I’m incredibly grateful to Venn Strategies and all I learned there this summer!

Sitting at my desk on my last day at Venn

Finishing up my time as a CAPS Fellow has been a blur. I finished up my last day, packed up my apartment, and caught a 7am flight to Boston to meet my family. Now I’m back home in Wisconsin for a lengthy six days before blasting off to study abroad in Costa Rica for the semester. All that being said, time to reflect has been scarce. I’m still coming to terms with everything I learned throughout my CAPS experience but I’ve definitely seen myself grow as a person, both personally and in my career aspirations.

When I started at Venn, I knew I felt like I was in way over my head. I didn’t have a firm grip on what I was doing and at times I was drowning trying to learn everything at once. I felt incredibly unprepared about the work I was doing and thought everyone around me had it all together. After all, I was the intern and this was their actual job. I was turning in memos on topics I knew nothing about (ever heard of the Railway Securities Alliance? Neither had I until I started at Venn). I felt like a fraud—like at any moment my boss would come over and ask me what I was doing there. I adopted a sort of “fake it ‘til you make it’ attitude and it actually worked. After a few weeks I started to understand the rhythm of the company and started working on some projects I really enjoyed. I even made a work friend—something I thought only existed on sitcoms (Shout out to Nina—I miss our lunch break Sephora runs ☺). As I got more comfortable with my position my work also improved. I was able to step out of my comfort zone by participating in client meetings and offering feedback. My confidence grew and I felt more and more comfortable with the work I was doing and proud of the projects I finished.
Over the course of the summer I also learned a lot about the ins and outs of lobbying—it’s really not what it looks like on Scandal. It is more focused on building relationships and having ongoing conversations, finding people in government and showing them why they should care about the issue you are bringing forth. The work moves both extremely slow and extremely quickly. The bureaucracy of government means it can take years to get bills passed but client demands sometimes mean working around the clock to get results. Overall, lobbying is about making a difference. It’s about changing current policies to make them better for constituents and interest groups. I definitely came into the summer a little jaded about what the work would look like. Instead, I met clients passionate about policies that had a huge impact on themselves, their businesses, and their customers. The job of a lobbyist—or anyone working in policy really—is to make sure that people can have their voices heard.

That isn’t to say it all became easy—it isn’t. I didn’t always agree with the policies clients wanted change and I didn’t always agree with the means used to achieve it. When I started to get frustrated, I did my best to take a step back and focus on the larger vision of what I was doing. I was helping support a group that wanted to make their ideas and goals known to their elected officials. And that, I think, is pretty fulfilling.

Caroline and I posing outside of an office cheering on the Caps!

C-A-P-S LET’S GO CAPS! This was the constant refrain around DC and outside Capital One Arena last Thursday night as fellow CAPS member Caroline and I watched the Capitals bring home the Stanley Cup. It was incredible to see the energy and watch the city come alive around the event. D.C. is an amazing city, vibrant and overflowing with political energy and I have really enjoyed my time here so far. 

The cheering refrain was also a constant reminder of my CAPS internship and the reason I’m able to have these experiences this summer. I’m interning with Venn Strategies, a government relations and public affairs firm in the heart of Washington, D.C. I just finished up my third week and it has been a whirlwind. I am a part of two client teams based around tax and infrastructure, two things I knew very little about before arriving here. It’s been humbling to realize how many things I don’t know. At Valpo, I think of myself as a fairly intelligent and capable person and I really dislike asking for help. At Venn, I’m learning that being smart can mean asking for help, and that double checking to make sure I’m doing a project correctly means not looking bad if I finish it and it has been done wrong. My coworkers have been incredibly helpful and willing to teach me about things I’m still not sure of. I’ve really appreciated their patience as I learn the basics of writing policy memos for clients and over hearings on topics from railways to tax structure.

One of the best experiences I’ve had so far was participating in the Center for Reproductive Right’s State Summit. CRR is a client of Venn’s and I helped to organize the materials and prepare for the summit. The night before the event I attended a reception where I got to meet Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.) and several other important players in the reproductive rights field. The reception took place on the roof of the Newseum with a gorgeous view of the Capitol and surrounding area. 

At the CRR reception on top of the Newseum

The next day I attended the summit as an assistant to my coworker managing the event. I got a firsthand look at everything that goes on behind the scenes to put on a large event (this summit was for 200 people!) I have a new respect for anyone who has ever stuffed folders or made name tags after seeing how much work it takes.  When we had gotten everything under control, I was able to participate in the summit and listen to panels on maternal mortality and non-profit cooperation and alliances. CRR hosts this summit every year to empower state leaders in the reproductive justice movement. Their hard work is really inspiring and gave me a lot of hope for the future. Watching the news and looking at social media, sometimes the world seems like an incredibly negative place. However, as I watched these strong women encourage and support one another, I felt empowered and was reminded that I too am able to make a difference. It was a really interesting day and seeing it all come together helped me to understand the importance of the work that I’m doing here.

All together, I’m definitely achieving the goal I set for myself of understanding what lobbying looks like. While I had a general idea at the beginning of the summer, I was aware that I had probably watched too much Scandal to have an honest picture. My coworkers have showed me, through taking me to meetings and explaining goals and plans to me, how cooperation and honesty (not blackmail) can help make real policy changes happen for their clients. I’m having a blast here in D.C. so far, and can’t wait to see how much I learn and grow over the next seven weeks.