Helping build…

The R&D arm
of democracy.

A mixed-methods research lab studying democracy, civil society, and the organizational practices that make collective action powerful (or fragile).

See our research → Work with us
Research · POLIS A data and measurement infrastructure: the tools that let organizers see, track, and learn from the work as it happens. View on Harvard Dataverse →
Practice · Groundwork A field-owned relational organizing platform, built by and for organizers (an alternative to investor-owned tooling). Read the brief →
Research POLIS · Participation, Organizing, and Local Influence Study Active

The first large-N dataset built to study organizing, not (only) mobilizing.

POLIS follows state-based organizing groups across the country, looking at how they recruit, develop leaders, and build durable power in their communities. The database tracks, at daily resolution, one-to-ones, research visits, trainings, team meetings, and leadership development activities, alongside more traditional civic engagement work, such as voter contact, lobby days, direct action, and other forms of participation unique to the groups.

What it lets us see
Most civic datasets measure mobilizing (who showed up, who voted). POLIS measures the slower, relational work that happens between elections: the part scholars and practitioners know matters, but nobody has the data to study at scale.
View on Dataverse →
The network, by the numbers
38
Partner
organizations
with DUAs
10
US states
covered
5 yr
Research
horizon
~40k
Participants
in the panel
200+
Groups in the
expansion network

Funded in part by the Carnegie Fellowship (2024–26), in partnership with the Pro-Democracy Campaign, State Power Fund, Democracy & Power Innovation Fund, and the Organizing Lab.

New practice Groundwork · Open-source organizing platform · Alpha 2026

Most civic CRMs are designed for mobilizing. Groundwork is designed for organizing.

An opinionated, open-source organizing platform built around the practices that turn participation into power: one-to-ones, leadership development, team formation, retention, and the relational work between elections.

Read the memo → Pitch deck →
  • 01Built for the phase you're in. What the dashboards amplify depends on what the org is trying to do: recruit a foundational base, convert an upsurge, deepen leadership, or move leaders into strategy and governance.
  • 02Leadership is data, not a tag. Who recruited whom, who's developing others, where you have capacity, and where the pipeline is thin.
  • 03Owned by the orgs that use it. Their data, exportable, on their terms. Open-source core, no lock-in, no extraction.
  • 04Comes with people, not just code. Embedded engineering and practitioner training. Groundwork isn't a license you buy and figure out alone.
  • 05Governed by the people using it. A standing board of partner organization leaders, practitioners, and researchers will review how Groundwork handles member data, what gets built next, and how acceptable use is defined. As far as we know, no civic-tech platform has been governed this way before.
About the lab

We take the work of building democratic power seriously enough to study it with care, and rigorously enough that organizers can use what we find.

The research tends to be mixed-methods because most of the questions we study demand multiple empirical approaches. Quantitative network and longitudinal panel data help show the architecture of civic participation, while ethnography shows us what it feels like to live inside it and help us explain the larger trends.

We publish peer-reviewed research in books and in journals, and we build things organizers can actually use. We believe that the study of democracy should be accountable to the people practicing it.

01 · Research

Streams of research.

All projects →
01 / POLIS
Participation, Organizing & Local Influence
38 groups, 10 states, five years. The first large-N dataset built to study organizing, not (only) mobilizing.
02 / AGENCY
The architecture of collective agency
Two-day organizing workshops in Portland and Milwaukee produced measurable shifts in motivation, strategic confidence, and the structure of participants' networks. With Marshall Ganz and Emily Lin.
03 / PERCEPTION
The Civic Perception Project
How state and municipal legislators read the people pressuring them. Twenty-six interviews complete in MN and MO; GA and CA fielding through spring 2026. With Dorothy Manevich and Yvette Bailey-Emberson.
04 / DONORS
Between Donors and Democracy
A pre-registered list experiment embedded in a national survey of civic professionals, testing whose definition of success they actually endorse. With Christian Caballero and Jae Yeon Kim.
05 / MAMDANI
Organized: The Case for People-First Politics
An edited volume on how the campaign actually worked: 104,400 volunteers, three million doors, and a decade of organizing infrastructure most press coverage missed. With Marshall Ganz, Tascha Van Auken, and seven other contributors.
02 · Publications

Books & selected publications.

Full list →
Under review

The Revolution Will Be Organized

A decade of fieldwork on why dense civic life sometimes builds democracy and sometimes corrodes it, and what that means for countries facing democratic backsliding now.

About the book →

Groundbreakers book cover
2014 · Oxford University Press

Groundbreakers

How the Obama campaign's 2.2 million volunteers transformed American politics. A multi-year study of movement-electoral politics at unprecedented scale, with Hahrie Han.

Prisms of the People book cover
2021 · University of Chicago

Prisms of the People

Power, organizing, and twenty-first-century democracy. With Hahrie Han and Michelle Oyakawa. APSA Michael Harrington Book Award, 2022.

03 · Press
In the press

Recent coverage.

All press →
The New Yorker
What MAGA can teach Democrats about organizing. Charles Duhigg
Feb 2026
Boston Globe
The Left knows how to have huge protests. The Right keeps winning elections.
Oct 2025
Pro-Democracy Campaign
Pro-Democracy Campaign report. Analyst Institute Expy Award
2025
Harvard Gazette
McKenna awarded Andrew Carnegie Fellowship.
2024
04 · Engage
Work with the lab

Three ways to engage.

For organizations

Propose a partnership

We work with movements, campaigns, unions, and civic organizations on focused research questions. We ask partners to submit a research spec.

Submit a research spec →
For researchers

Join the lab

We hire research assistants, postdoctoral fellows, forward-deployed engineers, and visiting scholars. Methods chops and movement experience both valued.

Express interest →
For everyone

Stay in touch

Short notes from the lab, new work, field dispatches, things we're reading.

Join the email list →

Color scheme

Seigensha-principled palettes. Single strong accent, everything else quiet.

Mark tilt

How much the snowflake leans in the hero.