The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

In this report:

Communications Campaign

The Census Bureau has launched a three-part Communications Campaign for the 2010 Census, the success of which will substantially affect the accuracy of the count.  The campaign is extensive, multi-layered, and strategic; its overall goal is to establish and sustain broad national interest in and support for the census, culminating in as nearly universal participation as possible.  It includes the Partnership Program, paid media, and a Census in the Schools program.

LCCREF applauds the Census Bureau's careful effort to understand the ideas and messages that will motivate people to answer the census, and appreciates the complexity of reaching such a diverse and large population.  We also commend the Obama administration and Congress for recognizing the insufficiency of funding for this critical component of the census and for allocating additional resources in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus bill) to expand outreach, education, and promotion activities.

Below we highlight some of the challenges facing the Census Bureau’s communications efforts.

Partnerships

The Census Bureau has hired partnership specialists and partnership assistants who are tasked with reaching out to a wide range of stakeholders and providing them with information about the upcoming enumeration and ways they can promote participation among their constituencies, customers, and audiences.  LCCREF is a national census partner organization and is encouraging local organizations to become official partners as well.  Census partners have access to up-to-date information about census operations, as well as promotional materials, event speakers, and a network of other supportive stakeholders with whom they can exchange ideas and information. The agency and many outside observers credit the Census 2000 Partnership Program with helping to reverse a three-decade long decline in mail response rates and reduce the net undercount.

There are six partnership specialists and 19 partnership assistants, as well as one media specialist, currently assigned to the areas in and around Orleans Parish, Louisiana that are still recovering from Hurricane Katrina.  In the three Mississippi coastal counties hit hardest by the hurricanes, there are two partnership specialists (one senior) and four partnership assistants.

As recently as this past spring, a number of community-based organizations representing historically HTC populations in the coastal areas hit hardest by the 2005 storms reported little to no contact with census partnership specialists.  The recent boost in the number of Partnership Program staff assigned to Katrina-impacted areas – thanks to additional funds in the 2009 stimulus bill – seems to have improved the ability of local officials and nonprofit organizations to connect with decennial staff. 

In addition, the Dallas Regional Census Office held a Partners Kick-Off in New Orleans in mid-August, with Mayor Ray Nagin and Census Director Robert Groves among the participants; this event should raise the visibility of census preparations in the region.  LCCREF has taken a leadership role in encouraging community-based organizations to become active partners in the census.

One challenge for the Partnership Program will be to ensure that all the temporary Census Bureau staff are well versed in the many complex issues related to census operations, procedures, rules, and policies that are of interest and concern to current, displaced, and returning residents of the Gulf Coast.  Of course, questions about census residence rules, treatment of large households, and other issues arise across the country, but the breadth of damage and destruction and subsequent displacement – near and far – of large numbers of people along the Gulf Coast, as well as continued transience and the influx of newcomers drawn to the area for rebuilding-related employment opportunities, is unsurpassed.

All of these factors magnify the difficulty of maintaining the integrity of census residency rules while dealing sensitively with people experiencing a high level of frustration over the inability to return to pre-storm residences, and caught between what many regard as temporary shelter and the place they call home.

Paid Media

The paid media campaign, comprising a general advertising campaign and targeted advertising aimed at hard-to-count racial and ethnic populations, will roll out in phases next winter and spring, as the Census Bureau seeks to raise awareness about the 2010 Census, motivate people to mail back their questionnaires, and prod still-unresponsive households to cooperate with enumerators during the door-to-door operation. 

The Census Bureau and its advertising contractors have conducted extensive research that is informing the production of creative materials and messaging, as well as plans for conveying census messages through a wide range of communications vehicles.

LCCREF is aware that, earlier in the development process, key stakeholders advising the Census Bureau on its media campaign lacked confidence in the contractors' grasp of conditions and factors that contribute to low census participation rates among some population groups.  Subsequent discussions and revisions to the advertising campaign have boosted the confidence of the Bureau's advisory panel and appear to recognize the added difficulty of reaching people whose lives have been disrupted by the economic downturn.  Census officials deserve credit for acknowledging weaknesses in the proposed media strategy and for taking steps to correct potentially ineffective or inappropriate materials and messages.

The paid media campaign, however, does not contemplate any special advertising aimed specifically at people along the Gulf Coast.  High profile disagreement over where the census should count displaced people, and the steady but uneven pace of rebuilding in many areas, are just two of several factors that warrant consideration of messages focusing on the unique conditions and perspectives in communities still recovering from Katrina.

Census in the Schools

The Census in the Schools program will reach administrators and teachers in every school district throughout the United States and will include curriculum materials about the census that teachers can integrate into lessons on math, geography, and social studies.  The program's primary goal is to educate children about the importance and benefits of this national undertaking, so that they, in turn, will prompt their parents to mail back their census forms.

Census in the Schools could be especially important in Gulf Coast school systems that have experienced significant growth in Hispanic enrollment.  It is likely that many Hispanic children of migrant workers who arrived in the wake of Hurricane Katrina have the highest levels of English literacy in their households, which will make them important conduits for information about the safety, importance, and ease of participating in the census.  Asian-American children in Gulf Coast communities are likely to play a similar role in their households.  More generally, teachers in Gulf Coast schools could use the program's materials to discuss how an accurate census will contribute to the region's continued recovery and growth after such a catastrophic event, and how Census Bureau data helps track both the consequences of the hurricane and the efforts to rebuild their communities.

State and local government and school officials – especially superintendents and principals – should ensure that their teachers are aware of the Census in the Schools program and are able to take advantage of this valuable curriculum tool during the upcoming school year.

Next Section: Part III - Operational and Policy Recommendations for a More Accurate 2010 Census in the Gulf Coast