Why do private interest organizations target certain types of venues in the institutions of government for advocacy over others? Often referred to as “venue shopping”, we answer this question by developing a theoretically grounded typology of venues and connect it with prevailing theories of interest group influence to predict which venues will be targeted by organizations drawing on certain kinds of political resources. We test hypotheses deduced from this framework with data on the lobbying activities of charter schools in the four states. We find that both the institutional structure and the prevailing ideology of an institutional venue serve to attract certain types of charter schools, facilitating their ability to gain access to lawmakers and ultimately begin to have influence over the policymaking process.