Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees’ New Immigrant Voter Report Release

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Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR) came to Full Court Press to gain public attention on its research documenting the potential civic participation by California’s immigrant communities. As a growing network of foundations working on a wide range of immigrant and immigrant integration issues, GCIR looked to Full Court Press to position its research finding that “2 out 3 new voters would be immigrants or children of immigrants” as crucial to our state’s vitality and sought a positive message of civic participation in the media. They also wanted their message to deeply saturate the targeted audiences of elected and political stakeholders.

Full Court Press began by working with GCIR to craft key messages for the public release of the report, Integration Potential of California’s Immigrants and Their Children. The goal was to underscore the critical need for integration policies to incorporate the sizable population of immigrants– both naturalized and naturalization-eligible-- and their US citizen children.

The report launch began with a teleconference for print media. Full Court Press prepared spokespeople and researchers with individual talking points and personalized coaching and created a run-of-show document to guide the presentation. More than twenty reporters from media ranging from Los Angeles Times to San Jose Mercury News to La Opinion and the Korean Daily attended the teleconference and wrote about the release. The launch release with a media-oriented one pager (used to frame the report findings for reporters) was distributed throughout the state to mainstream and ethnic media, Capital press, and political blogs.

Full Court Press encouraged GCIR to locate new immigrant voters to talk to local reporters about their experiences and perspectives. These new voters provided a real and personal side to the report’s statistics - helping to position the findings as positive stories of personal success and civic engagement. Full Court Press also emphasized the startling finding to press that half of new eligible voters will be children of immigrants and sought youth voices to speak to press and tell their stories.

The GCIR New Immigrant Voter Report Release was covered by at least one newspaper in each of the targeted regions selected by the organization: The Los Angeles Times, The Sacramento Bee, and The North County Times). In addition, one of our target audiences was Sacramento and statewide political decision-makers. To that end, we were fortunate to be well-placed on many of the popular political blogs regularly read by insiders – on both sides of the political aisle. Full Court Press also worked with GRIC on both a stakeholders and electeds briefings.

We were also able to create an “echo” by obtaining follow-up coverage with New America Media. The exciting tv-centric segment idea featuring young, dynamic, and involved new voters was utilized for follow-up coverage across the state and in the target regions.

A scan of the coverage showed that the report’s key messages were covered in more than 95% of the media coverage. The integration message was successfully conveyed and the immigrants increased civic participation portrayed in a successful light. The excitement of new voters, particularly youth, was a focus for the articles – and the interest in full participation by all Californians echoed throughout the coverage.