You can volunteer with NYC Census 2020 through the Neighborhood Organizing Census Committees (NOCCs – pronounced ‘knocks’) program. The NOCCs program seeks to recruit thousands of volunteer “Census Ambassadors” to engage in local census-related outreach.

As part of the NOCCS program, NYC Census 2020 has organized the city into 245 neighborhoods across all five boroughs, where each NOCC group will focus their outreach. NOCC volunteers will be trained by NYC Census 2020 staff and provided with printed materials, talking points, digital toolkits, and more. Volunteers will organize teach-ins, canvassing, phone-banks, and text-banks to get out the count. Each volunteer will choose which team they want to work with and how much responsibility they wish to take on.

Sign up to join your local NOCC by clicking on your neighborhood on the map.

In addition to shaping important decisions about emergency services and healthcare access, census data helps determine funding for many City services including:

• Education
  • For schools in low-income neighborhoods, including money for extra teachers, classroom supplies and books, in-school and after-school programs, and more.
  • For programs like Head Start, which provides care and learning for very young children.
• Healthcare programs, like the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which provides health insurance for young children in low-income households.
• Affordable housing assistance programs like Section 8, which helps tens of thousands of low-income New Yorkers cover their rent each month.
• Public housing building maintenance, repairs, and improvements.
• Youth and adult job training and placement programs, including services for at-risk youth, veterans, foreign-born New Yorkers, disabled New Yorkers, and justice-involved New Yorkers.
• Senior center building upgrades and programming, including meals.
• Infrastructure - including building and maintaining roads, bridges, and highways.

City agencies who conduct or operate programs and services that have census-guided funding include:

• The Department of Education (schools)
• Administration for Children’s Services (programs for very young children)
• Department for the Aging (senior centers)
• Department of Youth and Community Development (job training and adult education programs)
• Department of Housing Preservation and Development (affordable housing vouchers, maintenance for buildings)
• Department of Transportation (maintenance and construction of roads, bridges, and highways)
• New York City Public Housing Authority (maintenance and repairs)

In September 2019, NYC Census 2020 announced that it was accepting applications for the unprecedented $19 million NYC Complete Count Fund. The fund is a first-of-its-kind community awards program focused on census-related education and organizing across all five boroughs. This investment surpasses all census education and mobilization investments made by any city nationwide.

In December 2019, NYC Census 2020 announced more than 150 awardees of the Complete Count Fund. The awardees serve New Yorkers in over 80 languages, represent the city’s vast geographic and demographic diversity, and include institutions focused on social services, arts and culture, advocacy and community engagement, and more.