Request for Proposals 

Learning & Civic Data Partner 

Released: July 17, 2026 | Proposals due: August 7, 2026 

One-year contract | Total budget: $75,000 - $100,000 (inclusive of all fees, subcontracts, and direct costs)

1. Overview & Purpose 

Minnesota: The Land of Neighbors(informally, the Minnesota Neighbors Campaign) is a statewide culture and narrative change campaign built to inspire and equip Minnesotans to work across differences, so that every Minnesotan has the freedom and opportunity to thrive, and every Minnesotan belongs. 

The campaign is led by a collaborative team of Minnesota-based bridging organizations: Civic Bridgers (lead), Braver Angels Minnesota, Common Ground USA, and a communications firm, Media Minefield, with support from a coalition of Minnesota foundations. 

We are looking for a MEL partner to do two connected things: 

• Measure whether the campaign works. Establish honest baselines, track change over Year 1, and build feedback loops that let the team learn and adjust in real time. 

• Leave the state more capable of using data itself. Treat Year 1 as a chance to build lasting civic data infrastructure: shared measures, tools, and know-how that partners and communities across Minnesota can keep using to sustain civic engagement, pluralism, and connection long after this contract ends. 

This is not a standard program evaluation. We want a partner who sees measurement as a public good, not just a compliance report for funders. The best proposals will show us how a local organizer, a county partner, or a community leader is more able to gather and act on their own data at the end of Year 1 than they were at the start. 

2. What We Mean by Civic Data Infrastructure 

A poll tells us what happened. Infrastructure changes what Minnesotans can do next. By civic data infrastructure, we mean the durable capacity that outlives the campaign. In addition, ideal proposals will show how this infrastructure builds on existing publicly available measures of civic health and participation. Project partners currently use the Peace Impact Framework and the Social Cohesion Impact Measurement (SCIM) Tool. 

• Shared, reusable measures of attitudes, connection, trust, and bridging behavior that other Minnesota organizations can adopt, so the state builds a common language for civic health instead of one-off metrics. 

• Simple tools and protocols that communities and partners can use themselves to collect and read their own data, without outside support. 

• Practical capacity built into local partners through hands-on training, so people in their own communities can use data to drive decisions and keep civic momentum going.

• Tools for measuring participant behavior change beyond year 1, likely including outcome harvesting. 

• Open, accessible findings that other funders, civic groups, and communities can learn from and act on, not a report that sits on a shelf. 

A note on scope and budget. We know $100,000 will not buy a maximal version of both rigorous statewide evaluation and a full infrastructure build. That trade-off is exactly what we want your expertise on. Tell us how you would spend the money to get the most durable value, and be candid about what you would not do at this budget. See Section 6. 

3. Campaign Goals & Measures 

The campaign is organized around three goals, each with a set of planned measures, developed by the campaign team and reflected in the Neighbors Measures Framework. We expect the partner to help us define our target audience and sharpen these into instruments that are rigorous, practical, and reusable by others. 

Goal 1: Minnesotans are united around shared aspirations. 

• Awareness of campaign ideas — % of Minnesotans
• Agreement with core aspirations — % of aware Minnesotans 
• Shift in perceived common ground — % increase from baseline 

Goal 2: Minnesotans see themselves as part of a forward-looking civic movement.

• Movement identity — does the respondent align with campaign ideas (% increase from baseline) 
• Social norm perception — does the respondent believe others align with campaign ideas (% increase from baseline) 

Goal 3: Minnesotans have the ability and opportunity to build trust across differences.

• Self-efficacy — confidence in ability to bridge (% increase from baseline) 
• Reported behavior — recent bridging behavior (% increase from baseline) 
• Opportunity access — access to opportunities to connect across differences (% increase from baseline) Alongside these polling-based measures, the campaign tracks engagement directly: numbers of unique participants, toolkit downloads, and events attended. 

Setting realistic targets. Numeric targets for the polling-based measures are not yet set. The partner will help us establish honest targets from baseline data and comparable campaigns. We want candor here: national forces of division run strong, and we will pass through two electoral campaign seasons during this work. We would rather set modest, defensible targets than promise attitude shifts we cannot deliver against that headwind. 

Optional comparison. We are interested in whether light-touch comparison data from one or two neighboring states is feasible within budget, as a way to separate our impact from national trends. Treat this as an option to price, not a requirement.

4. Scope of Work 

We anticipate three phases. The infrastructure-building thread runs through all three; it is not a bolt-on at the end. We welcome proposals that restructure this based on your expertise. 

Phase I: Design & Baseline (late Summer 2026) 

• Work with the campaign team to finalize measures and measurement instruments (survey questions, polling methodology, behavioral indicators), designed from the start to be reusable by other Minnesota organizations. 
• Conduct a baseline representative survey of Minnesotans (statewide, statistically valid, built for clean comparison at Year 1), possibly including targeted attention to roughly five communities across the state. 
• Design the Year 1 learning plan: feedback cadence, interim check-ins, and data collection protocols, including for qualitative data gathered during community listening sessions. 
• Infrastructure: publish the core measures and methodology in a form other groups can pick up and use. 

Phase II: Mid-Campaign Learning Loops (Fall/Winter 2026) 

• Run 2–3 interim pulse surveys or rapid-turnaround polls that give the team actionable data during execution. 
• Synthesize qualitative input from listening sessions and community feedback into short learning briefs (recommended: quarterly). 
• Present findings to the campaign team and funders at defined check-ins, with clear implications for adjusting the campaign. 
• Infrastructure: train campaign partners and a set of community leaders to collect and interpret their own data using shared tools, so local decisions can be data-informed without outside help. 

Phase III: Year 1 Evaluation & Handoff (mid-2027) 

• Conduct a Year 1 representative survey using the same methodology as baseline for direct comparison. • Analyze change across all three goals and the engagement funnel. 
• Produce a Year 1 report suitable for funders and for shaping Year 2 strategy, written for a non-academic audience, with a minimum of 10,000 words. 
• Infrastructure: deliver the measurement tools, protocols, and plain-language guidance as an open, reusable toolkit, and document what local partners can now do on their own.

5. Qualifications We Are Seeking 

The ideal partner will demonstrate: 

• Experience evaluating culture change, narrative change, or public awareness campaigns, not just programmatic nonprofits or government programs. 

• Experience evaluating strategic communications campaigns designed to change attitudes around democracy, political polarization, etc. 

• Capacity to design and execute representative statewide polling in Minnesota, ideally with experience reaching diverse populations, including Greater Minnesota communities. 

• Familiarity with measuring mindset and behavior change over time, including validated social norm, self-efficacy, and identity measures. 

• A track record of building others' capacity to use data, not only delivering findings. Show us where you have left a community or organization able to do this work themselves. 

• Commitment to real-time learning feedback loops, not just an end-of-year summary.

• Experience partnering with communications or advocacy teams in a genuinely collaborative way.

• Strong data visualization and plain-language communication skills for a non-academic audience.

• Multipartisan or politically impartial orientation, appropriate to this campaign's mission. 

6. Budget & How to Propose the Trade-offs 

The total budget is for one year, inclusive of all fees, subcontracts, and direct costs. We are not asking you to do everything above at full scale within that number. We are asking you to show judgment. 

In your proposal, tell us how you would allocate the budget across two priorities, and what you would trade off: 

• Priority / What we're buying / What to tell us

• Rigorous measurement / Baseline + Year 1 comparison, learning loops / Where you'd protect rigor and where you'd economize (e.g., re-survey depth, number of community samples)

• Civic data infrastructure / Shared measures, reusable tools, local capacity-building, open findings / How you'd build lasting capacity on a modest budget, and how we'd know it worked

Be honest about what the budget cannot cover. A proposal that names its own limits will be more credible to us than one that promises everything.

7. What to Include in Your Proposal 

1. A brief statement of your approach to this work, including how you balance rigorous measurement with building the state's capacity to use data. 

2. Your proposed scope and phasing, with any changes you'd recommend to what's outlined here. 

3. A budget allocation across the two priorities in Section 6, with a short rationale. The budget should include a line-item breakdown of staff time and other costs. 

4. Relevant experience, including at least one example where you left an organization or community more able to use data on its own. 

5. Team members who would lead the work, and any subcontractors or partners, including polling firms. 6. Proposals should not exceed five pages. 

We anticipate that proposals will be submitted by teams with varied experience researching socio-behavioral change, civic engagement, affective polarization, attitudes towards democracy, etc. Ideal teams will have experience in applied research and iterative program design and implementation, in other words, using research and evaluation to inform programming. Applicants could include academic institutions, educators, applied researchers, and/or community implementers. 

8. Submission & Contact 

Please submit your proposal as a PDF by 11:59 PM on Friday, August 7 to: 

Randolph Kent, randolph@mnlandofneighbors.org

To ensure consideration, please use the following subject line in your email submission: MEL Proposal, MN: Land of Neighbors Campaign 

Questions are welcome before the deadline at the same address