You Count So Be Counted: 2020 Census
Starting today, all U.S. households will begin receiving official U.S. Census Bureau mail. You may yawn at that, but this is seriously important to marketers.
Even for an agency like AMPERAGE (with marketing and fundraising), this is a critically important tool that must be accurate. Every market/marketing plan we conduct, every demographic profile and every research project depends on census data.
Yes, our communities get allocated federal dollars based on the census, but for business and nonprofit organizations, the census helps us build strategies, plan expansions, offer more targeted services and better understand customers or stakeholders. Not to mention that our entire representative democracy is based on census data — it ensures each community gets the right number of representatives in government.
April 1 is not April Fool’s Day; it is Census Day. By this date, every home will have received an invitation to participate in the 2020 census. Once the invitation arrives, you should respond for your home in one of three ways: online, by phone or by mail. Sounds too easy, but more than 20% will not fill it out. So they will need to be approached in person, which is extremely expensive.
You count so be counted. Turn in your census form today. Your local agency is depending on you.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.