hourly consulting rates for projects
The Research Justice Institute (RJI) at the Coalition of Communities of Color (CCC) has prepared this guide to explain our consulting rates. Equitable and just compensation requires understanding and appreciating the value of both professional research expertise (or any other trained skill) and community engagement expertise.
Twin Expertise
Research: We are trained in multiple disciplines and communities of practice, including sociology, anthropology, evaluation, and international development. We have advanced training in mixed/multi-methods and applied research. We bring a critical lens on how to conduct community-driven, trauma-informed research that challenges historically oppressive methodologies of mainstream, colonial, extractive, and white-dominant approaches to community engagement and research. Our academic and community-based training enables us to apply intersectional lenses and a deep analysis of power to our research. This is extremely valuable and rare, as most researchers will not have this additional expertise.
Community engagement: We are experts in identifying the challenges, strengths, and forms of resilience that Oregon’s communities of color experience. We also work collaboratively to co-construct approaches and solutions that address the challenges and inequities experienced by Oregon’s communities of color. We understand and advocate for our communities’ ability to prosper in systems built and reinforced to oppress them; we also work with communities to find ways to challenge these oppressive systems. This level of expertise requires living in relation with and deferring to all community members, especially its leaders, elders, and most marginalized. We will never be experts in the experiences of Black, Native, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, and immigrant and refugee populations; we are, however, experts in listening and remembering, engaging, deferring to, centering, and advocating for processes that defer to communities of color. This expertise is built on years of labor and trust. We do not take our expertise for granted. We know all too well that being in sustained good relation requires continued and collective nourishment.
Our Consulting Rates
These guidelines have been built upon a practice of advocating for the value of our labor and community engagement. Our consulting rates account for the costs of what we do and what we know. Our ability to do the work is reinforced by our uniquely crafted expertise, years of applied academic and community-based engagement, track record of success, network of trusted People of Color (POC) collaborators and community experts, and our commitment to centering equity throughout the research process. We hope that by providing a publicly available and transparent fee model, we will limit the amount of violence often experienced by our employees when having to explain the value of our work.
This work especially benefits white-dominant organizations and those committed to dismantling white supremacy. Our approach is grounded in years of relationship- and trust-building with communities that often distrust outsiders, especially from dominant and elite organizations. While this trust is not easily gained and requires continuous commitment, we can work with organizations to begin and grow their healing and community engagement journey.
All of our rates, to a very limited extent, are negotiable. We are a non-profit in service of our 19 culturally-specific member organizations. At times, efforts to advance our communities fall under various funding and capacity restraints, and the length and scope of work for contract or collaboration may vary when agreeing upon an acceptable rate.
Our Fee Model
For white dominant entities, businesses, and organizations:
Trained expertise: $200/hr
Community engagement expertise: $100/hr
Total fee: $300/hr
This rate reflects the time and labor that the RJI/CCC staff dedicate to working with and supporting organizations that have limited exposure to:
Community-driven research
Community-based experiences and expertise
Research and Data equity + justice
Anti-racist and intersectional practices
The RJI/CCC helps organizations and its members learn how to work in ways that are profoundly just and equitable. It is our privilege and right to do our work in this way; however, it requires both our expertise and spiritual energy to teach while being personally vulnerable to re-traumatization and violence. Our labor is both professional and personal, and equitable compensation acknowledges both aspects of this work. Our professional and personal investment in this work creates outcomes that advance racial justice by producing equitable research—with its limitations, of course—and by training employees and organizations on how to do their work differently. This rate cannot be disaggregated into only trained expertise or only community engagement expertise. Both are necessary to produce equitable and just research outcomes.
For organizations led by and in service of communities of color:
Trained expertise: $50/hr
Community engagement expertise: $50-100/hr
Total fee: $100-150/hr
For organizations led by and in service of communities of color, our hourly rate and fees are negotiable. They depend on what labor and skills are required, time spent, and on organizations’ ability to pay. We recognize that organizations included here may still be on a journey towards confronting and dismantling inequitable practices and outcomes. Our current funding systems and institutions may provide less access to resources for such grassroots and/or emerging organizations. Organizations may find value in the RJI/CCC’s approach to research and community engagement, which is grounded in practices of radical inclusion that are anti-racist and decolonizing.
This rate cannot be disaggregated into only trained expertise or only community engagement expertise. Both are necessary to produce equitable and just research outcomes.