Get ready for UHC Day 2024! Step 5: Pick your tools and bridge the gaps
To help you prepare for UHC Day 2024, we’re sharing advocacy planning steps and tips. This is the fifth issue in the series. See below for links to the first four issues:
Step 5: Pick your tools and bridge the gaps
A good campaign is built around strong resources and materials, and while it is always a good idea to get creative and tailor materials to suit your goals and audiences, you don’t have to start from scratch!
For UHC Day 2024, we have an entire toolkit of materials for you to share, customise and draw inspiration from. Using or adapting existing materials can save you time and lend cohesion to UHC advocacy across a multitude of partners. Drawing inspiration from established advocates or organizations can also help make your advocacy efforts more effective, providing an opportunity to learn from other advocates’ expertise, political intelligence and past successes and failures.
Some of the easiest and most impactful materials you can use are our social media messages and materials. This year’s toolkit is built around the objective of encouraging decision makers to invest in financial protection for health. To make it even easier for you to put your own spin on the campaign, we’ve created a customisable campaign graphic, an editable quote card, and a PowerPoint template for your use.
A range of impactful and emotive videos are also available on the UHC Day site, including this year’s campaign teaser. Videos can be an excellent tool to simplify tricky concepts or to tell stories which move people to take action. By sharing them on social media, embedding them in your webpage, and playing them at your events, you can add some extra colour to your advocacy efforts.
Other effective advocacy tools you can use in your campaign include op-eds, newsletters and email campaigns, webinars or seminars, community events and promotional materials.
If you are planning to take the direct advocacy route, you’ll find a few key tools on the UHC Day site to boost your efforts. The Advocacy Letter Template makes writing to your government officials and decision makers simple, while the Election Advocacy Guide is a helpful tool if you are looking to make an impact in the lead up to elections in your country.
Facts and data lend crucial legitimacy to your advocacy efforts. UHC2030’s UHC Data Portal tracks how countries are acting on their UHC commitments, providing a useful tool to access and visualise data from countries around the world.
As it expands year after year, the UHC movement continues to evolve and reach new communities and geographies. While there is a wealth of resources available to you, we encourage you to ask yourselves what kinds of advocacy materials still need to be developed. You know your audiences best, so you are best placed to create innovative and exciting products and tailor existing materials to appeal to them. In the context of UHC advocacy, these will often be materials that need to be tailored to more effectively speak to certain local or national audiences.
Graphics and tweets
Head to the campaign toolkit to find this year’s campaign graphics and tweets. We have made it easy for you to share some of the key 2024 campaign messages by clicking the “Tweet” buttons on the toolkit. But we encourage you to adapt the messages to make your campaign more authentic and let your voice shine through. And, as always, don’t forget to tag #UHCDay!