Our democracy depends on our collective engagement and our commitment to
ensuring a fair and accurate decennial census year in and year out. Amid the challenges of the 2020 Census, we created a movement. With the lessons from 2020 fresh in our minds, we are investing our time now to lay a strong foundation for those who will work to get our communities counted in 2030. Our communities can’t wait.

The Roadmap

Inspired by the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation’s “A Blueprint for Philanthropic Census Engagement,” The Education Fund and Census Counts developed the “Roadmap to the 2030 Census.” This resource includes U.S. Census Bureau milestones and concrete examples of ways community-based and advocacy organizations, state and local governments, and census champions like you can engage in census work throughout the decade.

Let us know how you’re preparing for the 2030 Census!

Together, we can build on our groundwork and campaign infrastructure to ensure a fair and accurate 2030 Census. And we can start now. So, tell us: What are you doing to get ready for the 2030 Census? Send us your commitment, and we will share it below!

Roadmap to 2030 Commitments for State-Level Census Work

• Figure out a way to make the American Community Survey (ACS) more visible for communities – perhaps giving gift cards for people who fill it out.
• Advocate for increased funding for ACS to expand it and improve response rates.
• Advocate for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to improve race and ethnicity standards.
• Put communities at ease about participating in census surveys, especially undocumented communities.
• Work with churches and other organizations to reach out to communities.
• Connect American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funding to census data and the importance of having accurate data for funding allocations.
• Rebuild statewide infrastructure for 2030 that was lost after 2020.
• Link the Census to redistricting and voting.
• Keep funders informed and engaged. 
• Focus on getting out the vote and bringing all the work back to the importance of the ACS and Census.
• Look at the larger issue of our apportionment set up! We need to think about breaking that current set up – our country has changed and we need to reflect that in our representation.
• Urge the Census Bureau to publish 2020 Census undercount (and overcount) data at smaller geography levels in order to evaluate what strategies in what communities worked and what didn’t. This would help in developing efficient 2030 Census outreach strategies.
• Provide a variety of census data to the public in easily accessible formats.
• Advocate for data disaggregation to truly reflect the different needs and great diversity among AAPI communities. Dig into the data to look at what story it’s telling and identifying the gap between the true story that the data should be able to tell.
• Advocate for full funding for the Census Bureau.
• Maintain existing Census Counts frameworks and further develop them for 2030, especially with staff turnover.
• Support funded partners and sharing communications about all the Census efforts.
• Train partners on Voter Data Mapping Tool.
• Provide mini-grants to keep Census partners engaged.
• Understand the importance of the ACS and of talking about race and ethnicity in combination.
• Commit to understand how the process worked in the county and city so that we can be better prepared for 2030. Also understand and better use the tools that are available.
• Webinars to connect census and ACS data to things that communities are dealing with. How do communities use survey data for real life applications like natural disasters  or  broadband access. 
• Spreading knowledge about the ACS and Census and what it impacts: funding, elections, congressional maps, among others.
• Better organization between state funding, foundation, and community.
• Create tools, reports and resources to help AANHPI communities understand and use census and ACS data.