Series consists of cards used to collect and document information on community members and families over the course of the operation of the Jewish Community Fund and Council. They are organized into series of geographical locations in BC and within each region alphabetically by the last name of the head of the family household (generally the father/husband). This census card survey program was instituted in order to determine the need and interest for a new Jewish Community Centre in Vancouver. The program was planned by the Council with advice sought and received from the Canadian Jewish Congress, specifically from Louis Rosenberg who had completed a significant survey of Canadian Jewry for the Canadian Jewish Congress.
As a result of research, the Fund and Council began the program of surveying families and individuals in the community in the late 1940s , noting down information such as name of family head and spouse, home address, workplace name and address, telephone numbers for home and business, names of children, date born, affiliation with community organizations. The survey was conducted primarily by telephone, and the surveyors appear to have been volunteers. Information was updated on individual cards until too much information had changed, whereupon the old card was retired and a new one created. The surveying continued until the early 1980s.