The Millennium Challenge Corp. is trying to reposition itself to withstand the financial storm and secure a place in the Obama administration's development plans. Agency officials are well aware of the tough fiscal climate and lingering questions about the government corporation's work, an MCC official told me last week. The agency knows there are questions surrounding the future of U.S. foreign assistance and is well aware that budget freezes or cuts are possible in this fiscal environment. However, the official said the agency, while acknowledging these obstacles, is continuing to let the public and lawmakers know that the good work it has done over the last five years must continue if development goals are to be met.

This public awareness effort has been going on for almost a year now. MCC chief John J. Danilovich, who left his post in January, wrote several op-eds about the need for MCC to continue its work.

"Recent gains in addressing systemic poverty are at risk if the world puts this issue on the backburner to focus solely on the financial crisis before us," Danilovich wrote in an October op-ed published in the San Francisco Chronicle. "While we continue to encounter great uncertainty in the economic crisis, this we do know for sure: Fighting poverty abroad matters for us here in America as much as it does for the world's poor."

In a December op-ed in the New York Times, MCC board members Lorne Craner, Bill Frist, Kenneth Hackett and Alan Patricof made a not-so-subtle appeal for the Obama administration to keep MCC around. Obama "would do well to adopt it [MCC] as a core development tool," they wrote.

MCC also participated in a short film about its work that was directed by Douglas Busby and produced by Stephen Nemeth, John Woldenberg and Amanda Harvey for Damascus Films.

Not surprisingly, the organization has been highlighting positive feedback from key officials such as the incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as it did in a Jan. 30 press release.

It remains to be seen if MCC's efforts will be effective. It's not that MCC hasn't done good work - by almost all accounts it has. It's that all development funding allocation, whether they go to USAID or MCC or any other agency, are likely to be scrutinized as budgets are formulated, just as budgets across the federal government are likely to be scrutinized. At the least, by highlighting its accomplishments and the praise it has received, MCC is making a very strong case for its continued existence.