The Census Project

Background

The Census Project began in 1996 as the “Census 2000 Initiative,” with initial support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation to facilitate communication and information sharing about the census cycle, Congress, and the Census Bureau. The initiative was housed within the Communications Consortium Media Center (CCMC), a charitable nonprofit described as a Washington, D.C. communications firm dedicated to helping nonprofits use media strategies for policy change. ^{1  2}

The CCMC closed in 2019, and it is not clear as of April 2026 where the project is formally housed, though the organization’s structure and leadership continued unchanged. ¹

Financials

The Census Project is not an independent nonprofit organization, and therefore does not have public tax returns. The group does solicit donations via PayPal, but there is no indication of tax status or if the funds will go to a parent organization and then be disbursed. ⁴ However, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York have both provided grants to the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness (CREC) earmarked for the Census Project. The Census Project is not listed on the CREC’s website as a project of the group. ^{5  6  7}

The project has been supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation since its inception in 1996. In 2023, the foundation provided a $75,000 grant to the CREC earmarked for the Census Project. In 2024, the Carnegie Corporation of New York provided a $66,700 grant to the CREC similarly earmarked for the Census Project. ¹

Advocacy

The Census Project has advocated for increased funding of the Census Bureau and the continued mandatory status of the American Community Survey. However, people and groups associated with the project often put forward left-of-center positions on census issues. Notably, in 2025 the Population Association of America (PAA) and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposed efforts in Congress to exclude non-citizens from population counts that determine congressional apportionment. Mary Jo H. Mitchell, a co-director of the project, was the director of government affairs at the PAA, and Meeta Anand, who was on the project’s advisory committee, was the senior director for census and data equity at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. ^{1  3  8}

In 2017, Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former director of the project and, as of April 2026, a member of the project’s advisory board, criticized the first Trump administration for choosing Thomas Brunell, a Republican, as deputy director of the Census Bureau, claiming that doing so would politicize the census. Lowenthal herself worked on the Obama administration’s transition team. ^{9  2}

The Project was housed for decades at the Communications Consortium Media Center, which was a now-defunct left-of-center organization that was largely funded by left-of-center foundations. ²

The Census Project tracks census news, promotes increased funding for the census, and promotes practices it believes will ensure census data integrity.  ¹

Leadership

As of 2026, Mary Jo H. Mitchell was serving as co-director of the Census Project, a position she had held since 2008, simultaneously holding the position of director of government affairs at the Population Association of America (PAA) and the Association of Population Centers (APC), positions she had held since January 2004. She previously worked as a staffer for two different Democratic U.S. Representatives and was appointed in March 2024 to the advisory committee of the 2030 Census. ¹

As of 2026, Howard Feinberg was a co-director of the Census Project, a position he had held since 2018. He previously worked for Republican U.S. Representatives and as of April 2026 was working as a lobbyist for the Insights Association. ¹