This is EXACTLY the kind of thing I hated facilitating while in service, but I have to admit it works…

If you want a reliable way to grab a chunk of money larger than $1 million, you go to the service headquarters and find an GO or SES to get it. The “budget dust” at scale can and is found at the Services’ and Agencies’ Headquarters. Everyone loves to talk about the defense budget being almost a trillion dollars, but the only quick, reliable, and moderately simple way to get a decent piece of that is to go talk a powerful person into giving it to you. Yes I know that sounds gross, counter to the acquisition processes, etc…but it’s also true.

There’s good reasons why any company that can afford it, hires retired SES’s or GO’s to their board or advisory roles. It’s literally to facilitate those exact conversations with their active peer groups to garner favor and get the company’s foot into the important doors. The low rent version of this is finding an enthusiastic O-6 or GS-15 who’s willing to champion your product or service, and they go fight internally for funding. $1-5M at the HQ level is definitely achievable, and routinely happens. What’s the catch? It’s very often a one shot deal.

Winning a funding fight is a victory for that fiscal year, and should not in anyway be confused with achieving any level of success towards long term sustainment. All kinds of one-off opportunities exist via the right people at the right moments. For example, every military person above the rank of E-5 understands the annual UFR drill and resulting funding lottery at every unit in the DoD.

So it’s not a path to sustained success, but sometimes you just need a win, and so I have to acknowledge the existence of this type of opportunity. If that’s the case for you, go find the most senior person at the pentagon or agency you can, and make them a true believer in your company. You might be amazed what they accomplish for you.