Our Research
At Rivera Consulting, Inc., we are committed to producing innovative, data-driven analysis and people-centered solutions for our clients. Be it in organizational development, change management, urban planning, or political analysis, we understand that the relational is better understood by data. And the most valuable data can be only utilized only through true relational understanding.
Our firm is experienced in mixed-method quantitative and qualitative forms of analysis and apply those techniques to our wide range of client services.
Since our establishment, Rivera Consulting, Inc. has been tasked with developing research-based analysis to answer and operationalize 21st century solutions, such as:
·What is the potential impact of nonprofit entities and external partners on local municipal planning and development?
·How can reproductive justice organizations best build political and cultural power in an environment in which their values are constantly under threat?
·What does the political realignment seen in the Democratic party in recent years mean for progressive candidates moving forward?
The answers to these questions lay both in relational trust building and techniques of data analysis and collection. Our goal at Rivera Consulting, Inc. is to design, in partnership with our clients, a plan and structure that leans on both the heart and the mind. Below you will find recent examples of that ethos in action.
In 2018, Rivera Consulting, Inc. worked closely with Maria’s List to develop a qualitative and quantitative political giving strategy of stacking political and philanthropic contributions early and vertically over a political cycle in a geographic region to candidates, movement organizations, and intermediaries who strategically complement each other.
In 2020, we deepened this framework through the creation of Deep Democracy 2.0. By focusing on deep county-level demographic research, Rivera Consulting Inc. is identifying the progressive women of color candidates at all levels of the ballot that can usher in a progressive realignment within the Democratic party.
Deep Democracy 2.0 Framework: (Link)
Source: 270towin.com
Rivera Consulting, Inc., in partnership with Maria’s List, has provided instant electoral analysis throughout the 2020 election cycle. Beginning with Super Tuesday in early March, we have honed in on key topics such as demographic turnout patterns, vote-by-mail voter behavior, and grassroots progressive campaign strategies up and down the ballot. Layered in this analysis is the tracking and testing of Rivera Consulting’s 2020 electoral framework: Deep Democracy 2.0. Along with the Democratic presidential primary, our analysis has led us to focus on a number of illuminating electoral moments in the 2020 cycle, including the progressive takeover of the New Mexico State Senate in June and Charles Booker’s near monumental upset in the Kentucky Democratic Senate Primary.
In partnership with the Urban Land Institute of Boston/New England and its Real Estate Advisory Committee, Rivera Consulting Inc. designed and implemented a mixed-methods evaluation assessment of ULI Boston/New England’s ’s Technical Assistance Panels (TAPs). Spanning nearly two decades of municipal engagements, TAP panelists have advised 50 municipalities on issues of land use and economic development, along with other issues of local importance. This report set out to assess the impact of those engagements through the use of both quantitative and qualitative means, centered on the input and opinion of TAP community sponsors across Massachusetts and New England.
TAP Assessment Report: (Link)
From November 2018 through December 2019, Rivera Consulting, Inc. led an asset-driven strategic change management process with the transformational reproductive justice and health youth-centered movement-building organization United for Reproductive and Gender Equality (URGE). Organizational leadership, board members, and staff co-created metrics of success and identifiable groupings of organizational assets with the purpose of developing a qualitative key stakeholder survey tool. Known as “Asset Mapping”, this tool set forth to answer the critical organizational question of how URGE amplifies and strengthens its current societal impact in the realm of reproductive health and social justice.
With the input and perspective of 54 URGE staff, students, allies, and board members who engaged with the survey tool, Rivera Consulting Inc. analyzed all stakeholder responses through the qualitative coding process to ultimately develop, in partnership with URGE, a five-year strategic plan for the organization.
URGE Strategic Plan: (Link)
2019 Candidate Post - Mortem
Alejandra St. Guillen, 2019 At Large Boston City Council Race and Boston City Council President Kim Janey.(Source: Gina Christo)
In 2019, Rivera Consulting, Inc. continued to work with change-making candidates that represent and value the Rising American Electorate of people of color, unmarried women, and young people. All three of our 2019 clients—Alejandra St. Guillen for Boston City Council At-Large, Kim Janey for Boston City Council District 7, and Alex Morse for Congress—challenged, in their own way, the long held preconceived notions of who wields power and who is represented in the halls of our institutions.
In Boston, the 2019 city council election with St. Guillen and Janey completed the council’s transformation from a longtime white male power structure into a majority minority women and people of color governing body. Morse, in challenging a powerful thirty-year incumbent, has given voice to communities across the 1st Congressional District that see progressive policies and movements taken for granted when re-election is all but assured for current office holders. We take a look back at these campaigns in our 2019 Post-Mortem below.
Some political pundits credit the recent victory of Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley as an anomaly of the political climate or at worst, an uninformed choice made by a new crop of voters who were swayed purely by good speeches and rallies. Not only does this dismiss Pressley as a viable candidate and a seasoned campaigner but it dismisses voters’ ability to decide on what’s best for their community. The reality is that women of color are not elected solely based on their inspirational stories. MA-07 deserve the real story to emerge and the numbers don’t lie. When compared to the last midterms, voter turnout increased by 58 percent (full analysis here).
The establishment said that Pressley couldn't build a team to effectively challenge a sitting incumbent without the support of Boston Mayor Walsh, former Governor Deval Patrick, or without the backing of progressive labor unions and organizations such as 1199SEIU, Emily’s List, and Planned Parenthood. She had to raise at least $2 million dollars. She couldn’t win without TV. “It just was not possible,” they said, but our movement building strategy worked and produced historical results. Behind speeches and rallies were volunteers, staff, and Rivera Consulting, Inc., the lead architect of the Pressley campaign.
Rivera Consulting, Inc. calls these campaigns movement building campaigns because they both expand the electorate and ignite the base. Activists are trained in relational organizing and reach out to the pool of people who don’t normally vote while conventional campaign tactics are used to ignite the traditional base of likely voters. They also learn campaign plans to win and how their contributions are vital to success. By increasing their ownership, their activism is likely to extend beyond election night.
We need political campaigns that connect with voters and residents on the issues they care about and that are not just persuading them to show up for a candidate or party. This strategy contradicts most political spending which is dedicated to TV ads that no longer promotes turnout from the nearly 60 percent of the Democratic base, the American Rising Electorate (millennials, people of color, and unmarried women. These ads are only aimed at the swing voters. Traditional electoral investment has focused on recapturing mythical white working class voters at the neglect of working class in communities of color and women. To win over the near and long term, messaging needs to be more carefully robust/mindful.
At the same time, movement building campaigns are more dependent relationship driven strategies and the heavy use ethnic media, digital marketing, and social media. These campaigns seek not only to win elections, but also seek to usher in movements that enable future policy change and advocacy. I believed from the very beginning that Ayanna Pressley could win if we identified first time primary non-voters across the district that matched her voter base in Boston. We did. She can win if likely voters represented a smaller share of the overall electorate on Election Day. They did. She won by 18 points, almost doubling overall turnout, and winning over 76% of all precincts across the district.
A deeper dive also reveals that first-time primary voters made up nearly 50 percent of the overall electorate - representing the majority of all voters - while frequent and super voters only made up 12 percent of the electorate. These new voters were largely millennials, people of color, and women - the base fueling the current political resistance from the ballot box to main street, who alongside traditional liberals sent a loud message: Change is Not Waiting, We Are Here.
In this political climate, if progressives want to win governance power, we must first recognize that conventional political funding that has contributed to this current landscape. We cannot go back to business as usual, we must build upon the progress of this cycle to deliver the governance coalition that is necessary to take back our country. This is not a gimmick or a television advertisement that can be done weeks before an Election Day. It requires hiring and developing the talent to run these campaigns. We must give early financial support to elect bold progressives, while also investing in increasing the turnout of our base. Movement building campaigns don’t stop on Election Day, they extend civic engagement into protests, policy change, and resistance.