The LSA aims to advance the scientific study of language and accomplishes this goal through advocacy efforts. The Society, recognizing its growing role in advocacy, established a Secretariat in Washington, DC in 1969 to better liaise between its membership and the government.[2] Around that same time, the LSA began working with other professional organizations to meet and exchange research as part of the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA). During the Reagan administration after cuts to social science funding in 1981, the LSA and 9 other professional organizations founded the COSSA as an advocacy effort for the funding of social science research.[8]