FAQs

What kind of actions are you collecting?

We collect publicly available data on political crowds reported in the United States, including marches, protests, strikes, demonstrations, riots, and other actions. We do not count crowds at meetings, teach-ins or academic workshops, panel discussions, fundraisers, or town halls.

What do you intend to do with these data?

Our goal is to make the aggregate data on crowd numbers publicly available for each event. We are collecting this data in the public interest and to further scholarly research.

Who is financing this project?

We have received funds from Humility & Conviction in Public Life, a project of the University of Connecticut’s Humanities Institute, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Previously, we received support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York through the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. All funds are used to pay student research assistants to help with data collection and validation. The co-directors, team coordinators, and volunteers are not paid.

Have your Human Research Subject boards approved this data collection?

This is a public interest project. The University of Denver's Office of Research Integrity and Education has determined that the project does not qualify as human subjects research and therefore does not require further review or oversight by its Institutional Review Board. You can read the Determination Letter here. The University of Connecticut made a similar determination.

Are you only collecting data on crowds at anti-Trump actions?

No. We are collecting data on all political crowds, regardless of the claims they're making.

Where can I get the data?

How should I cite these data?

Please include a citation to the Crowd Counting Consortium such as: Crowd Counting Consortium, crowdcounting.org, accessed September 17, 2021.

Were you responsible for the "count me in" text initiative to tally participants in the Women's March on January 21?

No. This Daily Kos article reporting that we were responsible for that initiative is erroneous. We were not affiliated with any other efforts to collect data on the 2017 Women's March. We currently collaborate with countlove.org, a volunteer group that developed a webcrawler to identify protests and demonstrations on a daily basis.