Tiny Census Concerts Promote Census Completion and Offer Work for NM Musicians

Beginning on Wednesday, April 8, at noon, the first of five weekly Tiny Census Concerts (TCC) on I Count NM’s Facebook page will take place. Sponsored by the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Complete Count Committee, the concerts will leverage the influence of New Mexico musicians to encourage citizens to complete the census form and will provide generous remuneration for their services. The first concert’s slate includes Joy Harjo, Rosalind Sanders Jones, Lara Manzanares, Larry Mitchell, Hillary Smith/Chris Dracup, and Jackie Zamora. Artists can apply for future concerts in the series by visiting the TCC website.

Patterned on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts and hosted by KNME’s Gene Grant, TCC will take place on five successive Wednesdays at noon. Each concert will feature prerecorded performances from up to eight artists across multiple disciplines, including musicians, dancers, spoken word artists, and visual artists. Between each performance, Grant and the performers will let the online audience know why their participation is important. TCC will also feature special messages from Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller; Julie Baca, county manager; Robert Rhatigan, state demographer; and more.

“New Mexico has so much riding on achieving a 2020 complete count. We can’t afford to lose a single household. We are excited to be working with our beloved New Mexico artists to help us spread the word far and wide,” says Cathryn McGill, chair of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Complete Count Committee and Founder/Director of the New Mexico Black Leadership Council.

An accurate census is critical because it is used to determine the distribution of federal dollars and political representation for the next 10 years. New Mexico receives over $7 billion each year through federal programs that benefit the entire community. Funds are allocated on a per capita basis for programs for health care, nutrition, highways, education, housing, jobs, and more, and if New Mexico undercounts residents by just 1%, the state would lose $780 million.

Call for artists
The State of New Mexico appropriated funds for census outreach in the last legislative session. “Most of it was based on in-person events, and lots of things were planned,” says McGill. “All of that had to be pivoted to a different strategy once the pandemic hit.” Pivot she did, moving the events to the online format.

“We have a call to artists for the subsequent concerts in the series, and we’re compensating artists for helping us to spread the word about the census and deploying them to be census ambassadors for us,” she says.

For more information, visit the TCC website, or contact McGill at 505-407-6784 or cathryn@nmblc.org.

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© 2020 Mel Minter