Looking for ideas to plan and promote NHDD in your community? We’ve pulled together some ideas from the hundreds of local, state, and national groups across the country who have shared what they did last year or are planning for this April 16th. Be sure to take a peek at this roadmap to help you navigate all things NHDD, including where to find more examples. We hope the information below will spark ideas and get you started.

Make one call, send one text or email

• Commit to calling, texting or emailing just one person you know to share what NHDD is all about. Or, go bigger, call or text all the members of a group you belong to
• Download and share our short 90-second video “What is National Healthcare Decisions Day and how can I participate?” found on this page.
• For example: End of Life Choices New York will be calling as many of their constituents across the state as possible to remind them to complete their advance care plans and health care proxies. They will have board members and staff members making about 30 calls each (that’s 3000 calls!)

Write a letter, op-ed for your local newspaper – tie in a theme

• For example: Brewer Housing Authority in Maine wrote a letter and sent it out a few days before April 16^th talking about the importance of pre-planning by using the upcoming gardening season as an example (For example, “you wouldn’t throw seeds in a garden and hope for the best!”).

 Set up an information table in your place of work or at any upcoming information fair in your town to hand out materials/talk about advance care planning and NHDD

• All of our materials (as well as many others) are free to print out and share. Or, put our Starter Guides QR code on a piece of paper or poster at your table so folks can easily access our resources online via their phone.
• Other ideas: some groups offer prizes for those verbally committing to having ongoing conversations; and others, like RWJ Barnabas Health/RWJ Univ Hospital Hamilton in New Jersey, have trained counselors available for those needing extra support and guidance.

Host a movie screening and conversation

• Some movie ideas: A Man Called Otto, Coco, and check out this list or this list for more ideas
• From now through April 16, 2024, Grief Dialogues is waiving the usual licensing fee for those interested in showing the film, Honoring Choices, and sparking conversations in honor of NHDD. Contact elizabethcoplan@gmail.com directly.
• Hand out “leaving in action” materials for participants to take home and complete/talk with others (such as When the Lights go Up handout, a Conversation Starter Guide, 5 Wishes, Prepare™ For Your Care materials or other similar guides prompting action)

Host a “NHDD conversation party” where groups already gather: places of worship, book clubs, neighborhood meetings, social venues

• Host a conversation party for those in your place of worship where the family/friend group/congregation discuss and complete forms together.
• Many groups are hosting “death over dinner” or “death over drafts” – conversations over a meal or drinks to encourage fun, coziness and comfort while “breaking bread” and breaking down barriers.

Host an event and invite professional groups in your community to talk about various perspectives

• Pennswood Village, a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) in Bucks County Pennsylvania is hosting presentations all week (including April 16^th). They have an insurance company talking about power of attorneys & advance directives, a funeral home coming to talk about post death options; and social workers who are offering “office hours” for residents to review their wishes that week. In the past they’ve held death cafes and played the Hello game.

Create a series of events to create a bigger splash –borrow some of the ideas below for this year and consider making a plan for 2025 to create a year-long set of activities culminating on April 16th!

• Beebe Healthcare in Delaware set up a timeline of activities across 2023 to educate the community about advance care planning. Articles written by their director of palliative care and one of the palliative staff chaplains set the stage about the importance of talking to families. A series of workshops were held in late summer/early fall, and a drop-in day was held where the health care team assisted community members in the completion of advance directives. The hospital continued to offer drop-in days across the year.
• South Dakota Association of Healthcare Organizations is partnering with their Department of Health to provide statewide education on advance care planning. Last year they wrote weekly newsletter stories, crafted social media blurbs, conducted two radio shows and a TV human interest interview to educate the community about advance care planning (ACP), NHDD and The Conversation Project.
• San Francisco Palliative Care Work Group held a press conference with city officials and hosted workshops with community-based organizations across San Francisco that reached participants that are members of the LGBTQIA, Latinx, Cantonese-speaking Chinese, and African American communities.
• The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) will host a NHDD campaign across social media throughout the month of April, culminating in a full day of activities focusing on NHDD at the NHPCO 2024 Virtual Interdisciplinary Conference, intentionally planned during this day. The campaign will feature CaringInfo‘s annotated advance directives in English and Spanish, CaringInfo’s information around ACP, advice from various providers for engaging in ACP with themselves, colleagues, and patients/families, among other elements.
• Princeton Senior Resource Center in New Jersey hosted a series of events last year. Their first was a “filling in the blanks” workshop reviewing advance directive paperwork. Next, they hosted a “more than paperwork” day where they watched A Man Called Otto, had a discussion, and did a community project, “Before I Leave…” board (inviting people to complete that sentence, writing it on a giant bulletin board). Their 3rd event was in May with the American College of Physicians, presenting information on the medical perspective of advance directives.
• Tower Health Reading Hospital/Health Dept in Pennsylvania highlighted NHDD throughout specialty practices with posters, buttons for staff to wear, and ACP materials available in waiting rooms; they attended a community wellness event with ACP resources featured on the hospital table; and promoted NHDD internally on intranet banners throughout system, offering employees resources for ACP.

No (or little) time to plan? Simply reshare resources already available or join existing activities

• Simply follow #NHDD and The Conversation Project handles on social media (Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter)) and reshare what we post.
• Several groups, like Conversation of Your Life in New Jersey and Conversation Ready NTX in Texas have created ready-made information for community champions in their area – making it an easy lift for them to get involved. Look to see who in your community might already have some resources/activities you could join (e.g. area agencies on aging, hospice or palliative care organizations, etc.)

Share what you might be planning below in the comments section!  And, let us know if this was helpful for you.  For more resources specific to NHDD, keep an eye on our What’s New Tab for our latest blogs and check out our communications toolkit for promoting NHDD.

Want to keep connected to The Conversation Project for more ideas from other communities? Sign-up for our community engagement newsletter, follow us on social media (Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), and YouTube), and feel free to reach us at ConversationProject@ihi.org.