National and State-Level Probability-Based Survey Services (Consultant)

About Common Ground USA

Informed by lessons learned as the world’s largest and oldest peacebuilding organization, Common Ground-USA (CG-USA) is a bold initiative of Search for Common Ground (Search) building the conditions for a more inclusive, equitable, and peaceful society.

The research that we undertake reinforces these principles with the aim of improving the quality, relevance, and impact of our programs. Common Ground USA (CG-USA) fosters collaboration across differences to address America’s biggest challenges and build a society where everyone can belong and thrive. As part of Search for Common Ground, with 40 years of global conflict resolution experience, CG-USA transforms conflict into cooperation with programming focused in the United States. At CG-USA, we believe that most Americans want to overcome the divisions we face in our society and that we all have a role to play. Engaging across political and other divides, we see disagreement as an opportunity to transform conflict into cooperation to solve our most pervasive problems. All of our work is rooted in an evidence base where we strengthen the five vital signs of peace: safety, social cohesion, institutional legitimacy, personal agency, and resourcing peace.

About the Project
The Resilient States Project convenes and empowers broad-based networks of diverse leaders to build resilience and mitigate risks for division and political violence in key states. Our networks unite diverse leaders across various sectors, ideologies, and geographies. These networks worktogether to transform division and risks for conflict within their states and unify their communities.

Background to the request for technical support
Seeking external capacity in national and state level probability-based survey design, survey deployment and data collection, and analysis.

Objectives of the assignment
Submit cost structure and capacity for recurring work — A transparent pricing model covering survey sizes and modes, with a base rate quoted per 1,000 respondents for a 20-question survey, plus incremental rates for each additional 1,000 respondents and each additional question.

Expected results and Deliverables

a. Multiple surveys of 1,000< respondents representative of the US general population
by social and economic characteristics for a 20 question survey.
b. Multiple surveys of 1,000< respondents representative of a single US state's
population by age, race, gender and education for a 20 question survey.
c. For each survey, the provider will deliver a codebook, complete and dataset.
d. For each survey, the provider will deliver a descriptive analysis of the data.

Expert profile
Individual, team or organization with capacity to design and field probability-based national surveys
for political or social science research.
Required:
a. Demonstrated experience designing and fielding probability-based national surveys
with documented sampling frames, response rates, and weighting methodologies;
b. capabilities for advising on questionnaire design, and leading cognitive pretesting,
translation/localization, data cleaning, and initial descriptive analysis;
c. staff survey methodologists
d. robust data security and respondent confidentiality protocols;
e. transparent cost structures and timelines that account for the scale and recurrence
of multiple surveys
f. the ability to field new surveys and deliver clean datasets (with codebooks and
methodology reports) in a timely manner.

Preferred
g. capacity to reach hard-to-survey populations;
h. track record of political and/or social science work and/or staff with relevant subject-
matter expertise

Criteria
To apply, submit an application - one to five pages - with the following,
● Methodological approach and sampling plan — A clear explanation of how the firm achieves
national representativeness, including sampling frame, mode (phone, web, mail, mixed),
expected response rates, and weighting strategy.
● Relevant experience and references — A portfolio of past national political/social science
surveys, ideally with publicly available reports or peer-reviewed output, plus client
references the NGO can contact to verify quality, reliability, and responsiveness

● Cost structure and capacity for recurring work — A transparent pricing model covering
survey sizes and modes, with a base rate quoted per 1,000 respondents for a 20-question
survey, plus incremental rates for each additional 1,000 respondents and each additional
question.
● Data security, ethics, and deliverables — Protocols for respondent confidentiality and data
protection, especially given politically sensitive content, plus a sample of what a final
deliverable package looks like (dataset, codebook, methodology report, topline results).

Duration of the assignment
Two year preferred vendor contract, includes a minimum of 6 surveys over that period, potentially
more.

Please direct your questions about this opportunity to Ella Duncan [email protected]