On March 18, 2026 FASEB's board of directors and science policy members will be visiting their two Senators and their member of Congress in Washington, DC during the annual in-person Capitol Hill Day to advocate for FASEB's federal funding recommendations for FY 2027.  This is the best time to contact the two offices of your Senators and your U.S. House Representative to ask for a virtual meeting with the congressional staff to support these recommendations. The meetings normally last 15 minutes and can be done virtually from your home or office using zoom or Microsoft teams.    

For FY 2027 the request for the National Institutes of Health is $51.3 billion; $11.89  billion for National Science Foundation, $10.06 billion for the Department of Energy Office of Science,  $539 million for the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, and $1.2 billion for the Va Medical and Prosthetic Research program.

Step. 1- Find  the offices' website to make the call for an appointment:   www.congress.gov

Step 2:  Ask to schedule a 15 minute virtual video call with the appropriate staffer and tell the office you are a constituent who wants to discuss funding for NIH, NSF, etc.

Step 3. Read the materials from the Federal Funding Brochure for FY 27 located here:   

Annual Federal Funding Recommendations | FASEB  and the fact sheets here: Federal Research Funding Data

Step 4:  During the virtual meeting, please let the office know who you are, whether you are representing yourself or authorized to speak for an organization, directly ask for funding up front in your meeting for the agency, tell a 1-2 minute story as to why this funding is important to you,  allow the staffer to ask you questions since they don't often speak directly to scientists or researchers, Thank the staffer for their time, and follow up with an email with your request.  

Use the Advocacy Toolkit as a guide and keep the language bipartisan in nature giving the office real-life examples of the impacts you have seen on the federal research enterprise and what that means for the state, congressional district, and the nation.  

 

Sincerely.  

FASEB Office of Public Affairs.