Your Trusted Voice Can Help Make A Difference

Dear Friend:

Knowing of your leadership in your community, I am sending you this special message to help the country at an important moment.

As you know we are in the midst of the 2010 Census.   Census forms have been mailed or delivered to over 130 million households.  As of today, almost 70% of those households have back mailed their forms.   This is a great success for America.  Let's keep it going.  We literally have just hours left to receive forms from the other 30% before we launch the massive effort to hire, train and send out some 700,000 temporary employees to go door-to-door to follow up with non-responding addresses to help us  get a complete count of every person in the country.  I know how important fulfilling this Constitutional mandate is to you.  A complete and accurate census is crucial for our states, cities, counties and towns, and it's the foundation of our Democracy.  

Even though you yourself have probably done your part, odds are, up to a third of your neighbors, or friends, or colleagues or constituents have not.  As a leader in your community, I am writing to ask you to make a special effort in the next 48 hours to help encourage them to join in this civic moment and "Mail it Back".

Your support is as critical as ever during these final days of the 2010 Census mail back campaign– residents who fail to mail back their census forms this weekend, will likely be visited by a census taker in May. We strongly encourage you to look for opportunities to reach people who have not yet returned their forms.

The following are action steps that are recommended you may take today to increase 2010 Census participation rates in your community:  

·         Issue a press release today or Saturday providing your community’s daily participation rate and challenging members of your community to mail back their 2010 Census form today.

·         Distribute an email to all of your community email and employee lists discussing the importance and benefits of answering the 2010 census. (See recommended language below).

·         Use the online social media sites (Web site, Facebook, Twitter) to encourage participation in the Census. Visit the 2010 Census social media sites for ideas for messages: http://2010.census.gov/2010census/involved/index.php

·         Request an interview on local radio and television news show to talk about participation rates in your community.

·         Go door-to-door in the neighborhoods that have low rates of mail back participation and encourage participation. A detailed map on http://2010.census.gov/2010census/take10map provides current mail participation rates for your community, and by neighborhood within your community. You may want to use the map to target your efforts.

·         Encourage faith leaders to make mention of the Census this Sunday and encourage congregations to mail back their forms now.

Thank you for considering joining the in the public effort to do our best for the 2010 Census.  I know your trusted voice can help make a difference.  I hope the Census Bureau can turn to you for help in the coming weeks, as our temporary workforce of 700,000 census takers begin their work in May and June.  Thank you in advance for your efforts.

Sincerely,
 
Robert M. Groves
Director
U.S. Census Bureau


Sample Email:

Only Three Days Left To Mail Back Your 2010 Census Form

There’s still time to fill out and mail back your 2010 Census form and help our community get the funding it needs. Please fill out and mail back your census form TODAY! If you mail back your form by April 16, you can avoid a visit from a census worker. What ever you can do will help make a difference.  For each one percent increase in the mail back response rate, we help save $85 million in taxpayer funds for the expensive follow up work load.  So not only is it safe, easy, and important, but mailing back the census form can help all of us in the tough fiscal times.