The population of consulting firms active in providing grassroots mobilization services to organizational clients is one that has not previously been studied in systematic fashion. A number of studies nod toward the presence of such consulting firms and the role that they play in interest group or corporate politics, but these consultants have otherwise successfully remained “behind the curtain” and have been largely overlooked in such studies. Thus, a crucial initial task in this work was to identify the relevant population of consulting firms. Luckily, even for a field that remains somewhat secretive, their efforts to win the business of new clients can be successfully exploited for research purposes.

Following a long tradition in analyses of organizational populations, I searched widely for a directory source that would provide a comprehensive census of organizations active in providing grassroots mobilization services. The accuracy of such a directory is crucial to minimizing systematic bias in an analyst’s depiction of an organizational field. When this project was still in its infancy, I was fortunate enough to locate precisely such a comprehensive directory: the listings of political consulting firms published annually by Campaigns & Elections (C&E) magazine. Perhaps even more importantly, this directory enjoys something of a monopoly on providing listings of political consultants. The directory is, as the C&E editors argue, the “only comprehensive directory of political consultants, political products and services, public affairs professionals, and lobbyists [in the United States].”