Unpacking & Restitching Our Siloed Edges: The Deep Democracy Landscape

Rivera Consulting revamps their political and civic research to meet the reality of our political and public commons

In today’s society, the patience and capacity to engage in hard or difficult conversations has undeniably and irrevocably been damaged. Leading to an erosion of our systems of governance, leaving us with opaque digital channels and physical mediums for care, connection, and safety. From a cross-class perspective, inequality and our sense of place have irreversibly changed for far too many lower-income, BIPOC, immigrant, TGNC or LGBQTIA+ communities. The safety that people seek to build communities, exist in their own bodies, and connect with one another is under constant vigilance or worse, attack.

We’ve witnessed too many arrested, or permanently trapped in the crossfire of wars, genocides, and famines. These are the same communities that once leveraged the integration of on-the-ground civic engagement with digital platform tools such as Twitter, Facebook, or TikTok to bridge silos and demand more of our governments. That playbook led to impossible movement, electoral and ballot victories, and set the foundation for the adoption of historic laws. Trumpism and the pandemic opened the gates for greed and white nationalism to become normalized. More people are joining a multi-generational conservative and autocratic movement that has succeeded in platforming itself.

"Deep Democracy is a design-thinking and generative research approach that flips conventional political and civic research, which exclusively over-relies on static datasets like the Census, voter file or polling information."

Not taking them seriously sooner, perhaps is our gravest blindspot. This anti-democratic and bigoted movement has unleashed an overt and covert attack built upon a long term strategy focused on undoing the legal framework of abortion, immigrant, environmental, and voting and civil rights. Whether at home or in the rest of the world, the ability to express or demonstrate the individual or collective humanity of BIPOC, immigrant, TGNC and LGBQTIA+ communities is not being platformed. This anti-democratic movement seems to continue to expand, trapping us in reality that feels farther away from any one any of us have ever lived.

A Primer on Deep Democracy

Four years ago, one day before the 2020 election day, WBUR - Boston's NPR News Station, published Rivera Consulting's op-ed, Win Or Lose, Democrats Must Reconcile America's Original Sin. This op-ed stands now as a foreshadowing expression of the undoing of the American social fabric that most of us could not have predicted. Government, the legal system, and many other institutions across the country are undoing the social and actual contracts that made them accountable to serving BIPOC, immigrant, TGNC and LGBQTIA+ communities. Only an intersectional, cross-race, and cross-class movement—supported by long term philanthropic and equity investments—can harness the knowledge and lived experience to meet this generational moment.

When we share the hard truths, it draws people in; even more so when we are willing to expose our own limitations and vulnerabilities. Yet where does that data and story live? We know how to research and talk about battleground states, voter files, and campaign plans. But the larger problem at hand is that individuals of all stripes are not confident nor trust that voting alone will be enough to keep them safe. Our shared realities are becoming more and more narrowed and divided across platforms that we do not control. Yet more and more platforms exist today serving interests that are less and less transparent,

Established as a framework for philanthropic and political giving 2016, Deep Democracy is also shaped by over the previous 12 years of local electoral and organizing work of local activists and leaders across Massachusetts. Deep Democracy is a design-thinking and generative research approach that flips conventional political and civic research, which exclusively over-relies on static datasets like the Censu, voter file or polling information. Often it avoids altogether or anecdotally includes the lived experiences of those purposely forgotten from the American political, social and economic system. Instead, Deep Democracy accounts for knowledge that is cultural, experiential, spiritual, and institutional as a more deliberative conduit to connect people and places, so that they can identify and co-design long-term strategies.

Deep Democracy 3:0: Understanding our Methodology

Table talk and increasing voter turnout for marginal returns will not be enough to climb out of this larger anti-democratic crisis. A more meaningful invitation and engagement is needed for activists, leaders, and donors to engage internally and with each other. Combining geographic and demographic data with qualitative interviews and assessments can produce an overarching narrative of both the strengths and challenges faced by community leaders on the ground that hold the true on-the-ground relationships to connect folks to needed resources and build up local advocacy ecosystems. This as a source of strategic and playbook making goes beyond mainstream research.

We have the data and understanding of battleground states to win and eke out elections, but we lack the data, systems, and integrated knowledge of our ecosystem to make difficult decisions or make long term investments. Our revamped Deep Democracy methodology is based on the reality of today’s landscape and hard lessons from the last four years. It is also a whole-sale pivot from our previous approach in that it de-centers the power of partisan elections to shape a more inclusive, democracy and social change ecosystem.

First, the team redefined the indicators and variables of Deep Democracy, to include people demographics & assessment, contextual analysis, community informed research, and advancing democracy and social change. The first two pillars formed the base research criteria, while the latter two are the process container for collaboration, planning, and playbookmaking with cross-sector leaders and organizations. Then we identified an initial set of questions that allow us to analyze the connective tissues across the country to learn and unlearn what has shifted in today’s deep democracy landscape.

Next, over three months, using this base research criteria the team identified over 287 deep democracy countries across the country that included higher than average percentage of people of color, foreign born populations, women-headed households, and individuals without a high school diploma along with various voter registration rate metrics. The majority of counties are located in eight primary states in the southern United States: North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and LouisianaThese are rural and exurban counties with a higher than average number of BIPOC, immigrant, TGNC or LGBQTIA+ communities, which are often overlooked from our border democracy and social change ecosystem.

"[T]he team identified over 287 deep democracy countries across the country that included higher than average percentage of people of color, foreign born populations, women-headed households, and individuals without a high school diploma along with various voter registration rate metrics."

Lastly, the team then conducted a contextual analysis to further differentiate between counties at a regional and national level. We focused on developing policy screens based on environmental, reproductive and economic justice. We then created an index score, created from a statistical analysis of combined various data sets like American Community Survey and OpenFEMA. The higher the index score, the more vulnerable and resource constrained the population. Insights from the contextual analysis opportunities for programmatic strategies to be influenced by historical and new conditions experienced by the population in a small geography.

Call to Action: Advancing Democracy and Social Change

Our main finding is that long-term 501c3 and 501c4 philanthropic investments in rural and exurban Deep Democracy counties hold the potential to have a greater impact on rising broad-scale social movements that can reshape the ballot box and the balance of power on a regional and national level. We must strategically shift our attention toward community leaders, activists, and organizations that are often overlooked by the conventional fifty-plus-one electoral system in these counties and battleground ecosystems across the Southeast and Southwest of the United States. It will not just be the 2024 election that determines the future of our communities and neighbors, but the long-term intentions we solidify now to water the seeds of liberation for so many that have all but given up on our public commons.

Interactive Map: Contextual Analysis as part of Deep Democracy 3.0

For far too long, both values-aligned philanthropy and partisan philanthropy have ignored or given up on these exurban/rural pockets of the southern United States, seeing them as a lost cause for their own partisan “50% + 1” electoral math. In the last presidential cycle of 2020, 501c3 orgs received around $4.4 billion in contributions, gifts, and grants, while C4s only received around $213 million. Yet the Democratic Party raised over $1 billion dollars in 2020.

This imbalance is not new and is only increasing across sectors as government and civic society walk away from affirmative action policies, DEI commitments and the leadership of BIPOC, immigrant, TGNC and LGBQTIA+ communities. This lack of foundational ecosystem investments is having a huge impact on creating networks of resource connectivity for residents in the realm of economic justice, reproductive justice, environmental justice, and a myriad of other resource-based advocacy efforts. These are the counties and battleground state communities that are most in need of support, education, and training to navigate the white supremacy and status quo barriers put in place by generations of elected officials and conservative government agencies. The community leaders and organizations to implement that work are there; they are simply underfunded, underrepresented, and lack the larger tools and resources to build sustainable and strategic coalitions.

Bridging economic and language gaps in the process of grantmaking, funding, and reporting for smaller, frontline organizations will be key to the re-discovery and evolution of our ecosystem. While the one-size-fits-all approach to advancing democracy and social change has led to an era of immense progress, it has left behind the reality of community and relationship building that is required for frontline organizations to impact change in counties that are systematically tipped towards the anti-democratic status quo. Deep Democracy has been, and is a movement and donor multi-entity pathway to build legitimate and independent power of representation. It is an invitation to go deeper and slower so that we can gain clarity on why, where, and how we are advancing democracy and social justice.

It is a strategic call to action to both shift and dramatically increase 501c3 and 501c4 investments towards these counties and battleground state communities. While this shift to multi-entity organizing and multi-year grantmaking approaches is occuring, current 501c3 and 501c4 business, staffing, and programming is not sustainable. We must focus on building the sustainability, capacity, technology, skill sets, and multi-generational knowledge of community leaders as a bridge to more impactful partisan organizing and advocacy. Without it, community leaders will continue to fight the same battles over and over again, chasing unreachable metrics that fail to develop generational knowledge and community connection.