Organizing is fundamental to power-building and the health of our democracy. Unfortunately there is a field-wide lack of investment in the data and analysis capacity that can reveal the who and the what of the work of organizing. Most of the resources that have been directed to this space in the last decade have focused on technology (not people), and usually with an elections-first rather than a power-first or people-first approach.
The result is an array of alpha-tested tech tools for voter contact, and most of these new tools do not even consistently sync with the voter file. As a result, the organizational inputs that lead to people power remain invisible. A self-fulfilling prophecy, the invisibility of the work helps maintain the status quo: you can’t invest in or systematically learn from what you can’t see.
Moreover, without a body of evidence that speaks to the “how” of organizing for power, we cede the narrative to traditional explanations: money, voter-targeting models, inexorable demographic shifts, and mainstream media, which stand in and take credit for major progressive victories.
The DPI Data Team and Learning Cohort launched to help fill this gap. We do regular biweekly one-to-one calls with each organization’s data manager to generate ideas for analysis, and through the analysis teach the data staff how to organize data, visualize it for learning, and learn programming skills (primarily in R and Python). This team also leads a monthly call with data directors and staff from the learning cohort groups. Our long-term goal is to build a cohort of data scientists in organizing and democracy-building groups who can generate learning, analysis, and real-time strategy insights for the movement to advance our Flipping the Formula agenda.
When we launched the learning cohort we set two broad questions of inquiry for the first year:
These are fundamental questions groups who are building power by organizing bases of people have to answer every day. See the gallery here.
One of our priorities was to support DPI organizations in co-creating questions and analyses that are most helpful to their immediate work. To this end, we helped a number of groups that were interested in mapping the terrain in their state to better understand the geographic dispersion of their base (or their potential base) and refine their political strategies in a high-stakes election year. Other groups prioritized analyses of the voter demographics of their state, and how they changed over time. See the gallery here.
A third area of inquiry we are exploring is how to measure program impact in power arenas beyond the electoral context. We are working in close partnership with the P3 Lab at Johns Hopkins University to develop new research methods and metrics that help make visible durable policy agenda changes, narrative shifts, and elite network dynamics. In 2021 we will also examine which member experiences increase their own sense of agency and power. See the gallery here.
In 2020, DPI helped set up and fund 20 research projects and summary memos. See the gallery here.