Planning a Small Educational Gathering
Educational events don't all have to be large productions. In fact, you might want to start with small gatherings where organizational and community leaders and other individuals could learn about the importance of the census and ask questions they might not feel comfortable asking in a large public setting. You could do something as simple as inviting a few people to your office for a brown-bag lunch.
Intimate settings where people feel free to raise concerns and questions can also be a good way for you to find out what kind of challenges you might face in the broader community and identify priorities for educational materials and messaging. You might also identify people you might want to recruit as leaders for other aspects of your outreach campaign.
Consider easy ways to integrate small educational events into your existing programs and activities. If your organization offers after-school programs, leadership training, health or wellness classes, financial literacy programs, etc., you could introduce information about the census in one or two of those already-scheduled sessions.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund can provide you with materials for educational events. In addition, the Census Bureau has created a Census in the Schools Curriculum as well as fact sheets about the way the census affects health care and other issues, and the ways that different groups can get involved.
