This memo describes research, innovation, and implementation projects either completed or launched in 2024.

This deck summarizes phase 2 of the OOC Rightfully Cynical research in Ohio in 2024.

State leaders and research partners helped us make sense of the election results and began to identify what we need to learn in 2025 and beyond to continue to strengthen our collective strategies to build and sustain a multiracial democracy in the United States.

ACE led this research to support its organizing efforts. It is using the findings as it trains organizers and canvassers to reach eligible voters across Arizona. The findings will help organizers build a strong sense of community among Latino voters and ensure that outreach is done in meaningful ways.

In 2024, HIT Strategies and Sojourn Strategies launched a follow-up survey to validate the 2022 Black values research to inform 2024 civic engagement programs.

POWER Interfaith in PA, New Georgia Project, and Detroit Action Education Fund released a national study of the Black electorate which, for the first time, analyzes segments or values clusters of the Black community.

This analysis highlights the critical role that implementation plays in any democracy policy reform. This study analyzes 2022 SDR use in Minnesota and Nevada and documents the innovative implementation practices of ISAIAH and ACDC to increase use of SDR.

This newsletter highlights qualitative and quantitative analyses of Same Day Registration usage and education programs.

This study tracks members of ACE and LUCHA as they negotiate with the Governor and key legislators on multiple issues of importance to their base during the 2023-2024 legislative season.

This deck summarizes the findings from a 2023 survey of "rightfully cynical" Black voters in Ohio.

This deck summarizes the findings from the listening sessions conducted with "rightfully cynical" Black voters in Ohio.

This newsletter highlights Miriam McKinney Gray's Surfacing Missing Voters report, with reflections from the strategists and recommendations on how organizers and funders can use this research.

This report documents the ways that Black, Latino, and AAPI individuals and communities are systematically ignored by current digital and technological systems of voter engagement.

This opening panel in the 2023 DPI Annual Convening explored the challenges of our current political paradigm.

In this workshop from the 2023 DPI Annual Convening, California organizers and researchers shared what they learned about measuring power and created opportunities for participants to wrestle with the implications for their programs in 2024.

In this workshop from the 2023 DPI Annual Convening, the Ohio organizers and researchers shared what they have learned about measuring power and creating opportunities for participants to wrestle with the implications for their programs in 2024.

This plenary's discussion from the 2023 DPI Annual Convening was about the role that narrative, agency and belonging play in the work to build and sustain powerful political movements and how those insights can translate into impact.

Leaders from the Ohio Organizing Collaborative and HIT Strategies share the findings from their summer values cluster work with Black voters in Ohio. They outline how they engaged two of those clusters in their organizing work and explored lessons from that work for various communities in 2024 and beyond!

Art in many forms has been a critical part of sustaining American movements for centuries. How are current organizers incorporating art and artists into their power-building efforts? What impact does this have on their campaigns and on the artists and members involved?

On this panel from the 2023 Annual DPI Convening, leading practitioners and funders discussed what they have learned from the work that base-building organizing groups undertake to build the power they need to achieve policy, electoral, and ideological impact.

This study aims to capture a 360-degree picture of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative’s innovative, scaled, 2022 relational voter organizing program with both quantitative and qualitative data.

This report outlines a framework developed by groups in the DPI Organizing Lab to identify and measure strategies that wield power using the data organizations collect and analyze in their day-to-day work.

This newsletter highlights the Power Metrics: Measuring What Matters to Build a Multiracial Democracy Report.

The Analyst Institute partnered with Ohio Organizing Collaborative (OOC) on this descriptive research project that examines the reach of their 2020 and 2022 relational organizing programs.

This newsletter summarizes the findings and recommendations from the Art & Activism case studies in Ohio, Michigan, and Mississippi.

This research focuses on the innovative cultural organizing these groups are doing in partnership with artists and activists and examines how arts and culture move narratives within communities of color.

Watch the full briefing on Data Integration in States: Challenges and Solutions, authored by Carter Kalchik, a longtime leader in the data, tech, and campaign strategy space. This research documents the challenges base-building groups face with the current set of movement tech tools and suggests some systemic solutions

This newsletter highlights a roadmap for needed investment in state and local data infrastructure that will pay huge dividends for our movement and for winning change for our people over the long term.

DPI Fund partners Katrina Gamble of Sojourn Strategies, Jess Morales Rocketto of EquisLabs, Nse Ufot, and Terrance Woodbury of HIT Strategies presented at SXSW about how political cynicism threatens political power in young people and BIPOC communities.

This report documents the challenges base-building groups face with the current set of movement tech tools and suggests some systemic solutions.

In fall 2022, Sojourn Strategies, in partnership with Florida Rising Together, Solidarity Strategies, and Analyst Institute, conducted a field experiment to measure the impact of a survey-informed message developed to increase voter participation among Latinx voters.

This newsletter highlights research that builds on our work over the past three years to understand the Black electorate and connect that learning to multiracial organizing and programs.

In 2022, the DPI Fund advanced towards a multiracial democracy. Our unity emphasized community power. Our Annual Letter reveals insights on Black power, Latino voters, and enhancing democracy. United by a vision, we aim for an inclusive political future.

In this video, The DPI Fund, HIT Strategies, and Sojourn Strategist discuss the Black Values National Survey designed to understand the various values and political identities that drive Black civic engagement.

This memo is an update of our research and innovation program, including links to reports on projects completed or launched in 2022.

This newsletter highlights key takeaways from the Belonging, Community & Impact: What it Means to Build a Political Home Report. What drives people to affiliate with power-building groups? Researchers collaborated with VOTE (LA), PICO California, and Voces de la Frontera (WI) to discern key factors.

A list of recommendations HIT developed for reaching Black voters.

The objectives of this national poll were to understand attitudes heading into the midterm elections, segment our audience to determine who our base, persuasion, and opposition voters are, and identify messaging that resonates with Black voters.

Sojourn Strategies conducted listening sessions to better understand how people engage with and participate in political homes, where individuals can build community with others who have shared values to impact change, in California, Louisiana, and Wisconsin.

Another election season is behind us. As the dust settles, this fantastic set of state leaders and research partners help us make sense of the election results and begin to identify what we need to learn in 2023 and 2024 to continue strengthening our collective strategies to build and sustain a multiracial democracy in

We know that building Black political power is about creating spaces where Black people are actively setting the agenda, having direct influence during the policy making process, and making Black voters hyper-aware of the collective power they hold to take civic action and make political change.

Here are some key tools and tips to support implementing what we have learned from our research together over the past two years about how to strengthen your organizing programs to connect with, engage effectively, and inspire Black, Latinx, AAPI and other voters and BUILD YOUR POWER along the way!

This door-to-door script from the New Georgia Project implements lessons from the Black Narrative Research.

Use Jotform or Google Forms to track your data when you are doing outreach outside the voter file, either through neighborhood door-knocking or site-based turnout events, to enable post-election follow-up and analysis. Below is the form used by the Muslim Coalition of ISAIAH.

Below is the sign-up form used by the Ohio Organizing Collaborative to track data and participation at their events.

POWER Interfaith in Pennsylvania ran an ad prior to the 2020 election that shows how they incorporated the Black Narrative research into their civic engagement outreach.

Multiple cycles of research with the Analyst Institute has shown that organizing through relational networks is the most impactful way to engage voters. Try out this simple relational list template from the Ohio Organizing Collaborative with your own members or through site-based canvassing. No tech barriers!

An organizer's guide on how to mobilize Latinx voters: key takeaways from the Latinx Values Research focused on compelling insights that might be unique to Latinos and actionable for organizers trying to improve their GOTV efforts, specifically focused on values, norms, or perceptions that can help groups build...

Below are insights from a study of social and psychological factors that impact voting, along with a segmentation of Latino non-voters, both based on a national poll of 2,800 eligible Latino voters.

Below are key takeaways from the research and some reflections from several leaders of this project based in Arizona and Florida. You can read the full case studies of LUCHA/ACE and Faith in Florida and Florida Rising on our website.

The movement to restore voting rights to individuals who have felony convictions has had several successes in recent years, including historic wins in Florida in 2018 and New Jersey in 2019. But ensuring the legal right to vote is only the first step.

DPI supported Equis and Sojourn Strategies in a partnership with numerous organizing groups including Florida Rising, Make the Road Nevada, Poder NC, LUCHA, Voces de la Frontera, and PICO California to survey Latino voters and dig deep on who is voting, why, and what values are motivating for civic engagement.

The election is right around the corner. What are we doing here?!

Recent Supreme Court decisions, coupled with the January 6th hearings, have made it clearer than ever that we are operating in a politically charged, high stakes, power arena. How should organizers think about “winning” in this context? What is our role in this power arena?

DPI supported Equis and Sojourn Strategies in a partnership with numerous organizing groups including Florida Rising, Make the Road Nevada, Poder NC, LUCHA, Voces de la Frontera, and PICO California to survey Latino voters and dig deep on who is voting, why, and what values are motivating for civic engagement.

What you get: Examples of how to track leadership development and membership engagement using simple event participation forms and various visualization tools to help you better understand who your members are, where they are, and what they are doing.

Insight on how to build a strategic framework for your electoral program that creates space for teams to own parts of the strategy and examples of how to use data and other inputs from across your organization to improve strategy.

Proven methods for working with election officials to make it easier for your community to vote.

A detailed discussion of how to power-map the meta-political environment in your state, including how you can diagnose what the big picture political narrative fights will be, understand the stakes of those fights, and anticipate the moves of different actors on the chess board.

Who do I need to say hi to? What do we need to tackle today?

A diagnosis of how the political industry’s failure to focus on growing the electorate has failed the progressive movement and a discussion of transformative voter research and messaging strategies that can help us understand and engage more voters this year and beyond!

During 2020-2022, we worked with POWER, Detroit Action, BLOC Wisconsin, Florida Rising, and New Georgia Project to examine which messaging frames and narratives would help increase political engagement among Black voters.

Concrete skills for identifying member leaders, training them to lead, and organizing their social networks for high impact voter outreach this fall.

Insight into the ways different constituencies think of their own power and political identities; short and practical summaries of the research to date with HIT Strategies, Equis Labs, and the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund to guide your communications and voter contact programs

Research findings on how to increase civic participation by returning citizens and their families including a discussion of effective messaging frames.

Before and after script examples, role plays, research-informed outreach modeling, and examples of impact.

Specific data and organizing tactics for finding and engaging people not on the voter file.

The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (NJISJ), Analyst Institute, and academic researchers sought to encourage civic engagement among formerly incarcerated people whose rights to register and vote were restored in New Jersey in December 2019.

The goal of this research is to support grassroots organizations’ work with local election officials and to tell the stories of organizers fighting for democracy at the local level. This case study uses the advocacy experiences of Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA) and the Arizona Center for Empowerment...

The goal of this research is to support grassroots organizations’ work with local election officials and to tell the stories of organizers fighting for democracy at the local level. This case study uses the advocacy experiences of Faith in Florida and Florida Rising to identify general and specific state and local...

This document includes a list of 2020 DPI research.

This is the first DPI Annual letter. It covers work done in 2021 and was released in early 2022.

All eyes were on Georgia for the 2020 November election and the two United States Senate runoff elections in January 2021. This report identifies lessons and recommendations for the field, based on the experiences of New Georgia Project (NGP) and New Georgia Project Action Fund (NGPAF) during these elections.

Analyst Institute partnered with MOVE to conduct experimental research designed to analyze the impact of Transformative Conversations on civic and political attitudes.

In 2021 we supported a collaborative report led by Kirk Norden and Heather McMahon Calhoun at Community Building Strategies working with Midwest organizers and donors to lay out state and regional strategies to build progressive, multiracial power in the region. This report advanced a data-informed strategy for...

This document outlines the DPI research agenda in our three core areas of focus: Organizing and Data, Narrative and Political Identity, Structural Democracy Reform

2021 DPI Convening session summaries and recordings.

This panel will examine successful strategies to build multiracial progressive power in the Midwest, including how to build lasting progressive infrastructure that grows the base.

Local election officials are important power brokers in our fight for a progressive multiracial democracy. They can expand voting access and increase equity in our democratic process or erect barriers that unequally increase the costs of participation for voters and the barriers for voters of color.

This break-out session will cover recent work and case studies to identify practices and develop narratives to meaningfully engage those who have had their rights restored. This project also presents an important model for collaboration between academics and organizers.

In this session we discuss new research that examines what is driving young people to activism, how young people see connections between organized protest activity and other forms of civic participation, and how youth organizations think about keeping the momentum going in concert with national conversations about...

Over the past decade the white-dominated political ecosystem has begun to recognize the importance of Black, Latinx, AAPI, and other communities of color in key political outcomes.

In this session we will share innovations from the DPI community in the last year around researching and measuring organizing inputs, collective capacities and power in practice. In a case study, Color of Change will share their progress and challenges as they work to put the civic leadership of their members at the...

Staff from the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, ISAIAH, and the AAPI Force will share their effective methods for reaching their communities and propose sustainable wide-reaching solutions for member-based organizations.

Over the next year, the DPI community will embark on a multi-state, multi-researcher project that examines how participants in organizing groups define a “political home” and what they seek when joining one. The research will also explore the meaning and value associated with the idea of a “political home” among...

Through thoughtful research informed by organizers, we’re disrupting political assumptions about Black voters as cynical and uninformed and learning about how to support and sustain Black political engagement for the long term.

This breakout session will share and analyze the innovative digital work done by grassroots partners and the DPI learning cohort groups from spring 2020 through summer 2021.

In 2021, DPI worked with the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE), a non-partisan, independent research organization focused on youth civic engagement in the United States at Tufts, to highlight and elevate connections between youth voting and youth movements showing that...

HIT Strategies conducted six focus groups (four in person and two online) of Black voters from Metro Atlanta and rural Georgia from July 28th to August 17th, 2021, on behalf of the New Georgia Project to explore the following research objectives...

HIT Strategies conducted five in-person focus groups of Black voters from Milwaukee from August 4th to August 5th, 2021, on behalf of BLOC Wisconsin to explore the following research objectives...

This test explores whether relational contact is more effective than cold outreach in encouraging individuals to sign a petition, opt in to receive more information from the sponsoring organization, and sign up to attend an online organizing event.

The Kairos Social Ambassador research project was developed as a part of the Democracy and Power Innovation Fund cohort in order to understand and deploy the most effective strategies and practices that membership-based groups use to identify and develop online leaders and influencers...

While our movement includes thousands of paid organizers, they are often flying blind on the core work they do - connecting with constituents and developing leaders, building relationships, and crafting strategies that can win change–because our current tools and technology do little to support them in those efforts.

The returning citizens project is a powerful collaboration research effort among academics, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice and other affiliated community-based organizations, the Analyst Institute and affected individuals. Its goal is to discover ways of communicating with persons who have been...

The purpose of this segmentation was to provide insight into the various narratives black people hold about race and their experiences so that we can learn who we are trying to reach. To provide a foundation for understanding the political diversity of Black Americans, we applied a proprietary model to the 2019-2020...

Last fall, the DPI Fund hosted a workshop on Black narrative and messaging. Presenters included Katrina Gamble from Sojourn Strategies, Janay Cody, and Terrance Woodbury of HIT Strategies.

This is the first report-out of a two-stage research project conducted by the P3 Lab at Johns Hopkins University. The goals of the project are to 1. Lay out a vision and analysis of the integrated work underway to build a movement architecture for multiracial and class conscious governing power 2.Provide an empirical..

Black politics in the United States, in the context of racial unrest and revolutionary demands, is a fraught yet fertile scholarly field. Unpacking the contours of how Black people conceptualize their relationship to the state, to society, and to one another is critical both because of the substantive need to...