House Strategies Group LLCBoston measured itself once. The update has to explain what moved.
A preliminary landscape analysis for the City of Boston's updated disparity study, built entirely from public data ahead of RFP EV00017483: the 2020 baseline, the City's own open spending record since, and the causal questions the update must answer. It is the data, analytics, and visualization capability House Strategies Group is putting forward to lead the study.
Sources: 2020 City of Boston Disparity Study (BBC Research & Consulting); City of Boston open data (Analyze Boston), certified-supplier flags; U.S. Census Annual Business Survey 2022. Certified-only shares are a floor on true MWBE participation.
What this is
Boston is not starting from zero. That changes what the update must do.
A procurement disparity study asks a single, measurable question: do minority- and women-owned firms win public contracts in proportion to how many of them are ready, willing, and able to do the work? Boston answered a first version of that question in 2020 and then acted on it. This portal reads the public record since, so the City can see the analytical approach before a single primary record is collected.
The 2020 study, conducted by BBC Research & Consulting, found MWBE availability of 16.9 percent against utilization of 11.0 percent, a disparity index of 65 where anything under 80 is substantial. The City responded: an executive order set a 25 percent goal, a Sheltered Market Program followed, and the City now publishes its contract and spending record as open data. On that record, certified-MWBE spend has climbed from 5.2 percent in FY19 to 12.3 percent in FY25: real movement that still sits below the 2020 availability benchmark and well below the goal.
The update's job is causal, not clerical. What moved, what did not, and why. The methodology page is explicit about what a full, Croson-defensible study adds that public data cannot.
The preliminary signal
Progress is real. Parity is not close. And the gap is different for different groups.
On the City's own FY25 spending data, certified minority-owned firms received 9.9 percent of discretionary spend against an ABS employer-firm availability of 15.4 percent, a preliminary index of 0.64. Certified woman-owned firms sit far lower at 0.16: their certified spend share has been nearly flat for eight fiscal years while minority-owned spend tripled. That divergence is a finding in itself, and exactly the kind of question the full study is built to answer. These are directional reads from public data, not legal conclusions.
Preliminary disparity index by group
FY25 certified utilization ÷ ABS availability. Below 0.80 flags underutilization. Certified-only utilization is a floor on true participation.
Source: City of Boston discretionary-spending open data FY25 (utilization) and ABS 2022, CBSA 14460 (availability).
The starting line
2020 City of Boston Disparity Study: the record the update inherits.
more than 47,000 contracts analyzed, nearly 800 business telephone surveys (custom census), and a disparity index of 65 for MWBE firms combined, with Black American-owned firms at 12. Then five years of reform. The update has to measure the reform era with the same rigor the baseline measured the problem.
Why House Strategies Group
This work needs new voices.
A handful of firms have produced most disparity studies for a generation, and the experience requirement the studies measure also guards the field. A study about open competition is more credible when the field that produces it is open too. House Strategies Group intends to be one of the new voices, and earn the seat with rigor and transparency.
The analysis
The modules, one preliminary picture.
Each module is a self-contained piece of the disparity-study workflow, built so an evaluator can see exactly how House Strategies Group would run the study.