Why the 2020 Census is Important to Business

Posted December 4, 2019

December 04, 2019 at 1:12 PM

The 2020 Census is around the corner, and it is a critical time for community members and businesses to encourage participation in the Census next April.  Education and promotion is essential to getting the community involved and making sure citizens know how important their inclusion for the count is to the area.  As a business, you have the opportunity to be a 2020 Census Official Partner, which works with the Census to encourage households to participate in the Census. Being involved can include promoting the Census information on your business_ website or engaging in national level training and advocacy for Census participation.  Overall, becoming a partner will give your company networking opportunities with other partners, access to personalized data training and information services, and fulfillment in engaging your customers and employees around a civic duty.  More information on becoming a 2020 Census Official Partner can be found here.

 

Even if your business does not decide to become an official partner, there are still plenty of ways to be a catalyst for education and advocacy of Census participation.  Businesses could hold Census Workshops, which are events that help solve census challenges and engage members in Census education.  You can also partner with the Census Bureau by inviting a Census expert to your workplace to answer the hard-hitting questions and struggles regarding the Census.  Finally, there are easy, printable Audience Outreach Toolkits  as well as more comprehensive outreach materials that your business could display and give to consumers that help inform and dispel myths about participating in the Census.

 

For businesses small and large, the upcoming 2020 Census couldn’t be more important to their success with critical customer data available.  When census data is accurately counted, communities can use the information to determine things such as how much money to spend, whether or not to expand, as well as what products to put on their shelves.  With the Census Business Builder (CBB), customer data can be easily accessed to see exactly what kind of customer demographics are in a business_ area.  The CBB makes it easy to find out customer information such as:

Customer profiles
Customer socioeconomic and housing statuses
Consumer spending in your market
Our local municipalities are working cooperatively as a region to get a high response rate for the 2020 Census. The cities of Coralville, Iowa City, North Liberty, Tiffin, and University Heights, and Johnson County are partnering on getting the word out to our residents, businesses, community organizations, and nonprofits. Identical information is being shared on these respective websites.

 

For more information you can be involved in the Census, contact ashley-monroe@iowa-city.org.