Mental Health Action Day was founded to shift our mental health culture from awareness to action. In 2022, we empowered millions to take action towards their mental health through the lens of connection. We did this by focusing our work on partnerships, communities, and activation. As we entered the third year of the pandemic, supporting mental health was more critical than ever, especially for young people. That’s why it was essential for us to not only harness the breadth of our partners but to cultivate deeper engagements to continue building a movement for mental health action.
This year we piloted a new partnership model using a distributed organizing method that empowered interested partners in key sectors and provided them with the freedom to innovate, manage, and customize a sector-specific strategy powered by Mental Health Action Day. This approach allowed them to reach their members and networks in the ways that resonate most, greatly expanding our movement. Some notable examples were:
Health Action Alliance - Hosted the Workplace Mental Health Action Summit featuring Bank of America CEO, Brian Moynihan and President & CEO of the CDC Foundation, Judy Monroe and created the first-ever HAA also launched the first-ever Workplace Mental Health Playbook, that garnered 2,700+ downloads, to brings employers recommended actions to foster mental health amongst their employees
Citrone 33 Foundation - Launched the Pittsburgh Youth Mental Health Coalition to explore ways to address the problem with local leaders with an event at the Pirates stadium and released the first-ever Mental Health Action Playbook in partnership with the Penguins to help other professional sports franchises to activate their organization and fans around Mental Health Action Day.
Tiltify - Hosted the LinkedIn Live Mental Health Action Day is the Next Giving Tuesday to encourage creators and brands to host live-stream fundraisers associated with Mental Health Action Day. They also created an easy to use toolkit to guide hosts through the process. On Mental Health Action Day alone, nearly 3K individual donations were made and over $71.7K raised. During the month of May Tiltify raised nearly $3M USD across all active fundraising events, nearly 10 times the amount raised in 2021.
Additionally, we leveraged activations to reach young people and underserved audiences through community-focused grant programs. Grantees had the opportunity to produce and engage young people in unique community programming that resonated with their own community and drove impact. Some examples include:
Save the Music & WisdoMania Foundation - hosted a Songwriting for Wellness Workshop in Los Angeles at Manual Arts High School.
The Confess Project - hosted a Barbershop Talk in Atlanta with David Banner about destigmatizing mental health while also providing mental health training and resources to barbers in Los Angeles.
#HalfTheStory - hosted a pop-up in Washington Square Park, NYC focused on digital wellness.
Lastly, we provided tools, resources, and assets that all 1,750 partner organizations, individuals, and influencers can use to amplify our message in a way that is authentic to them and their audiences.
We had over 1,700 organizational partners. Sector Champions like The Citrone 33 Foundation created impactful partnerships to advance health and promote happy lives in the Pittsburgh community by launching the Pittsburgh Youth Mental Health Coalition and creating the first Mental health Action Team Sports Playbook. Brand activated in a myriad of ways, Youth Inc. and Nasdaq rang in the Opening Bell for Mental Health Action Day receiving coverage from CNBC, Bloomberg, and Fox Business. Youth Inc. also launched Speak Out: Mental Health is Health which encouraged young New Yorkers to tell their mental health story and have their photo posted on a billboard in Times Square. Over 150 brands and over 444 cultural leaders amplified on social platforms. Mental Health Action Day content saw over 765.7M total views and MTV’s Mental Health Moment Spot saw 1.1 M views. Snapchat launched a Mental Health Break AR Lens that encouraged users to participate in a breathing exercise. TikTok featured #LetsTalkMentalHealth on the Discover Page leading to 2,300 pieces of original content by celebrities from companies and nonprofits reaching a global audience of over 50 million users. Our efforts are considered a success because we were able to focus on the lens of connection and encourage action digitally and in real life.
