Get ready for UHC Day 2024! Step 6: Evaluate impact
This issue is part of a series providing tips and tricks to help you prepare for UHC Day 2024. See below for links to the first five issues:
Step 6: Evaluate impact
Monitoring and evaluation can make all the difference when it comes to recurring campaigns like UHC Day. Measuring and analysing your advocacy efforts gives you the insight and data you need to understand the impact you are having, and to course correct where necessary. Evaluation allows you to measure two key outputs: your audience’s opinions and your audience’s actions. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to get started:
What are your desired outcomes? To ensure effective monitoring and evaluation, it is important to go back to your campaign’s goals or objectives and to decide what you would like to measure. What is the definition of success for your campaign? From media hits and social media mentions to policy changes and high-level commitments, knowing the outcomes that will signpost the success of your campaign is crucial. For example, for financial protection for health, a measure of success might be engagement from decision makers, responses to your UHC advocacy letters, or the adoption of laws or budgets to protect people from impoverishing health costs.
How can they be measured? Next, it’s time to create indicators or metrics. Certain indicators, such as how often policymakers reference UHC in their speeches or how much traction #HealthForAll or #UHCDay picks up on social media channels, can help you measure how well your audience is receiving your messages. Social media metrics can help you take the temperature of public opinion and the views of your specific audiences, to see if your messages are resonating. However, these values still need to be translated into action. Other indicators, such as budget allocations for UHC-related activities or political commitments to policy changes, can help you determine whether your advocacy activities are contributing to moving the needle.
What are your targets? Once you are clear on your metrics and indicators, you can set targets and timeframes. Your targets can be anything from a certain number of commitments from decision makers to prioritise financial protection to the number of engagements on your social media channels. Ensuring you have set clear timeframes surrounding these targets will make it easier to measure your data and determine trends throughout your campaign and across the years.
Keeping track of these trends will help you decide whether to continue with the same advocacy tactics or to change your approach. Are you getting more views/shares on your social media posts? Are more people visiting your webpage and downloading your resources? Are more policymakers committing to investing in UHC and protecting people from impoverishing health costs? Is the campaign getting more traction?
Quite simply, monitoring and evaluation helps you determine what is working and what is not. If your advocacy is not achieving the goals you set out to reach, you can refine your strategy for next year by re-evaluating your messages, messengers, delivery or target audiences. It can also be beneficial to learn from the experiences of other organizations or advocates in the same space. Identifying trends and analyzing successful advocacy methods which might translate for your audiences will give you a head start in creating a more successful campaign in the future.
Finally, after you have measured the impact of your campaign, you can use what you have learned to set goals and objectives for the following year. And importantly, don’t forget to share your results with your supporters! This not only ensures accountability, but also allows your supporters to join you in celebrating the successes of your campaign and builds motivation for the future.
UHC Day reports
Take a look at some of the campaign reports for UHC Days of previous years. These reports provide some great examples of how to use different metrics and indicators to measure the impact of your campaign from year to year.
The State of UHC Commitment review can also help you identify indicators to ensure your political leaders are held accountable for taking action on their UHC commitments.
To present the campaign results and other campaign-related materials, you might also consider using the new PowerPoint template, now available on the microsite as well!