Several months later, the organization received $100,000. The money came after Mr. Wyden persuaded his colleagues to earmark the amount specifically for the group.

Winning money so easily led the charity to think it might be able to get more. It figured if it hired a lobbyist and put more resources into the search for an earmark, as many nonprofit organizations do, it had the potential to get millions of dollars from the federal government to augment the $7-million the charity spends to operate nine chapters in eight states.

Yet finding a way to repeat that initial success has proved elusive. For the past three years, Friends of the Children has sent its officials to the nation’s capital three or four times a year to meet with members of Congress, spent $102,000 to hire a lobbyist, trained its chapters in how to approach lawmakers from their states, and held a breakfast briefing on Capitol Hill.

None of that effort has brought the charity a dime.

Another Try

This year the charity’s officials are trying again. But this time they are doing without the lobbyist in an effort to save money. Instead, two of the charity’s board members — Suzan Canli, a San Francisco lawyer, and Donald A. Washburn, a retired airline executive — accompanied Catherine Milton, the charity’s president, on a visit to Capitol Hill this past spring to seek money.

As Ms. Milton entered the lobby of the Rayburn House Office Building, she said, “I’ve been here so many times, the offices all know me. I don’t even have to remind them about who we are. It’s oh, hi, Catherine, how are you?”

She led the way through the security checkpoint to the day’s first appointment. The state flag of Oregon beckoned from a doorway. Ms. Milton and the two board members walked in to meet with Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat. But Mr. Blumenauer couldn’t stay. He wanted to offer an amendment to a bill being debated on the House floor. After a brief conversation with Ms. Milton, he was off.

The visitors sat down in a small reception area with Danny Ly, a legislative assistant, to talk about the $3-million they were seeking to help pay for a five-year evaluation of the program, which they believe will persuade donors, and government agencies, that the program is cost-effective and worth expanding.

There was no need to explain the program, since Mr. Blumenauer is a strong supporter. “We’ve tried and tried. We’ll try again,” said Ms. Ly. But, she warned, “this time around, there are a lot more requests from charities. A lot more in general.” Above her head, Mr. Blumenauer appeared on C-Span. They all turned to watch.

While Mr. Blumenauer has said he wants to do all he can to help the charity win the money, he is not as powerful as other House members. Because Republicans control the House, Democrats do not have an easy time swaying votes — except those in the top leadership of their party.

Perhaps more important, neither Mr. Blumenauer nor the state’s two senators serve on any spending committees. A Chronicle analysis of earmarks shows that charities in states that have significant representation on the spending committees fare better than those, like Friends of the Children, that do not.

Tough Competition

The charity faces other hurdles in getting an earmark. Its program is out of sync with the prevailing Republican view that direct services provided by charities should be done mostly by volunteers, says a Republican congressional aide who asked to remain anonymous. Friends of the Children pays its mentors, which it says it must do for the program to succeed. Volunteers do a good job helping many kids, they say, but too often they don’t want to stick with the job, and the turnover can hinder efforts to help troubled children.

Friends of the Children also faces a lot of competition, as Ms. Ly noted. Lawmakers often want to keep giving earmarks to the same organizations year after year, so it is tough for newcomers to get earmarks.

Friends’ former lobbyist and supporters in Congress have told the charity it should bring a celebrity to the nation’s capital to demonstrate support for the organization — support that lawmakers are likely to remember.

While the charity does have a prominent celebrity supporter — Steve Young, a former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers — the organization decided it did not want to ask him to meet with lawmakers.

“Steve was helping in our San Francisco chapter, and we could only get one thing from him, so we decided to stick with that,” Ms. Milton said.

On the long walk down marble halls to the next appointment, Ms. Milton said she feels ambivalent about seeking an earmark. In the 1990s, Ms. Milton was senior vice president of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the government organization that runs AmeriCorps and other federally financed volunteer programs.

Too often, she said, the agency was required to give money to organizations that had been handpicked by members of Congress, even if they had little connection to the goals and mission of federal volunteer efforts.

Even so, Ms. Milton says she believes Friends of the Children deserves federal money because she thinks it could serve as a national model for how to help children in turmoil. Unlike traditional mentor programs for troubled youths, the trained mentors her organization hires work with the children they are assigned to for at least six years.

“As somebody who has been involved in this effort for 30 years and has worked in the government, I know this is what we should be doing,” she said. “This is what we need to do as a society. These are the kids who are most likely to be a burden to society later on, either through crime, teenage pregnancy, or drug addictions. These are the kids where, if you spend money now, you’re going to save money later on.”

Public/Private Ventures, a Philadelphia nonprofit organization that works to improve the effectiveness of social policies and programs, conducted a six-month study of the program in 1998. “We concluded, wow, this is terrific,” says Gary Walker, the organization’s president. “This is just a really terrific way of getting at kids who are likely to be problems to themselves and others.”

Mr. Walker tried and failed to get foundation money for a long-term study of the group. Donors are leery of supporting the program unless its effectiveness has been documented, he says, since the paid-mentoring program is expensive. Without the study, Mr. Walker says, “its costs are such that it’s going to be hard for it to go far.”

Friends of the Children spends $8,000 to $12,000 a year to provide mentors to each of the 600 children in its program. In the long run, Mr. Walker believes, the program could provide a “giant payoff” to government if it succeeds in keeping children from getting into crime, drugs, or other bad behavior. “Even if it works for just a percentage of the kids, it’s a big value to the community,” he says.

Outside the Limits

Because of the way Friends of the Children is designed, it does not qualify for most federal programs that help children. For example, federal grants for children in foster care may be spent only as long as the children are in foster care. But many of the troubled children Friends of the Children helps are in and out of foster care as their parents move to and from jail, jobs, or programs to help them kick drug or alcohol addictions.

At the trio’s next visit, to a Republican House member from another state, they sat down in the lawmaker’s private office, with its dark wood furniture, thick carpet, and huge window draped in blue velvet. They had worked out a practiced pitch by now. Ms. Milton and Ms. Canli spoke in turn about how the charity works and its chapter in the lawmaker’s state. The beefy legislative assistant, who looked barely old enough to have graduated from college, listened impassively.

Then Mr. Washburn talked about how their program produces measurable results and will save the government money.

Still, the assistant was absolutely expressionless. He was new. The man Ms. Milton spoke with last year had moved on. Most House staff members spend less than two years in their jobs, according to the Congressional Management Foundation, a nonprofit group that aims to help Congress improve its administrative practices.

When the charity visitors finished speaking, the assistant asked: “If we get you this earmark, which state gets the money?”

For a moment, no one responded. They all knew the answer is Oregon. But in the office of someone from a different state, it suddenly seemed pretty clear that that was the wrong answer.

“Oregon will redistribute the money to the chapters, and a lot of it will go to the chapter in your area,” Ms. Milton said. After a little more conversation, the visit ended. The assistant suggested that next time they might want to ask for money just for the chapter in his congressman’s state.

Outside the office, they huddled. “We’ll have to bring the letters from the people in their community next time, and from community leaders,” Ms. Canli said. Ms. Milton had faxed the letters when she set up their visit, but the office had mislaid them.

‘Bureaucratic Trap’

Over a late lunch at Bistro Bis, a restaurant near Capitol Hill favored by lobbyists, the atmosphere is muted. The charity’s visits to 10 lawmakers’ offices did not seem promising. “Legislators and their staffs would love to help us. I think they feel frustrated they can’t help us the way they’d like to,” Mr. Washburn said. “They’re in a bureaucratic trap.”

The board will wait to hear from him and Ms. Canli before deciding what it will do next year, he said.

Ms. Milton won’t be around to influence that decision. Her contract ends this summer, and she plans to take six months off before seeking her next position.

Still, she says she is frustrated by what she has seen on her Capitol Hill visits.

“The system isn’t working,” said Ms. Milton. “Nonprofits are being put in the position of spending a lot of precious time and resources on not only lobbying but figuring out the best ways to influence members of Congress, instead of spending time on delivering the best program and figuring out what’s working. The ones that are suffering are the taxpayers and the children.”