Complete Count Fund's kickoff rally on January 14, with Mayor Bill De Blasio addressing the crowd. Photo: Carmen Guerra-Yonks.
The Center for the Integration and Advancement of New Americans (CIANA), is pleased to announce it has received a NYC Complete Count Fund award to support CIANA’s efforts to encourage its client families and the broader immigrant community in Western Queens to respond to the Census count. A partnership between CUNY, Mayor Bill de Blasio, and the New York City Council, the NYC Complete Count Fund is a first-of-its-kind Census-related community organizing program supports and resources community-based organizations to help NYC reach a full and accurate count in the 2020 Census.
The Complete Count Fund was built with the understanding that local community-based organizations — which serve New Yorkers in the communities where they live and in the languages that they speak — are the most trusted messengers of important and sensitive information. CIANA is proud to join this coordinated citywide effort to build awareness about the Census, convey its importance, fight the spread of mis- and disinformation, and help bridge the digital divide that might prevent many New Yorkers from participating in the first online Census.
CIANA will focus on fostering community partnerships to bring census awareness to a broader reach of community members, and to engaging our current and past clients in self-responding to the Census in order to ensure an accurate Count. We will also incorporate aspects of the Census into our adult ESL and Civics classes to help grow civic duty.
Additionally, we will reach out widely into Queens by hosting informational workshops at schools, senior centers, and other community centers, and conduct street canvassing at community hubs with heavy foot traffic to inform the public about the Census and to promote its significance to all New Yorkers.
Founder and CEO Emira Habiby Browne hopes to build off CIANA's success during the 2010 Census to reach even more people this year.
"CIANA was deeply involved with outreach efforts during the 2010 Census, and we hope to reach out even more extensively to our community members this time to ensure that every New Yorker is counted," said Habiby Browne. "It's more important than ever that our immigrants are not undercounted and that their many contributions to their communities are acknowledged."
A complete and accurate count is critical to the future of New York City. The Census will determine how more than $650 billion in federal funds get distributed annually throughout the country. It will also determine the number of seats each state is allocated in the House of Representatives, and thus, the Electoral College. Based on current estimates, an undercount could cost the State of New York up to two congressional seats.
CIANA has been at the forefront of helping immigrants advance socially and economically since 2006. We will continue contributing to the empowerment of our immigrant communities by conducting both outreach and inreach efforts for the Census 2020 campaign as a Complete Count Fund awardee. Together with broader citywide efforts, we will help lay the groundwork for a civic engagement apparatus that will continue well beyond the 2020 Census.
About NYC Census 2020 NYC Census 2020 was established as a first-of-its-kind organizing initiative by Mayor de Blasio to ensure a complete and accurate count of all New Yorkers in the 2020 Census. The program is built on four pillars: (1) a community-based awards program, The New York City Complete Count Fund; (2) an in-house “Get Out the Count” field campaign; (3) an innovative, multi- lingual, tailored messaging and marketing; as well as (4) an in-depth Agency and Partnerships engagement plan that seeks to leverage the power of the City’s 350,000-strong workforce and the city’s major institutions, including libraries, hospitals, faith-based, cultural institutions, and higher educational institutions, and more, to communicate with New Yorkers about the critical importance of census participation.