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At a standing-room-only, two-day conference in a Capitol Hill hotel ballroom in mid-June, Washington policy wonks caught a glimpse of the future.

Their peek into what's in store went beyond the program's topic--government's role in hastening the day of the electric automobile and thereby transforming the geopolitics of oil and global warming--or the models of electric cars that were on display.

A more subtle, but equally telling, sign of change was in the juxtaposition of the names of the conference's co-sponsors: the Brookings Institution and Google.

The once-unlikely pairing of the grand-daddy of Washington think tanks with the Silicon Valley wunderkind is but one recent sign of Google's effort to extend its influence in the world of policy on the Potomac. Besides explicitly lobbying on bread-and-butter issues, such as copyright, network neutrality, and temporary visas for foreign tech workers, the Internet giant is looking for other ways to advance ideas and causes--some only tangentially related to its core business.

"From the start, Google has had an expansive view of its mission in Washington," says Alan Davidson, head of its D.C. office. Part of that mission is "to foster good conversation about the future of the Internet and other promising technologies."

The electric-car conference was something of a political coming-of-age party for Google, which established its Washington presence three years ago with Davidson as a staff of one. Since then, Google has zipped through the developmental stages that most corporations undergo in the nation's capital. Now, in addition to Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, the Podesta Group, and other contract lobbyists, the company employs seven in-house lobbyists and a few other policy staffers in Washington. Those numbers, Davidson says, will grow soon.

Lobbying expenditures rose from zero in 2002 to more than $1.5 million last year; and Google has begun a political action committee, which raised $63,000 in the 2006 election cycle and more than $163,000 so far in the current cycle. In December, the Washington office moved into funky new digs, with a large and whimsical meeting space, in a "green" building.

Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think tank, says that in "trying to make its mark" in Washington, Google realizes "it has got to deal with existing players that have a reputation, a brand they can build on and partner with."

In addition to Brookings, Google has links to the New America Foundation--a kindred Washington upstart whose issues include technology and the Internet. Google CEO Eric Schmidt took over as chairman of the foundation this month; he celebrated his new post with his own $1 million unrestricted grant to New America. It was just the latest of his financial contributions to the think tank.

Schmidt's involvement with New America is personal rather than corporate and predates his move to Google. Still, Google recently collaborated with New America on a topic of mutual interest--wireless policy. Since 2001, New America has run a Wireless Future Program, which describes its mission as promoting "fair and efficient use of the airwaves" to help allow more Americans, especially low-income individuals, to connect to the Internet. Greater Internet access is a goal that Google has also championed, and in May, New America hosted an event at which Google co-founder Larry Page answered questions about its efforts to expand that access.

National Journal Group recently teamed up with Google to sponsor a panel discussion at Google's office about the impact of the Internet and new media on the 2008 political campaigns.

Besides its collaborations, Google has begun a seminar series for invited guests, featuring such information-technology intellectuals as Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain; Stanford law professor Larry Lessig; and University of California (Berkeley) economist Hal Varian, who is on leave and now works for Google. The series is intended to help bridge the gap between Silicon Valley and Washington, Davidson says, but is also a variation on the company's tradition of sponsoring speakers to address employees at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters.

Google's multifaceted efforts in Washington bring benefits to the company.

Teaming up with well-established policy incubators such as Brookings provides Google with entree to the larger universe of thought leaders, increased visibility in a town that is still foreign territory to Google, and some gravitas that could otherwise be denied an upstart company from the West Coast--no matter how innovative or rich that company might be.

It brings a whiff of youth, dynamism, and cultural relevance to its more staid, and often grant-dependent, nonprofit think-tank partners--and it can also bring a lot of money to the table for them. Besides racking up a market capitalization that now is around $180 billion, Google has set up a maverick philanthropic arm, Google.org, the result of a promise that founders Page and Sergey Brin made when Google went public in 2004 to set aside 1 percent of the company's stock and 1 percent of its profits to tackle social and environmental issues.

Now with 40 employees of its own, and growing, Google.org recently announced an agenda for the next decade: combating climate change, emerging health threats, and poverty in the developing world.

Unlike conventional charities, including the one that Microsoft founder Bill Gates established, Google.org is not separate from its parent company, and it is run as a for-profit venture that shows up on Google's ledgers. The idea was to give the charity more flexibility than conventional charities have. It can, for example, invest in high-risk but promising new energy-saving technologies; make grants, such as the $2 million it gave the Natural Resources Defense Council to help advance energy-efficiency standards in the United States and China; and even lobby in support of its policy goals. Google lobbyists already weigh in on electric-car issues.

The charity came up with the $200,000 to pay for the electric-car conference, and Google's director for climate change and energy initiatives, Dan Reicher, a Clinton administration Energy Department official, says that Google.org is likely to expand its Washington presence as it launches a renewable-energy initiative this fall.

Google has self-consciously burnished its image in a variety of ways. It has offered free training sessions for diverse nonprofit groups--among them the League of United Latin American Citizens, the conservative Heritage Foundation, and the left-leaning New Organizing Institute--in using Google and YouTube technology to advance their organization goals.

Some of Google's forays into the world of think tanks and nonprofits have little direct connection with its core business. Promoting the speedy adoption of electric cars is one example. Others, such as the training sessions and advocacy for greater Internet connectivity, are not only about spreading the power of the Internet to new and often underserved populations but also about drawing attention to Google products and applications.

Making the arguments in tandem with or through a nonprofit think tank helps keep the focus on the more high-minded aspects of Google's interest. Page used his forum with the New America Foundation to do battle with a more established Washington presence, the National Association of Broadcasters, on the contentious issue of what happens to the parts of the scarce and valuable spectrum that will be vacant when television channels migrate to digital transmission next year.

New America and an array of consumer, minority, and religious groups, as well as Google and a coalition of information-technology companies, want these portions of the spectrum, known as "white spaces," to be made available to the public to increase wireless access to the Internet through, for example, citywide wireless networks, rather than left vacant or auctioned off. Broadcasters oppose the idea, saying that it will interfere with their transmissions.

Michael Calabrese, director of New America's Wireless Future Program, says he invited Page to the event in May in a bid to help counter the greater influence of the broadcasters at the Federal Communications Commission. "The high-tech companies are relatively underrepresented in Washington compared to incumbent interests" such as the broadcasters and the big telecom companies, Calabrese said. "Google generally has supported openness, open networks, and open airwaves, and making Internet access open and affordable."

That has helped Google to have "friendly relationships right now with the public-interest community," he said, "but that could change, depending on where their positions go in the future."