Every Fourth of July, Carnegie Corporation of New York celebrates immigrants who have invigorated our economy, strengthened our society, and enriched American culture. Since joining the Corporation in spring 2019, I have been primarily responsible for honoree selection, transforming and streamlining that process while ensuring that each annual class of Great Immigrants represents the diverse backgrounds and wide-ranging contributions of immigrants to American life.

When I arrived at the Corporation, the annual “Great Immigrants Great Americans” recognition focused exclusively on the production of a full-page New York Times advertisement celebrating honorees. There is something special about seeing your name and photo in the newspaper of record, but focusing exclusively on a print ad was outdated. Although we continue to run the full-page ad annually, I worked with our digital team to introduce a robust digital promotion strategy, developing engaging graphics and building an easy to-use social media toolkit disseminated to honorees, their institutions, and influencers likely to celebrate their selection. I also began engaging our Democracy grantees and past honorees to join us in celebrating each new class.

This strategy has dramatically increased enthusiasm and brand awareness around the initiative: In 2022, the announcement generated more than 332,000 unique page views by more than 215,000 unique visitors. This marked a fourth consecutive year of record-breaking web traffic, including a 141 percent increase in page views over 2021. We’ve also seen steady growth in social engagement, including posts from celebrities, CEOs, and political leaders like Secretary of State Antony Blinken. In 2023, amid a challenging and uncertain digital landscape, we prioritized earned media, landing an AP exclusive story that generated was picked up by more than 700 outlets worldwide and generated 155 million impressions during the first week following the announcement. Additional stories profiled individual honorees in local and field-focused publications such as the Miami Herald and Runners World.

We also took steps to build out a more compelling messaging strategy. When I first began working on the campaign in 2019, I refocused the announcement to lift up and celebrate honorees’ stories, transforming flat bios into inspiring personal narratives. In 2020, I refined thatapproach by introducing an annual “theme” as a hook for media outreach and social media messaging. That year, we focused on immigrants involved in the Covid-19 response, including frontline medical personnel, but also journalists, educators, and the founder of Zoom. In 2021, we emphasized service to society, including elected officials, voting and disability rights advocates, and a member of the National Guard. We also added a street level digital advertising campaign that celebrated honorees throughout the five boroughs of New York City, with saturation along the East River waterfront to coincide with the post-pandemic resumption of fireworks on Independence Day. We photographed the ads running for each honoree in Times Square in advance of the announcement, enabling them to share the photos on social media, which they did enthusiastically.

In 2022, the Corporation highlighted immigrants who have been leaders in their local communities through their work in education, the arts, public service, health care, small business ownership, and advocacy. Working with one of our grantees, the New Americans Campaign, we created a simple six-step guide to help immigrants navigate the naturalization process. This resource helped the public understand how this popular initiative aligns with our foundation’s grantmaking to support immigrant integration and immigration policy reform. We promoted this resource throughout the summer and especially beginning on Citizenship Day, when we also partnered with the Ellis Island Foundation to support a naturalization ceremony led by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. Within the first month after launching the campaign, there were more than 100,000 unique pageviews for that resource, helping some of the 9.2 million eligible lawful permanent residents in the United States take the first steps towards citizenship, a key priority of our foundation’s Democracy program.

In 2023, we celebrated immigrants who are opportunity builders. Generations of immigrants have come to this country seeking a better life for themselves and their families, but we wanted to lift up the many ways that immigrants create opportunities through others, including work as educators, mentors, philanthropists, job creators, public servants, storytellers, and advocates. We paired their stories with data showing the economic and societal benefits of immigration, highlighting the role of immigration in spurring economic growth, helping to cool inflation, and supporting key workforce needs in fields such as health care and STEM fields.