1. Transition Team Meeting December 10, 2014

2. What is the role of the MN State Demographic Center?  Serve as a liaison to the Census Bureau and assist with the decennial census counts; create MN population estimates for intercensal years  Create projections and issue reports about their implications for the state  Analyze, interpret, and distribute data from the U.S. Census Bureau, state departments, and other sources  Offer data and technical assistance to policymakers, all levels of government, media, organizations, and citizens across the state  Monitor trends and help MN to make data-informed decisions mn.gov/demography Twitter: @MN_StateData

3. About me  Research Analyst with the State Demographic Center  Work with survey data every day  Trained in evaluation, survey design, and analysis  General data geek  Very excited to be working on this survey and to have you all as a resource

4. Acknowledged Communities Survey  Seeking input from White Earth citizens on how to create acknowledged communities, responsibilities of citizenship, and priorities moving forward  Surveying everyone would be costly, so we are asking a random sample of White Earth citizens to respond  Will inform 2015 referendum in which citizens will vote on acknowledged communities

5. Our survey process  Mixed-methodology  Mailed paper copies and online form  Incentives  People are busy and receive lots of surveys. $10 incentives help increase response rates  Pre-testing  Refine survey layout, questions, language before collecting data from respondents  Targeted follow-up with non-respondents  Reminder letters for non-respondents

6. Timeline  Implementation (January – March, 2015)  Notification postcard.  Initial wave of surveys mailed, followed by non-response follow-up mailings  Analysis (March – April, 2015)  I take the data, “scrub it” of information that could identify respondents, and group responses in ways that are meaningful and informative.  Final Report (April 2015)  Report containing tabulated data and analysis

7. “Sampling” is like scooping soup The sample is the bowl; the pot is the whole population. All tribal members are the pot, our sample of tribal members is the bowl

8. “Sampling” is like scooping soup Chicken Soup  Water  Chicken  Celery  Carrots  Onion  Garlic  Salt  Pepper  Noodles Population  White  Black/African American  Hispanic  Asian  Renter  Owner  Rural  Urban

9. Why do we need a random sample?  When we want to generalize responses from the sample to the total population, asking ANYONE to fill out the survey might:  Over represent loudest, most extreme voices who are more likely to take a survey which might overstate the impact of an issue on the general public  Gauging public support for a tax to a specific kind of business might only attract sellers and buyers of that product or service  Accidentally oversample a group that skews results  A survey trying the figure out how many Minnesotans use Twitter might get a low estimate by getting too many 80 year olds and a high estimate with too many 25 year olds, with age being correlated with Twitter use.

10. Questions?