Case Study: CommunityConnect Labs achieves higher 2020 Census participation with Twilio Programmable SMS

Communityconnect Labs Drives 2020 Census Participation With Twilio Programmable Sms

CommunityConnect Labs is a nonprofit that helps government and public service providers use mobile messaging to reach hard-to-reach populations. Facing a decades-long decline in U.S. Census participation—driven by misinformation, language barriers, distrust among undocumented communities, and COVID-era limits on in-person outreach—the organization needed a way to explain how census data is used and encourage responses from undercounted groups.

CommunityConnect Labs partnered with 17 states, nonprofits, and advocates and built a Twilio Programmable SMS–powered outreach program (plus WhatsApp and web chat), integrating Twilio Lookup for number verification and a Rasa-based multilingual chatbot to answer questions. The SMS-first approach (used by 80–90% of respondents) helped reach 50,000–100,000 households, produced notably higher participation in partner states (Minnesota reached a 71% response rate vs. 61% national average), and delivered a scalable, secure way to boost census inclusion.

CommunityConnect Labs

Jacob Model

VP of Product and Data