Before I talk about why conservatives don’t support the Reach Act, I want to share why I’m writing this blog post.

The annual RESULTS International Conference will convene in just over two weeks. For the first time in four years, I’m going to the miss the conference. Work and personal commitments are keeping me home this year. Since I’m going to miss the conference, I decided to resurrect this blog and share it with RESULTS volunteers who are going to the IC and will lobby their members of Congress.

First a bit about me and the background I bring to lobbying. Over the last nearly 30 years, I’ve gone to about 11 ICs and have met with many Congressional aides and a few representatives and senators face to face. I’ve met, talked with, and sometimes led dozens of Congressional meetings with both Republicans and Democrats.

In my private life, I’ve been a freelance copywriter writing marketing material to help my clients better sell their products and services. Much of being a copywriter is getting into the mindset of my client’s clients. To do that I have to identify who my client’s target market is and understand what members of that target market need, want, and believe. That’s pretty easy to do when I’m a member of the target market. When I’m not a member, I have to spend a lot of time researching and learning. It’s kind of like an actor learning how to play a role very different from themselves.

Over the years, I’ve learned something. There is a lot of overlap between being a successful copywriter and being a successful lobbyist. Both jobs often require adopting an alien viewpoint and accepting the truth of that viewpoint, because for the person you’re targeting who holds that viewpoint, their view makes perfect sense. It’s logical and grounded in reality. Even when that viewpoint may be utterly absurd from your own perspective.

So since I’m going to miss the IC and the wonderful conversations I would have with those attending and because I care very, very deeply about a particular bill becoming law this year, I hope you’ve read this long preamble.

Why Conservatives Don’t Support the Reach Act

Based on my experience and knowledge of conservatives over the years, I partially attribute the lack of conservative support for the Reach Act on the advocates’ lack of understanding how to talk to conservatives. Most RESULTS volunteers are liberal. I think that’s beginning to change, but I suspect RESULTS will become more inclusive on race, ethnic background, gender, age, and income before we reach the same level of inclusion on political party affiliation.

Here’s a good time to remind you that the views expressed in this post are mine alone. No one from RESULTS staff, or anyone else for that matter, has read or approved this article. This is also a good time to state that I’m going to make a lot of generalizations in this post. Take my statements with at least a grain or three of salt.  Almost everyone is a mixture of liberal and conservative beliefs; when the topic or situation changes a conservative may take a liberal position and vice-versa.

In fact one of the reasons I respect politicians is because they’re able to be bitter enemies on some issues and best friends on other issues. That’s less common now than in the past, but it still holds true on some issues. Luckily support of foreign development programs is one area with strong bipartisan support.

Finally, let me remind you there are many viewpoints within the conservative constellation of thought. My experience lobbying conservatives has generally been with tea party members or those who are at least fiscally conservative. If your members of Congress come from a devout religious believe system–that influences their Congressional policy decisions–much of this article may not apply.

From my experience and what I’ve heard from other RESULTS advocates is when they visit a conservative member of Congress, they present the legislation in pretty much the same way they present the legislation to a liberal:

• We tell stories about how the policies and programs we are supporting are saving a particular poor person’s life, often a poor boy, girl, or mother.
• We talk about scientific studies that show how many lives passing the legislation will save.
• We talk about how government spending more money will save more lives.

That approach often works for a liberal. It rarely works for a conservative. Why?

• It’s hard for a conservative, usually an affluent, if not wealthy, middle-aged or older white man to relate to a young, poor, often female person, especially one of a difference race, ethnic background, religion, and culture.
• Most conservatives don’t believe scientists or other experts are credible. They know facts and statistics can be cherry-picked to support any view.
• They believe government is already too big and spends too much taxpayer money. Increasing government spending is adding fuel to an inferno.

So for most foreign development legislation, getting conservatives to support the bill is a steep climb. I suspect most of the conservatives RESULTS volunteers have gotten to support our bills hold religious beliefs that require those who can to help those who can’t. Or are conservatives who have traveled overseas and made a personal connection with those who would benefit from our foreign development programs.

Keep this in mind, conservatives have a lot of compassion–but only for those who in some way they identify with. If a conservative sees the recipients of government aid being a part of their “group”– however the conservative defines the group–the conservative will generally support the legislation. But if the conservative can’t relate to those helped by the legislation, if they’re from a different group, the support vanishes. In my experience and understanding, conservatives have more depth and less breadth of compassion for others than liberals.

How to Get Conservatives to Support the Reach Act

So how can RESULTS volunteers get the Reach Act passed into law? The first thing is to accept that conservatives have a very different belief system, which leads to very different viewpoints compared to liberals. In the language of copywriting, conservatives have different personas and pain points that need solving.

So for the rest of this article I’m going to pretend I’m a conservative presenting conservative reasons for a conservative member to support the Reach Act. Lucky for me, the Reach Act is the most conservative-friendly legislation I’ve seen RESULTS support in 30 years. The key is to present it the right way–not the left way. Be especially aware of where I use italics. These are words that, in my experience, resonate well with conservatives. I use parentheses to indicate underlying thoughts.

The government wastes a lot of taxpayer money! (Early in the meeting, I say the phrase in italics with as much conviction as I can (1) to build rapport with the conservative aide or member, and (2) because it’s true. Liberals think the government wastes a lot of money on defense; conservatives think the government wastes a lot on social programs. I just make the statement and let me listener think we’re all thinking of the same programs.)

Because the government wastes a lot of money, it needs to be reformed. That’s where the Reach Act comes in. The Reach Act is not a foreign aid bill, it’s a government reform bill that just happens to focus on USAID. Almost all parts of the administration could be improved by adopting the business-like recommendations in the Reach Act.

The bill would put into law the recommendations of a blue-ribbon panel of business and development leaders. (I say leaders not experts. Conservatives value hierarchical power structures and believe generic leaders should be obeyed.) Many of these recommendations have already been implemented and are producing cost-savings and improved results. (I would love to have evidence to support this statement. I remembering hearing about them, but can’t find the reference.) The problem is new USAID administrators have the option to ignore the recommendations and go back to wasting taxpayer money. If passed, this bill would make the recommendations permanent requirements regardless of who becomes the  administrator.

Here are the recommendations and why they should be made into requirements.

The first is that the bill does not increase government spending for foreign development. It uses current funding more effectively by reducing wasted resources. There are multiple government departments, agencies, and offices working at cross purposes in an uncoordinated way involved in foreign aid. This bill gets our foreign aid focused on ending preventable child and maternal deaths in one generation.

UNICEF estimates, so take these with a grain of salt, (Conservatives don’t trust the UN, so saying “take these with a grain of salt” subconsciously increases the conservative’s liking and trusting you. You appear more as someone in their group, or if they know you’re a liberal from past encounters, someone who at least understands and respects their views–even if you don’t agree with them.)

• one million infants die on the day of their birth
• an additional more than one million infants die in their first month of life
• 300,000 mothers die each year from pregnancy and childbirth related complications

Ending preventable deaths is important because if those estimates are accurate, these deaths create a significant resource drain on the country, reduce its ability to stand on its own feet, and continue its reliance on outside help from the United States, other countries, and charitable organizations. These deaths also increase the time it will take for the country’s people to become prosperous enough to buy more U.S. exports. (The preceding paragraph gives pure economic reasons to support the Reach Act; remember, economic self-sufficiency at the individual and national level is a stronger motivator than compassion for others in most conservatives.)

The Reach Act creates a Child and Maternal Health Coordinator position at USAID responsible for budgeting, staffing, and planning within USAID and facilitating program and policy coordination between USAID, other Federal departments and agencies, and partner entities overseas. The position is basically responsible for getting everyone rowing together.

The position would be filled by an existing senior, high level USAID employee with no increase in salary. Creating a position responsible for overall coordination and empowered to make rapid decisions around budgeting and programs was one of the Award Cost Efficiency Study (ACES) Blue Ribbon Panel’s strongest recommendations.

The bill also requires USAID to

• use a business-like approach to running government foreign development programs based on clear, measurable goals with increased accountability and transparency of how tax-payer money is spent.
• report annually to Congress on the progress USAID programs are making. Congress needs to know what USAID is doing and what their effectiveness is to provide proper oversight and accountability.
• focus on saving the lives of innocent infants, children, and mothers responsible for giving birth and caring for their children.
• Scaling up the most effective, proven development strategies with a focus on building the foreign country’s capacity to own their programs and align them with their local maternal, child, and newborn survival plans.
• Use innovative funding measures to enable partnering with private and local municipal funding sources to increase funding for development programs with no additional cost to U.S. taxpayers.

With President Trump’s chaotic approach to foreign aid, it’s very important that Congress place these controls on USAID—based more on actions to appeal to his base than on securing the national security of the United States. I know elections are coming up, but the sooner we get these recommendations into law, the sooner taxpayers will benefit by having government work more efficiently and business-like.

So [name of person you’re talking to] what questions do you have about this bill? Will you cosponsor this bill and talk to leadership to urge them to hold votes on the bill and get these reforms passed into law during this Congress?

Conclusion

If you’ve had frustrating meetings with a conservative you can’t seem to get through, try the language and reasoning in this article. I often say the hardest thing humans do is communicate–well. Often we fail to understand the other’s perspective (their beliefs, values, experiences, interests, etc.). We try to talk to them as if they were us, and then think they’re deficient because they don’t understand what we’re saying or agree with us.

Conservatives and liberals do agree on the most basic of things: everyone wants to do well, protect their children, and raise them to become good people. It’s right after that perspectives begin to diverge. Try to engage in a conversation (which means listening, not just talking), try to understand their point of view and the underlying reasons for that view.

My last bit of advice is something I heard a long time ago in RESULTS and have never forgotten. The most important thing in advocacy work is to deepen the relationship, not to get someone to support your position. Work on deepening the other person’s liking, knowing, and trusting you. Introducing and urging conservatives to support the Reach Act and its government reforms is a gift we bring to them. This is legislation that should appeal to them even more than microfinance–if it’s presented to them in their perspective and language.