RISE Research Update: February 2026
What is the RISE Research Project?
A new research project is underway in your community. OpenResearch is conducting the RISE Research Project, a study of economic stability in rural America, taking place right now in Mercer County, WV, Beaufort County, NC, and Warren County, MS. It focuses on the experiences of people participating in the RISE Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI) program run by GiveDirectly, which provides monthly cash payments over 16 months.
This isn't a study that just tracks numbers.
We want to understand what matters most to people, how things unfold over time, and what's helping — or getting in the way. That means we're paying attention to the things participants care about, whether that's housing, health, work, finances, or relationships, and following what happens in those areas over the course of the program.
We're not just asking whether things changed, but how and why.
To answer these questions, we use two approaches:
Surveys ask what's important to participants right now, how things are going, and what's helping or getting in the way across areas like finances, work, housing, health, and relationships.
In-depth conversations help us understand the context and daily realities behind those numbers. A member of our research team stays in each community over extended periods, not just conducting interviews, but really trying to understand the local context, resources, and barriers that shape people's lives.
Together, these approaches help us understand both what happens and why–from participants' own perspectives.
Where We Are Now
Research is underway across all three communities:
Surveys: All participants across the three counties have received the baseline survey. The first shorter follow-up survey is now live in Mercer County, with Beaufort County and Warren County to follow in the coming weeks.
Interviews: A member of our research team, Amber, has been spending weeks at a time in each community, conducting interviews and getting to know what daily life is like. We've completed the first round of interviews in Mercer County and Beaufort County. Interviews are currently underway in Warren County.
What's Next: We'll continue sending check-in surveys every two months through 2027 and will keep having conversations with participants across all three sites.
What We're Learning
What people say is important
We ask participants to identify what areas of life are most important to them right now. This could be anything from paying bills, to improving housing, to managing health, to building savings, to strengthening relationships or reducing stress. We ask participants to define what matters to them and then we follow how these focus areas change over the 16-month period.
How things are going
For each area participants identify as important, we ask whether things are improving, staying the same, or getting harder. This helps us understand whether people feel like they're gaining ground on what matters to them.
What helps and what gets in the way
When things improve, what do people say helped? When things stall or get harder, what’s blocking progress? We ask about the role of cash, other supports, time and energy, structural barriers, and life circumstances.
The bigger picture
We also ask about how different areas of life are going such as finances, work, housing, health, transportation, relationships, and overall wellbeing. Through ongoing conversations and time in each community, we explore the context behind all of this: why certain things matter, what people are trying to accomplish, what trade-offs they face, what resources exist and how local conditions differ across the three counties.
Why this matters for your community
We want to better understand what helps people build stability, and what challenges remain. What we learn can contribute to conversations about programs and supports in rural communities. Our aim is to make sure that participants’ experiences are part of the information policymakers and community leaders consider when decisions are made.
By listening carefully to participants and sharing what we learn, we hope to add real-world experiences to ongoing conversations about economic stability, opportunity, and community supports. While research alone doesn’t determine decisions, it can provide useful information about what people are facing and what seems to make a difference.
Questions or Want to Connect?
We'll be in your communities throughout the study, not just for the research but to stay connected and share what we're learning.
Contact us at: rise@openresearchlab.org
Participation in the research is always voluntary and does not affect RISE GMI payments in any way.
Thank you. Whether you're a participant, service provider, local organization, or community member, your engagement with this research helps us understand what economic stability looks like in rural America and what communities need to thrive.
