Census 2010

Today VotoLatino launched its PSA for its BeCounted Campaign on getting more young people to take part in the census!

A few weeks ago we posted a piece from Mike Hais and Morley Winograd - Authors of Millennial Makeover. They urged Millennials to be a part of the Census because a Pew survey shows that the Millennial Generation, this country's largest generation in history, are less likely to participate.

"This lack of knowledge translated directly into this key demographic segment’s unwillingness to participate, with only 36 percent of 18-29 year olds indicating that they “definitely” would respond to the form when it arrives, compared to large majorities in all other age segments who said they would do so."

Future Majority is participating in the launch of Voto Latino's Count Me In 2010 campaign asking young voters to pledge to participate in the Census.

Users Can Take the ‘Census Pledge’ and receive 25 free songs from artists like Pitbull, Mos Def, Morrissey & Rodrigo y Gabriela by going to BeCountedRepresent.com/FutureMajority

According to the release:

"Be Counted, Represent! is comprised of multi-platform web, mobile, direct and traditional media initiatives that will elevate the census in the minds of millennials, who are historically undercounted in the Census.

In the United States, census data affects everything from the allocation of federal budgets for education, health care and transportation to the drawing of Congressional districts. This year’s 2010 census is of critical importance to all Americans because it allocates $400 billion in federal funds and determines congressional representation.

“Our work with the census is to both educate Latinos about the importance of taking it and re-imaging it as a means of personal empowerment and taking ownership of one’s future and one’s family’s,” said Maria Teresa Kumar, co-founder and executive director of Voto Latino, an official US Census partner.

“With 80 million young people in the Millennial Generation, the Census is a critical in determining exactly where we are, who is unemployed or underemployed, who has started a family, and other important information that can serve as indicators to policy makers on the unique needs of our nation’s youth,” said Sarah Burris, managing editor of Future Majority.

In speaking to their target effectively and leveraging drive-to-web and SMS campaigns from their 2008 presidential election work as well as the best practices utilized by President Obama’s campaign, Voto Latino’s “Be Counted, Represent!” campaign is comprised of the following initiatives:

“Be Counted, Represent!” Local 
- On-the-ground Events : Voto Latino (VL) will be organizing on-the-ground events and census outreach operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Upstate New York, Long Island and San Francisco.


- Collateral and Direct Mail Pieces : Voto Latino will distribute iTunes cards, t-shirts and other collateral materials, including direct mailers to aforementioned markets.

“Be Counted, Represent!” On the Web & Mobile
- “BeCountedRepresent.com” – A dedicated URL, which goes live 2/2, will serve as the campaign’s hub, featuring easy-to-digest US Census information, and prompting viewers to “Take the Pledge” to participate in the census. Anyone who takes the pledge will also receive a free 25-song soundtrack courtesy of iTunes (as per below).


- “Be Counted” Viral Video PSAs – Executive produced by Voto Latino, who were acknowledged last year with a Webby award for their “La Pasión de la Decisión” get-out-the-vote PSAs, this three-part series of Internet shorts, feature a group of friends who, one night over a festive party, launch into a heated argument about whether to participate in the census. An all-star ensemble cast, featuring Rosario Dawson, Luis Guzman, Demi Lovato (Disney’s Camp Rock franchise), Ana Ortiz (“Ugly Betty”), Wilmer Valderrama (“That Seventies Show”), Jorge Garcia (“Lost”) and more, comprise of characters with opposing viewpoints. The first short will launch in February on BeCountedRepresent.com with subsequent shorts to follow through the end of May.


- Free Digital Downloads – Apple will provide Voto Latino with 100,000 census-themed iTunes cards that will be distributed to community organizations, universities and radio stations. The cards allow recipients to download 25 free songs from major artists across a wide range of relevant musical genres, who have donated their tracks to the campaign.


- Text2Represent SMS campaign – Voto Latino will send targeted text messages to tens of thousands of U.S. Latinos to ensure that they and their families understand the importance of the Census and being counted."

As the campaign to ensure a complete and accurate count of every American in this year’s census gets off the ground, a new survey of American attitudes toward participating in the census shows that young Americans, members of the Millennial Generation, born 1982-2003, may prove least likely to stand up and be counted. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that roughly one-third of 18-29 year olds hadn’t heard of the census, and even after having the process described to them, 17 percent were still unaware of just what the census involved. This lack of knowledge translated directly into this key demographic segment’s unwillingness to participate, with only 36 percent of 18-29 year olds indicating that they “definitely” would respond to the form when it arrives, compared to large majorities in all other age segments who said they would do so.

The Census Bureau has a plan to address this lack of knowledge, but it’s not clear yet if its approach will successfully reach, let alone motivate, this generation. This month the Bureau launched the first ad about the census as part of an overall $340 million public awareness campaign, $133 million of which will be spent on television advertising.

The new ad features one of Hollywood’s best-known environmentalists, Ed Begley, Jr. in another of his satirical roles portraying a clueless corporate executive. In the Census Bureau ads he plays a Hollywood director pitching the idea of taking a literal snapshot of everyone in American all at once, even as others in the spot point out that the Census Bureau already has a plan to “get the shot.” All the actors in this humorous spot are white Baby Boomers, two generations older than Millennials and not exactly the demographic most needing to be educated about the census. Maybe even more serious, broadcast television is not the Millennials’ favorite way to absorb information.

More promising is the allocation of much of the rest of the awareness campaign’s budget for social networking and appearances at major crowd events like the Super Bowl and Daytona 500. In addition, information on the need to respond to the census will be translated into 27 different languages, which will help with the very multi-ethnic Millennial generation as well as Latinos and Asian of all ages. Still, the campaign needs to go beyond awareness if it wants to convince Millennials to participate.

Those who know what the census is used for, and that participation is required by law, are much more likely to say they will definitely participate. But the survey found that only 15 percent of Millennials knew that the law requires their participation. Only about half knew that the final count will be used to allocate government money to their community and determine its level of representation in Congress. They also represented the smallest group to know that the census will not be used to locate illegal immigrants. Millennials are more than willing to participate in civic activities and follow social rules, but right now they are dangerously uninformed about why they need to be a part of the nation’s most important decennial civic undertaking.

Millennials continually share information with each other to reach a group consensus on what they should do next. Someone other than those with strictly Boomer sensibilities needs to engage the generation in a conversation about the census. If that happens, America will have gone a long way toward ensuring a complete and accurate snapshot of its increasingly diverse, and youthful, population.

Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are fellows of the New Democrat Network and the New Policy Institute and co-authors of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics (Rutgers University Press: 2008), named one of the 10 favorite books by the New York Times in 2008. Crossposted from New Geography

April Fools Day 2010 will be a big day, and not just one for jokes and gags. More importantly, it will be the deadline for the most robust survey of its kind, the decennial U.S. Census, mandated by the Constitution to count every American resident regardless of status. The Census also determines how political power and public goods are distributed, influencing our everyday lives for ten years before another count.

To mark the importance of this awesome project, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the nation’s largest coalition of civil and human rights organizations, organized a media call with bloggers to exchange information about how the LCCR community is supplementing the efforts of the Census Bureau to ensure an accurate count. “If we are going to serve all of our citizens, we’re going to have to have a really accurate picture of who we are and what are needs are moving forward,” says Wade Henderson, executive director at LCCR. (You can listen to the call in its entirety (~45 minutes) from here.)

While this media call focused mainly on communities of color and undocumented workers, the issues and obstacles are similar, if not the same sometimes, for young people. The good news is that the Census is seeking out organizations that work or serve young people. With the email lists and other contact data gathered from the ’08 election, it would be prudent for youth groups to raise awareness about the 2010 Census.

According to Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund, Spanish media has already been working hard on its public education campaign, including partnerships with state and local organizations. We can follow this model, too, by combining the targeted power of contact lists (GOTV, registration and advocacy groups) with the dissemination and presentation ability of youth media organizations.

I’m still searching for Census participation rates by age, but Wade Henderson had some ready stats available by race: Black 60%; Hispanic/American Indian 65 percent; Pacific Islanders 55%; Asian-Americans 70%; White 78%.

Census participation is not 100%, but it should be. Participation varies by race and ethnicity, and I’m going to put my neck out there a bit and say that it varies by age, too. I base this on the assumption that it is easier for people to fill out a Census if they live in a traditional household setting (single-family home, say) with a postal address; these people tend to be older and more economically stable. We know that young people are more mobile, switching addresses and residences often. This is a problem because the Census doesn’t track you, instead it tracks postal addresses (another reason to modernize the postal service, but for another post). So, forwarding your mail won’t work, at least in this case. And since it’s April and tax time, it doesn’t matter if your parents count you as a dependent. Unless you live in the same household as your parent or guardian, you should be counted where you live right now, because it is your local community.

We’ve still got a year until the deadline, and we already have some of the infrastructure in place to educate young folks about the 2010 Census. If your organization is interested in partnering with the Census, email me and I’d be happy to introduce you to my contact.