS interaction with Members of Congress (coming soon) - To lobby members of Congress effectively, it is important to know their history of support for child survival and past interactions with SCCS members. Use a member of Congress’ past support for child survival or a related issue (international development, global health, or domestic health and children’s issues) as a lead-in to issues that concern you. Mention their past interactions with SCCS if you know that they or one of their staffers has met with us before.
Explanation of the budget process - The budget process is complicated and takes a full year to complete (if it is completed at all!). It’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the stages and figure out the stage that Congress is currently at. This factsheet explains the budget process in two pages, and this PowerPoint presentation provides an extremely useful graphical representation of the process.
