Model and Strategy
The Census is a dream tool for those whose goal is to inform, engage and empower traditionally disenfranchised communities. It’s the only government initiative that calls on everyone to participate and in which everyone counts as equal. Demography may be destiny, but without census data ethnic communities do not exist.
Why should you fill out this government form? Issues of identity and visibility are only part of the answer; it’s a crash course on how the government allocates federal funds and how communities gain equal representation. Unless everyone participates, we all lose.
Ethnic Media Services (EMS) will launch roundtable briefings for ethnic and community news outlets across the state that will help them flip the narrative about the 2020 Census from one that’s overwhelmingly negative to one that emphasizes the positive.
Information is a powerful antidote to fear. The briefings will serve as a call-to-action for ethnic media to inform their audiences about the Census. We will hold workshops to build a collective mobile platform to promote information about the Census. And we will provide ad dollars that enable the media to customize their messages to their own particular communities.
Impact
Key short term impacts include: identifying, training and supporting a cohort of over 100 reporters in the ethnic media sector about the issues at stake in the 2020 Census; strengthening collaborative ties between the ethnic media sector and the nonprofit sector which is vital for informing and engaging underserved communities about each other and about the wider civic realm; helping to ensure an outreach and advertising campaign that is both inclusive – targeting even the smallest audiences served by no other outlets, and equitable, recognizing that in many cases ethnic media know best the messages that resonate with their audiences.
Long term, the key impact will be in raising public awareness especially in the hardest to count communities of the need to participate in the 2020 Census.
The significance of EMS’ work will be in the extent and scope of coverage generated by the project; the count of media reporters participating in project activities—briefings, teleconference calls, reporting fellowships, trainings to develop mobile apps and social media messaging; and the amount of funds EMS raises to regrant to ethnic media to customize ads for their audiences and the combined reach of these ads.
Leadership
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Sandy Close
Founder
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Jaya Padmanabhan
Director of Programs