The Census Community Outreach Fund (CCOF) seeks to improve the accuracy of the decennial U. S. Census by seeking out and engaging certain population groups that have proven challenging to count. The Fund provides direct grants to community organizations to achieve its goal.
Specifically the CCOF:
- Ensures outreach efforts are undertaken in under-resourced hard-to-count communities;
- Helps counteract factors that could prevent an accurate count, including escalating fear of government in immigrant communities and displacement of families due to the housing/economic crisis and natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina;
- Connects grantees to other national outreach campaigns, for example, NALEO and Univision’s “Ya Es Hora, Hagase Contar!” campaign, to ensure that national and local campaigns are complementary and not duplicative;
- Coordinates with the Funders Census Initiative (FCI) and other local donor organizations, for example, New York Funders’ Census Initiative, to raise grantee awareness and offer lessons derived from our funding efforts; and
- Coordinates with other regions on Census outreach efforts (even if the fund does not provide direct grants in those regions).
In 2009 and 2010, the Census Community Outreach Fund awarded $600,000 in grants to community organizations conducting outreach with immigrant and other hard-to-count populations in the following states: California, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina and Texas.
