Gallup, the “global analytics and advice firm,” is weighing in on the current debate on race in the U.S. by launching the Center on Black Voices, which it says begins a 100-year-commitment to understanding how black Americans “actually experience their lives.”

Jim Clifton, who has been the CEO of the company his father owned since 1988, made the announcement in a blog posted on the Gallup website on Wednesday.

Clifton writes that while economists and government agencies know a lot about black Americans, that is not the same as answering the question: “How is your life going?”

Clifton writes:

Gallup felt our country needed a totally independent, nonpartisan center with no ties to any special interests that documents and reports how Black people experience life in America on an ongoing basis. Everything from their interactions with others amid ordinary life activities to how Black Americans navigate the exclusion and discrimination that results in negative life outcomes. Literally no organization in the world asks Black Americans this question: “How is your life going?”

The Gallup Center on Black Voices, which we are launching today, will get to the bottom of it — the truth — and detail the responses. That is our core mission. The Center on Black Voices has created a set of standards for life on Earth that especially apply to Black Americans. Think of these newly developed standards as the new sustainable development goals (SDG) for both this country and all its cities.

More specifically, the center will study Black Americans’ level of access to and relationship with the economy, justice, wellbeing, education equity and opportunity — which are the driving forces of a great life.

Clifton says that Gallup will fund, staff, and operate the center and that it will do so for decades to come.

“This is a 100-year commitment,” Clifton writes. “We are making a promise to our country and all Black Americans to just listen and report the facts. We are putting the full resources of our research engine behind understanding how Black Americans’ lives are going.”

He writes that one sustainable development goal is the “single best question Gallup scientists have ever found to measure how anyone experiences their life.”

“Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”

The follow-up question is: “On which step do you think you will stand five years from now?”

Clifton writes that this measures whether or not people are thriving.

“Gallup finds that a big part of thriving is hope,” Clifton writes.

Clifton writes the first mission of the center is to answer one question: “Is the black experience in America getting better or worse?” 

Gallup is using some information it already has as a starting point — 56 percent of blacks 18 or older are thriving, but 44 percent are struggling.

Clifton writes he hopes Gallup’s new center can change those statistics.

“If we don’t collectively lead the way to create a whole new future for Black America — who will?” Clifton writes.

Gallup will report on its findings quarterly, according to Clifton’s blog.

Follow Penny Starr on Twitter.