Ep04: Securing federal grant support, with Mark McIntyre

Our guest on this episode is Mark McIntyre, Principal and Co-Founder of Merchant McIntyre Associates, the nation's leading federal government relations firm serving nonprofit organizations.

In our conversation with Mark, he shares a specific, proven methodology for engaging with and securing significant grant support from the federal government.

Prior to co-founding Merchant McIntyre, Mark was SVP and Director of Russ Reid's Washington D.C. office, focused on securing federal appropriations support for nonprofits. Before leading Russ Reid DC, Mark helped build the largest privately owned government relations firm in history.  Mark's career began in politics and policy, where he worked in the White House, as Chief Speechwriter to then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, and in Congress as Press Secretary to Rep. Robert L. Livingston (now retired).

During his career, Mark and his team have helped secure hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for nonprofits.

Mark is also a contributing author to the new Amazon #1 Best Seller, 101 Biggest Mistakes Nonprofits Make And How You Can Avoid Them. You can get the first 10 chapters FREE today!

Show Transcript:

Andrew Olsen:                  Hey everyone, welcome. This is Andrew Olsen with my colleague and cohost, Roy Jones, hosts of the Rainmaker Fundraising Podcast. Really excited to be with you today, and we are super excited to have Mark McIntyre as our guest today.

Andrew Olsen:                  Mark has lived and work in the DC area for the last 33 years, and during that time, Mark has done so many things. He's worked for congress, he's worked in the White House, he's helped to build the largest privately-owned government relations agency in history.

Andrew Olsen:                  Today, Mark's co founder of Merchant McIntyre and Associates, and they're leading a federal grants agency that exclusively serves nonprofit organizations. During his 33 year career, Mark and his team have helped secure hundreds of million dollars for all sorts of different nonprofit organizations through the federal government.

Andrew Olsen:                  In fact, I believe, at a time, Roy might've even been a client of Mark's.

Roy Jones:                          I have to admit, I was and that's how I first indirectly met you, Andrew, is we reached out to Mark's agency and they helped us when I was director of development, to get, I think it was about 12 million dollars worth of government funding programs. So, I have to plead guilty.

Mark McIntyre:                 [inaudible 00:01:38]

Andrew Olsen:                  Mark, welcome. It's good to have you.

Mark McIntyre:                 Thank you Andrew, thank you Roy. Good to be with you guys again.

Andrew Olsen:                  Hey, you know man, it's not lost on us that yesterday, former president George Herbert Walker Bush, Bush 41 was laid to rest. If I'm not mistaken, your time in the White House actually, you had the distinct privilege of serving as a speech writer for Bush 41, didn't you?

Mark McIntyre:                 I did, and it's really kind of you to ask. I've heard from family and friends for the last several days since his passing, and what I tell folks is I'm joyful for the life that he lived, and I feel blessed to have served him.

Mark McIntyre:                 I was with him primarily when he was vice-president. I served as his chief speech writer, and am I allowed to just share one anecdote that I'd like to share with you to give you a sense of who he is?

Andrew Olsen:                  Love to hear it.

Mark McIntyre:                 Back in the day, if you worked on the vice-president's staff, and that's all the way down to the mail carrier, literally. If you worked on the vice-president's staff and Air Force II was traveling to your home town, then you were on the plane, and you were in the motorcade to the event. Once you got to the event, the vice-president and Mrs. Bush, if she made the trip, would go to a holding room briefly, and the first people they would greet would be your family.

Andrew Olsen:                  Oh wow, that's really cool.

Mark McIntyre:                 It really is, and obviously there was absolutely no requirement for him to do that, but it was clearly the desire of his heart. If you worked for George Bush, he always knew your name, he always said thank you, and I was in close proximity with him for 26 months going through what, by definition is, 24/7 stress of a presidential campaign, and I never saw him lose his temper. Quite a guy. Quite a guy.

Andrew Olsen:                  Wow, thanks for sharing that man, really appreciate it.

Mark McIntyre:                 Absolutely.

Andrew Olsen:                  So, if we pivot from that, given your experience and the kind of work that you do, thinking about the last few months, our country has gone through maybe one of the most contentious midterm elections that, at least, I've ever seen. Democrats made huge gains, they've now got a lock on the house of representatives, but the Republicans added to their seats in the senate, and we all know that they hold the White House for at least the next couple of years.

Andrew Olsen:                  I don't know, in my travels in and out of DC in the last couple of months, I don't know if I've ever experienced a weirder political state of being, and such a contentious narrative going on across the country. I'm curious for our nonprofit listeners who are seeking federal support, whether that be funding, or for legislative priorities, as an expert in this area, Mark, what do you suggest and how would you counsel nonprofits to effectively navigate this fractured political landscape to still achieve their objectives, even though there's such a stalemate going on?

Mark McIntyre:                 Absolutely. There is a lot of political noise, and of course the media seems to simply fan the flames. What I like to remind people, including my clients, is that there are tens of thousands of congressional staff people and administration staff people, by the way, like the federal program officers who oversee competitive and discretionary grant programs, and they're focused 100 percent on doing their jobs.

Mark McIntyre:                 It may surprise people to hear this, but most federal workers pay little or no attention to the political noise. There's a fundamental and compelling reason for this. Members of congress, congressional staff, and the political appointees of any administration are a passing parade. They're not a standing army.

Mark McIntyre:                 It's the career federal employees, like the federal program officers who oversee grants, that are the permanent government. So the political noise for them is largely sound and fury, signifying nothing. Since the 24/7 cable news media portrays DC like we've all lost our minds, I just wanna share with you a conversation I had with my wife, Lisa, back in January of 2016 shortly after the president was inaugurated.

Mark McIntyre:                 Lisa called me during the work day and she said, "Where are ya?" I said, "I'm up on Capitol Hill. I'm in the [inaudible 00:06:53] Building." She said, "Wow, it must be crazy there. What's it like?" I said, "Lisa, I've been coming to Capitol Hill on a regular basis since I arrived in DC on June 23, 1985. I have to tell you that this place looks and feels exactly like it did when I arrived 33 years ago." I said to her, "I'm in the atrium. The typical house staffer is 26.8 years of age, so I'm looking at the young senate staffers checking their phones as they hurry from meeting to meeting, many of them thinking that whatever assignment they're working on is the single most important assignment in DC."

Mark McIntyre:                 Again, what I like to encourage folks is, the media focuses on scandal. The media focuses on the political intrigue. Obviously for the last two years, they focused on the Mueller investigation, and most of that stuff has no relevance to the federal program officers who oversee federal grants. Just wanted to share that.

Andrew Olsen:                  That should be a welcome piece of news for most nonprofits that are looking to engage the federal government, I gotta think.

Roy Jones:                          Course I remember, even 18 months ago, the whole world was falling apart and the nonprofit world, we were gonna lose literally billions of dollars in donations because of the Trump tax plan. Sometimes we fall prey to that political noise you talk about, Mark, and of course none of that happened. As a matter of fact, just the opposite has happened. Donations have increased dramatically in the last 18 months across the board. It's really interesting, I think you're so right, just about ignoring the political noise and doing your job because everybody else is doing theirs.

Mark McIntyre:                 Well, exactly. And that's a good example of how, modern profits, when there is a legislative proposal that is unfriendly to them, we live in a great country where under the first amendment to the US constitution, every citizen has the right to "petition the congress." No where does it say in the US constitution that we get extra style points for doing that alone, which is exactly why people hire lobbyists, exactly why people retain Merchant McIntyre Associates, so that we can help people achieve their objectives at the federal level, despite whatever political noise is going on.

Mark McIntyre:                 By the way, since the congress has the sole power of the federal purse, which means that all of these dollars that flow from federal grants ultimately comes from congress, it's worth pointing out a fact that the media never reports, which is the federal government every year passes 12 appropriations bills. This year we will have spent 4.4 trillion dollars, with a T. By definition, to pass 12 separate appropriations bills, the congress must do that in a bipartisan way.

Mark McIntyre:                 The media, of course, always wants to report on the division, and the reality is the way the government functions year in and year out, whether you pass an appropriation bill, or save the next big piece of legislation that they wanna do this year before [inaudible 00:10:50] of the farm bill, by definition is bipartisan.

Andrew Olsen:                  Mark, I wanna go a little bit into the weeds with you for a second. As you know, Roy leads the major gift program at Mercy Ships, one of the largest international medical service providers and faith-based nonprofits in the country. I work with organizations of all shapes and sizes from international relief to health care to homeless services and things like that. I'm curious, based on the sheer diversity of the nonprofit sector in the US, I'd love to hear about the trends that you all are seeing in DC right now around federal funding priorities, and the kinds of organizations that are getting funded, and those that aren't, and maybe what some of the biggest differences are between those two groups.

Mark McIntyre:                 Yeah, so you really asked two or three really big questions there. Let me tell you a little bit about the trends that we see, and that alone requires, perhaps, a lengthy answer, so interrupt me if you want to go deeper in another area. Sound good?

Andrew Olsen:                  Sounds good.

Mark McIntyre:                 In the years ahead, this administration and the congress are going to make major investments in health care, job training and workforce development, specifically apprenticeships, STEM, which, of course, is science, technology, engineering, mathematics, not just research institutions but non research institutions, economic development, campus security, infrastructure and public safety. Probably the most dramatic federal investment in the nonprofit sector will be in health care.

Mark McIntyre:                 The government will spend trillions of dollars in the years ahead to expand access, improve care, and lower costs. For example, under the affordable care act, the congress authorized 10 billion, with a B, for the center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. We call it colloquially the Innovation Center. That's a large, still relatively new source of federal funding that has already been authorized. Again, just to give you a sense of how powerful it is to pursue federal dollars, we represented a 24-bed critical access hospital in Montana, a very rural hospital. In the first round of the innovation center funding, they had three thousand applications and they made 106 awards.

Mark McIntyre:                 Our client, Mineral Community Hospital, won a 10.4 million dollar award. So, think about that. 10.4 million dollars to help a rural, 24-bed, critical access hospital. This is after we had helped them with a 600 thousand dollar grant and a 900 thousand dollar grant.

Mark McIntyre:                 We view the federal government as the largest potential major donor on Planet Earth, because year in and year out, it's gonna spend 4.4 trillion dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars of that into nonprofit ... I'm sorry. They're going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the nonprofit sector.

Andrew Olsen:                  I wanna pause there for a second, because when I think, before really gonna go in deep with you on how this process works, I was pretty naïve about it and I've heard other nonprofit executives and development officers have a similar point of view, treating a federal grant request and pushing the federal government in general, the same way you might a proforma foundation grant request where it's you fill out the document and you ship it off and you hope for the best.

Andrew Olsen:                  But, hearing you describe them as the world's largest major donor, Roy, that's gotta be ringing in your ears too. I start to think about, what's the white glove treatment that we bring? What's the actual moves management strategy that wraps around a federal grant request to ensure that you get the best result possible?

Roy Jones:                          When I was working at the university and a client of Marks's, the hardest thing for my peers to understand there was that the process, it's not like an annual grant process. For the most part, you've got appropriations and authorizations, and often times that's a two year hop to get to where you wanna go. Mark, thoughts?

Mark McIntyre:                 Well, what I tell folks is that the great fact about pursuing federal grants is how much money you can secure and you can get just a phenomenal return on investments. The bad news is that the federal government always moves slower than we would like them to, except when they collect their taxes. The first and biggest mistake that most leaders of nonprofit institutions and organizations make is that they never try. They quit before they start.

Mark McIntyre:                 My sense is that most people out in the real world, 'cause DC is not the real world, my sense is that most people in the real world view the federal government as a large, impenetrable monolith. The reality is the opposite. The federal agencies are highly permeable. Washington, DC operates like a small town. Everyone knows everyone.

Mark McIntyre:                 So, if the president of a university or the CEO of a hospital, or the mayor of a municipality wants to win a federal grant, the federal program officers will actually tell you what they're looking for in an award worthy admission. You just need to take the initiative to schedule the meeting and then ask the right questions. Of course that's the beginning of the process, but the dollars are there to be had, just like when you pursue a major gift from a potential donor. There's a process that you go through, and you simply need to work the process.

Andrew Olsen:                  So some give up before they get through the process, don't they?

Mark McIntyre:                 Well, most of them do. If I were to say to a nonprofit leader how to get started, and by the way, Merchant McIntyre Associates represents primarily the have nots when it comes to federal dollars. What I mean by that is, we typically represent institutions and organizations that either have never received a federal grant, or have received only a few. We typically don't represent the Johns Hopkins Universities of the world. They already get about 400 billion dollars a year on their own. They have a huge internal grants staff. They don't need us.

Mark McIntyre:                 Most folks are not Johns Hopkins. Most people are looking at the federal government thinking, "Wow, I know that they give a lot of grant money. How do I access it?" The first thing you need to do is do a little homework online about what federal grants are available in your category. So, analyze whether your programs align with the missions of any federal grant programs. Then, contact the appropriate federal program officers. Typically, their names are online, associated with the grants over which they have jurisdiction. Ask them the questions you have about what they're looking for in an award-worthy application.

Mark McIntyre:                 If you're a nonprofit institutional leader, you then need to decide whether your organization has the internal capacity to pursue federal grants, or whether you need to retain outside entities.

Andrew Olsen:                  Mark, as we've been talking about this, one of the things that I wanted to go back to is, you mentioned not trying, not starting as sort of the biggest mistakes. What are some of the other distinctions that you see between organizations that are successful and win grant awards, and those that aren't?

Mark McIntyre:                 Yeah. In our agency, we talk about the three P's. People, programs, and partnerships. The nonprofit institutions and organizations that win federal grants typically have the right people, the right programs, and the right partnerships. By that, I mean that you have people internally, again whether you're a college or university, hospital, medical center, homeless shelter, international NGO, you have people internally who, if they receive federal dollars, can actually serve as good stewards of those dollars.

Mark McIntyre:                 In terms of programs, that's what I talked about earlier. Actually doing some homework online and then following up with conversations with the program officers if you have programs that you think align with a federal program. For example, rescue missions. If they do transitional living programs, the administration for children and family has a TLP grant; Transitional Living Program grant. You read through the information online about the grant then ask yourself whether you wanna borrow the trouble of pursuing that grant.

Mark McIntyre:                 Many federal grant programs require strong partnerships. These are not handshakes. These are not, "I know the friend of a friend of a friend at the Chamber of Commerce." These are formal, viable, visible partnerships that say a university or a hospital has with folks in their community, again to actually implement a grant award if it's given.

Mark McIntyre:                 Again, the three categories, to answer your question, the three key components are the people, the programs, and the partnerships.

Andrew Olsen:                  That's good stuff. Tell me this, Mark. When I think about some of the organizations that you and I have talked about that have won grants or have lost them, in the grant seeking process, let's assume that you have the three P's. Are there other typical missteps that organizations make that keep them from being able to access federal funding?

Mark McIntyre:                 Yeah. I have two thoughts. First, attention to detail is typically helpful, and in the category of federal grants, it's essential. It's essential for whoever is writing the grant to be responsive to the criteria of the grant. Line by line, heading by heading, requirement by requirement. You write to the grant. We talk about when you apply for a federal grant, your competitor is yourself. Your competitor is how well am I answering the questions for the criteria on this grant. That's point number one.

Mark McIntyre:                 Point number two is, the federal grants process is a great process for people who don't take no for an answer easily. Most people, I don't know about you guys, but most people I know, including myself, you don't go through life undefeated. If you're committed to pursuing any endeavor, today we're talking about federal grants, you gotta be willing to overcome an initial no.

Mark McIntyre:                 Again, let me just give you a brief real-life anecdote that happened last year. My business partner, Brent Merchant is what we call an EDA wizard. By that I mean, economic, development, administration grant wizard. [inaudible 00:25:31] as you actually engage the regional staff, and if they co create process as opposed to just writing quietly in your office against the grant. He called a EDA representative in Missouri because we were working on behalf of a partnership between a hospital and a local educational institution, so note that partnership. Partnerships are essential. The initial response he got from the regional EDA representative was: "Your proposed project is ineligible. Your proposed project does not cut the mustard." Brent engaged this person, shared the workforce development needs of that part of the country which, like a lot of areas in the US, has a nursing shortage. That initial conversation took place in July. In December, our client got a letter from the Economic Development Administration that said that the award was approved. It said your project is approved without caveat, meaning without revisions.

Mark McIntyre:                 A 2.2 million dollar workforce development grant from the EDA, so another interesting aspect to this story is the Economic Development Administration actually will fund a hospital project? Yeah. Because it's gonna create jobs in the years to come. And, of course, Brent did not take no for an answer, and six months later after a lot of work, we won the grant.

Andrew Olsen:                  It's so funny. Roy, we talk all the time about the resilience needed in major gift development, right? This sounds like it's the exact same thing. Slightly different model, slightly different type of donor, but really it's about, do you have that internal willingness to let a door slam in your face and then go knock on it again, right?

Roy Jones:                          I think it really is. It's as much about getting in line and determining to stay in line as it is the expertise in the grant writing piece. Of course, that's what folks like Mark can help with, is to make sure you get that right. You can learn that, but the tenacity required is often something you can't teach. I see it so often. People just give up too soon.

Andrew Olsen:                  Yeah. Mark, if I'm a nonprofit executive director and I think I wanna try my hand at securing federal grant dollars, is there a process or a tip sheet or something like that, that you go through, that you can say, "Hey, organization A, if you wanna do this, go through this process and check under the hood at your organization for these things and that'll give you a guideline for whether you're ready or not?"

Mark McIntyre:                 The short answer is no. There's not a tip sheet, but just building on what I said earlier, you wanna evaluate your internal capacity. That goes back to people, programs, and partnerships. There's a lot of information on line from the agencies about what they're willing to fund. Again, I think, very few people ever evaluate this process from the perspective of a federal program officer.

Mark McIntyre:                 All of our clients, 100 percent of our clients are surprised what happens when we take them in to meet with a federal program officer. They're amazed about how honest and open and vulnerable they are about how to win their grants. Just stop and think about that for a moment. Whether you work at the Department of Health and Community Services, Homeland Security, Education, Department of Justice, you're a federal program officer. Your job is to deliver wins for yourself, for your boss, for your department, for the agency.

Mark McIntyre:                 A friend of mine named Steve, I saw him recently. I said, "Steve, I apologize for asking this question. I probably asked you this several times before, but tell me again why you came to DC?"

Mark McIntyre:                 He said, "Same reason you did."

Mark McIntyre:                 I said, "Really? What's that?"

Mark McIntyre:                 He said, "Didn't you come to DC to change the world?"

Mark McIntyre:                 You have these dedicated public servants who oversee these federal grant programs and I've never had a conversation with one of them where they sit down and they say, "Mark, I'm so glad you're here. Let's figure out how we can waste some money today." They want to fund worthy projects, and they will tell you what it takes to win their grant.

Mark McIntyre:                 Some nonprofit leaders think that they're too small to win a grant. Some nonprofit leaders think that they're in an area that's too rural or too economically depressed. There are Christ-centered nonprofit leaders who think the federal government will not fund what I do, or it they do, there's too much red tape involved to take the dollars. All of those obstacles are actually false.

Mark McIntyre:                 Being a smaller nonprofit can be an advantage to [inaudible 00:31:23] a grant. Hospitals and municipalities, and in some cases, higher educational institutions in a rural area, you'll actually get points for something the federal government calls rurality. Being in an economically depressed area actually qualifies you for certain grants, and there are federal program officers at various agencies who have actually told us at Merchant McIntyre Associates that they don't have a Christ-centered institution or organization in their portfolio, and they've asked us, "Do you represent any Christ-centered organizations that would be good candidates for this award program?"

Mark McIntyre:                 Again, that just gives you a deeper sense of the possibilities if you're willing to engage these potential donors who happen to be, by the way, they're spending our taxpayer dollars, these federal program officers who we view as potential major donors.

Andrew Olsen:                  That's so interesting to me to hear you make that point about faith-based and Christ-centered organizations. I think so often, we think about the federal government with respect to the narrative around separation of church and state, and the idea that if you're a faith-based nonprofit, you really ought to be arm's length from the government. It sounds like what you're saying is, not only is that not the case, but the government is actively seeking out opportunities to fund and serve organizations like that.

Mark McIntyre:                 That's exactly right. I've lived in DC now for 33 years, as you said at the offset. What I've experienced first hand is that members of congress, congressional staff, and federal program officers realize that faith-based institutions and faith-based organizations often are more effective than secular organizations, so they're leaning forward to invest in them. I've had many conversations with the college presidents of Christ-centered institutions. One of the first questions I ask them is, "Do you receive federal dollars?"

Mark McIntyre:                 The answer is, "No, we don't."

Mark McIntyre:                 I said, "Really? Do you have any financial aid students?"

Mark McIntyre:                 "Oh yeah, three percent of our student body is [inaudible 00:34:16]."

Mark McIntyre:                 "Really? Okay, what kind of grants are they?" And of course you know where I'm headed here. They're staffer grants or Pell grants. They're all federal grants. If your a college or a university and you are accepting federal dollars through these loan programs, and you receive additional federal dollars through a competitive grant program, there is no additional burden. The reason I use that phrase, no additional burden, is because a couple of decades ago, we retained the services of a guy named Dr. Carl [Espach 00:34:56] who was, in fact still is, a constitutional expert. He worked in John Ashcroft's Department of Justice, and that was the phrase that he used in his little memorandum describing why, if you are a college or university who accepts federal dollars through financial aid, you accept federal dollars through what used to be called earmarks, legislatively driven grants or competitive or discretionary grants, there's no additional burden.

Andrew Olsen:                  Thanks for that. I think, as we're wrapping up, I've got just one more question for you. That's really around your guidance to nonprofits who say, "You know what? I think I'm ready to start."

Andrew Olsen:                  I would just ask, what one or two nuggets would you share, either to help motivate or to help guide an organization that thinks they're ready to start that journey?

Mark McIntyre:                 My first encouragement would be it's achievable. It's absolutely, positively possible to secure federal dollars. There are thousands of institutions and organizations that do it every year. Back in 2004, a pitcher named Curt Schilling showed up at the Red Sox. He'd been traded by the Arizona Diamondbacks, who had just defeated the Yankees in the World Series. He walked into the clubhouse in Boston and realized that the Red Sox had a really good team. He also realized that they hadn't won a World Series in 86 years. He looked at his new teammates and said, "Why not us?" That became their rallying cry and I'm not a huge baseball fan, but I know that in 2004 the Red Sox won the World Series, and of course they've won two or three since then. It turned it around.

Mark McIntyre:                 I would encourage the leaders of nonprofits to think to themselves, "Why not us?" And, I'm an interested party because my name is on the door, but just like other professional services, it's often essential to retain expertise, whether it's major donor development, direct response marketing, or what we're talking about today, federal grants.

Andrew Olsen:                  On that note, Mark, for our listeners who are motivated by this conversation and curious, maybe you wanna take a stab at this or at least have a conversation about it, if someone wants to get in touch with you, what's the best way for folks to reach you?

Mark McIntyre:                 By the way, we at Merchant McIntyre Associates love what we do. We are passionate about serving nonprofits that feed people, house people, educate people and heal people, so the best way to reach me, I'm even brave enough to give you my cell phone number, 202-657-7556. Probably better to text me, or my email address is my first initial, M, last name McIntyre @Merchantmacintyre.com, and of course you can find us on what my dad likes to call the interweb.

Andrew Olsen:                  Awesome. Mark, thank you again. Appreciate you making time for us, sharing your insights and helping to provide some additional guidance to nonprofit leaders who are curious about federal funding. Thank you so much.

Mark McIntyre:                 Thank you Andrew. Thank you Roy.

Roy Jones:                          Thank you Mark.

Mark McIntyre:                 Really appreciate it. Bye now.