DPI's research agenda is built to further the innovation and learning of base-building organizing groups and to create a body of knowledge around powerful and strategic multiracial organizing in the 21st century. As a field, this requires us to move:

● From measuring success through oversimplified input and efficiency metrics to measuring what matters by understanding and utilizing robust power impact metrics.

● From a decades-long focus on dissecting only the White electorate to a curiosity to also understand the diverse values and political identities that exist within Black, Latino, AAPI, and Native people.

● From using data only for funder-centric accountability to using data as a way for organizers to engage in rapid in-program learning and adaptive strategy.

● From a dominant focus on electoral programs toward seeing elections as moments in an overarching strategy to win meaningful change.

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In 2024, with leadership from state-based organizing partners, we expanded our research program and piloted new implementation programs informed by research from the past five years. These efforts focused on engaging Black, Latino, and AAPI communities around the diversity of values that inform their civic engagement, helping organizing groups measure their base-building and power building work, and identifying and engaging people who are missing or mis-listed from the voter files (so-called “missing voters”).

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