In this two part series, I’m talking with Stephanie Reid, Executive Director Philly Counts 2020 and Melissa Bird, Executive Director, District Census 2020 about their work around the 2020 census. While the census is a once-a-decade project, the lessons learned can have a profound impact on ongoing efforts in any local government to more effectively deploy inclusive and empathic engagement strategies. The key to 2030 will be to start early - keep existing partnerships active through other engagement work - and to leverage community resources like the ones found on Govlaunch so we can learn from one another and ultimately build better, more responsive and resilient communities.
As cities with deep digital divides, populations of people that have been historically undercounted and forgotten, and at a time with heightened distrust in government, Philly and DC were able to overcome the odds to boost census participation through some creative, human-centered strategies. We dive into strategies pre-pandemic and their pivot post-lockdown and how lessons learned from their census work is driving future city wide engagement strategies. Read More.
More info:
Featured government: Washington, D.C. & Philadelphia, PA
Episode guests:
Stephanie Reid, Executive Director Philly Counts 2020
Melissa Bird, Executive Director, District Census 2020
Visit govlaunch.com for more stories and examples of local government innovation.
Lindsay: (00:05)
Welcome to the Govlaunch podcast. Govlaunch is the Wiki for local government innovation and on this podcast, we're sharing the stories of local government innovators and their efforts to build smarter governments. I'm Lindsay Pica-Alfano, co-founder of Govlaunch and your host.
Last week, Stephanie Reid from Philadelphia and Melissa Bird from DC shared the engagement work for the 2020 census and their pivot post lockdown. This week, we dive into other factors influencing census success, their network building strategies and how most importantly, they are looking to the US census work as a springboard for more human-centered and impactful engagement moving forward. So Stephanie and Melissa, picking up from last week. Other than the pandemic, which obviously impacted your high touch engagement work for the census, are there any other external factors you want to share that made it harder to get the count up in your cities?
Stephanie: (1:01)
I’m going to talk about a couple of things that are a little wonky. I think they're the things that like time and again, we kept coming back to you and just felt really frustrated by. So cities evaluate their success on the census by looking at self response rate. Um, there's a whole conversation to have around that because I think first of all there's a few stages that happen to get response rates. The argument by the census Bureau is the most accurate response rates are self response rates. So you have self response, then enumerators knock on doors. Then if they can't get you at the door, they knock on your neighbor's door and ask your neighbor. They call that proxy. And then after that they use administrative records. I am a hundred percent bought in to the argument that asking your neighbor or using administrative records makes it less accurate. I'm a little unsure if I'm bought in to whether or not an enumerator helping makes it less accurate, especially in a city with a low literacy rate, it might actually make it more accurate, but I can see that there would be some reasons that the census Bureau would also want people to self respond. It's a less expensive, less intensive way.
Stephanie: (02:16)
But in order for us to say we did better, we would need to know that the self response rate includes the exact same information that it included in 2010. And I think this is a pretty significant issue for cities with respect to the 2020 census because, the census Bureau used these unique identifier codes to basically geocode you to your home. And if you submitted online, let's say your self response, but you didn't have that code. If you didn't enter your address perfectly, the census Bureau would say, Oh wait, we don't recognize that address.
Stephanie: (02:59)
And they would put you in a queue for an enumerator to verify it. And because of that, they would say it was not a self response. This is a pretty significant issue because it means that they were comparing a different set of responses to the set of responses that you had in 2010. And there could be a pretty significant number of people that were in that bucket. Philadelphia is a city where there's been a lot of converting older buildings into multi-family households. In fact, a study that came out in January of this year ranked Philadelphia, number two in the country for the conversion of these kinds of households, which means we have a very high percentage of what you would consider non-conforming addresses. So maybe I might call it apartment one and the census Bureau might call it apartment A. The other thing that increased the likelihood of having a conflict here is that the census Bureau used less people in address verification this time than they ever have before and relied very heavily on Google maps, which would not give you the same level of information in these larger buildings that have been converted.
Stephanie: (04:14)
So we think that there is a pretty significant issue with what was actually reported as self response numbers as well. And, um, have never been able to get an answer from the census Bureau about how many people in Philadelphia fell into that bucket of I responded on my own, but you needed to verify it. So I just think it's hard to know. The other thing that I find incredibly concerning that falls a hundred percent in the census Bureau administration of the 2020 census is around an extra set of paper forms that they found in the summer of 2020. Around July they found about 16 million extra paper forms in a warehouse that had not been sent out. And this is great news because we were hearing from people when we were making phone calls that they had not received an invitation to participate. Now, whether they really had not received an invitation or whether they just think they've not received an invitation, it's kind of insignificant because the point remains that as far as they know, they had not received one, which means that they did not have their unique identifier. And if they didn't have access to internet, it also means that they didn't have a paper form to submit because there were no extra paper forms. So we were very excited about these extra forms and advocating fiercely for them to be sent out. Eventually the census bureau decided that they would send them out and they said that they were in a press release they were going to send them to the census tracts with lowest response across the country.
Stephanie: (05:50)
We looked at our map and Philadelphia and what we found was that the neighborhoods and the census tracts with lowest access to internet were indeed the same places that had the lowest self response rates. Fantastic. Right? We're like, great. These are going to go where they need to go. So the census Bureau did not release the tracks that they were mailing them to until after they had gone out. And after they went out and people started looking at them, what we realized is they they actually excluded those census tracks with the lowest access to internet and sent them to what they called their internet first census tracks, which is where they knew people had the highest access to internet. It is absolutely infuriating and it's something we had no control over. And it was a strategic decision that excluded the people who needed those forms the most.
Lindsay: (06:43)
Right. Well you’ve had a lot of obstacles with the pandemic and then things you just mentioned. And there's a lot of moving parts here, but I wanted to bring you both on the podcast today because despite all of this, you had really good response rates, uh, for the census in 2020. Um, can you just briefly each of you go through the actual results of all of your hard work over the year and a half two years?
Melissa: (07:08)
Our final self response rate was 63.9%, which put us at 2.1% behind our 2010 response rate. Um, obviously we want it to be much higher than that. We certainly wanted to exceed our 2010 rates. Um, but I think given the impact of COVID and all of the other challenges that were happening even prior to COVID, I think we did a great job and we just really tried to use the data that we looked at every single day of every single track to keep focusing our resources really in our historically under counted census tracts. And I think we did see a lot of positive movement. Um, when we look at the data over time, we had over half of our census tracts actually had a higher response rate than in 2010. So we're really proud of that. And I think it's important to really dive into your data and look at where your victories are, where you can do better. I think that there's a lot of lessons that we're still unpacking, that we can apply to our work across district agencies. And how we think about equitable, um, impact and also equitable outcomes of how we do our work.
Lindsay: (08:17)
Right. And Stephanie, how about you all in Philadelphia?
Stephanie: (08:21)
Um, we didn't do quite as well as DC, but I will say this. I'm, I'm just not convinced that our self response rates reflect all the people who self respond. We were five and a half percent behind our, our 2010 numbers. So, you know, it's quite possible that actually when the report comes out, we'll be even closer because the self response rates that are out there right now include unoccupied households and vacant lots, which we know we have a high percentage of in Philadelphia. So I'm very interested to see where we end up when a final report comes out. Um, so I think self response rates aside, I think that there was a huge benefit to Philadelphia for us to create a coordinated group of stakeholders the way that we did. And the community of practice that we created around civic engagement is one that is outliving the census and is being used to support a lot of other critical things in this city.
Stephanie: (09:22)
And I think that's really a big thing that we're proud of. I also will say that the work that we did on the action fund is really having a beautiful impact on the way that we think about funding community-based organizations and that we are working with that same group again, to create a fund for COVID relief and for COVID engagement. And we are taking everything we learned there, and then we're building on it. And one of the things that we're doing this time, which we've never done before is including a way for those like individual people. You know, the lady on the block who knows everybody to receive a little bit of funding for that and trying to bring a trust-building model into the funding we're doing. When I think about our successes at the census, I think about how it really was an incubator for how to do this well and do it right, and how we're taking all those lessons and doing even better this time, which I think is when governments at its best.
Lindsay: (10:20)
Oh, and I definitely agree. And the pandemic, as devastating as it has been, has really opened people's eyes to, we all have to be creative and try some, try some different strategies. We talked briefly earlier about there being an argument for this type of multi-pronged engagement work being done on an ongoing basis versus trying to rally the troops if you will, a one or two years before the census deadline, can you walk me through this argument and how each of your governments is transitioning your efforts now that the census cycle for 2020 is complete?
Melissa: (10:52)
Well, you know, the first thing I would say is you're right. If the only time you show up in a community is to like, Oh, we're doing this plan. People don't know you, they don't trust you. I mean, the real work happens months, years before. And so it encouraged folks, do you go to community meetings, even if you're not out there to talk about the latest government project or initiative, do people know your face? First and foremost, we have to get out more. We have to, we have to show up, not just when there's a crisis or not when we just want feedback from someone and the engagement really has to be less about here, we're sharing this information, you know, here's why the census is important. Tell us exactly why you don't want to participate in it. What would change your mind?
Listen more, talk less. And we have to be willing as a city and government and these community-based organizations to put the resources the time in, the effort to support communities, to have more ownership over this kind of engagement process, because people need to feel like it matters to them and that they can be leading that conversation. And certainly with the census, that was our most impactful messaging was when it came from someone that wasn't me necessarily. But we have to be able to provide that support and the tools and the resources to communities to take more of a proactive approach. Um, and not just when we want them to do something, you know, again, I think it's important that we have a relationship in our communities that is not just in a crisis or not just when, Oh, we need your feedback on this project that we're working on. And that takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. And I think we have to be where we focus on equity. We have to, we have to make that the priority.
Lindsay: (12:40)
Stephanie, I know in Philadelphia, you all are pivoting your Philly counts network too. Can you dive into that a little bit for us?
Stephanie: (12:46)
Yeah, I'd be happy to, um, we, we did a lot of surveying and focus groups at the end of our census work and there was a resounding like, please don't let this go away. And I think it's really important for us to kind of flip the way that we think about this. I think very often in government, we think, Oh, we went and we invested so much time. We invested so much energy aren't we so great. And the reality is that every single person that we asked to come to the table invested in us too, they invested their trust in us in their time in us. And I think that we need to honor that. There's a number of things that we're working on in Philly counts. We worked on the election. Um, our office ran all the satellite election offices in Philadelphia. And now we are, we're doing a little bit of outreach around, um, access to internet, especially for K through 12 students. But the big pivot is that we are pivoting the whole network and we are starting to do work around trust building with vaccines. And we are working very hard to build an infrastructure that will provide those places for people to get information, have conversations, and hopefully move towards deciding to take the vaccine.
Lindsay: (14:02)
Great. And the work around the census is really interesting because it requires a very concerted effort on engagement and getting to these underserved neighborhoods and reaching traditionally very hard to reach people. I know citizen engagement, it's easy to talk about its a buzzword. We're actually doing a vendor series on it right now, talking about products in this space. But citizen engagement can be very easily bucketed as I got the same people that came to my city council meeting, uh, to participate in this as well. We did this flashy digital thing. More people are now participating. I've done my work. The census is forcing local governments to engage with populations that have been forgotten or ignored and so I really love what you all shared today. The work that you've done to come up with some creative ways of engaging these people and meeting them where they are and focusing first and foremost on building trust in those communities. I think a lot of work is going to be done around the digital divide before 2030, or we can hope. And so that should help immensely with the 2030 census effort, but I'd like to get a final thought from each of you about the engagement piece more generally, um, how you're looking at this in your government and how you look to others in the public sector to start thinking about their engagement work more broadly, um, from lessons you've learned from leading the census efforts.
Melissa: (15:25)
I would say, I think for a long time, our engagement was, was like you said, it's we had 50 people show up at a meeting, or we had a hundred people, you know, log in online to watch a meeting, a virtual meeting. I think we have to focus on what is the outcome, not just the number of participants and what neighborhoods they come from. And so I think for the census thinking about, well, what do our census tract, what was the outcome? How did we move the needle on actual participation in the census? Did we change anyone's mind about the census? So I think the focus is really on the deliverable and the outcome around equity and less about the numbers.
Melissa: (16:08)
We do tend to see the same people over and over at community meetings. Um, one thing that we're finding though is the pivot to the virtual meetings right now, because we're doing a lot of neighborhood based planning right now is that that's actually bringing more young people out to community meetings who normally never would have gone to their local advisory neighborhood commission meeting. And so in that sense, that's equitable for bringing out, you know, these 25 to 35 year olds who have never participated. They're like, Oh, wait, I actually kind of want to know about this issue. And all of a sudden we have 200 people at a meeting that normally would have like 30 in person. So where do we go with that? And I think that's a question we haven't answered yet, but certainly, um, in my division and thinking about neighborhood based planning and neighborhood based solutions and initiatives that we're working on is really trying to pivot it more towards how do we measure the outcome. The outcome is what I think we really got to focus on when it comes to equity.
Stephanie: (17:05)
I think right now and throughout all of the census work, there's been a lot of talk around distrust in government. You know, it's like all of this is rooted in distrust of government. And the vision of Philly council and our work was to build around the belief that the community's distrust in government must be addressed by providing space for open, honest dialogue, and for people to be involved in government in a meaningful way. And I think that's really what is driving us to continue to do this work on other fronts. And we do this through things like honest focus groups. Like we just held focus groups where we invited people in to look at the ad campaigns that have been proposed for the COVID vaccine for the city that's never been done before like that. And we've got to start changing things. So, um, I'm just really grateful to all the people in Philadelphia who were willing to come to the table and try again and help us be better. And who continued to walk that path with us.
Lindsay: (18:14)
Well, I think you really hit the nail on the head with your comments on equity and inclusion and that being really what needs to be top of mind for local governments, because the rest of this will sort of pan out if you handle some of those root issues. So thank you both Stephanie and Melissa for being here and for sharing your insights with the wider community of local governments that are trying to innovate. We really appreciate all your thoughts and, um, again, thanks for being here.
Melissa: (18:39)
Thank you.
Stephanie: (18:40)
Thank you so much.
Lindsay: (18:50)
While the census is a once in a decade project, the lessons learned can have a profound impact on ongoing efforts in any local government to more effectively deploy inclusive and empathetic engagement strategies. The key to 2030 will be to start early, keep existing partnerships active through other engagement work, and to leverage community resources like the ones found on Govlaunch so we can learn from one another and ultimately build better, more responsive and resilient communities. I'm Lindsay Pica-Alfano and this podcast was produced by Govlaunch the Wiki for local government innovation. You can subscribe to hear more stories like this, wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a local government innovator, we hope you'll help us on our mission to build the largest free resource for local governments globally. You can join to search and contribute to the wiki at govlaunch.com. Thanks for tuning in. We hope to see you next time on the Govlaunch podcast.