More than 17 million Americans age 65+ struggle with rising housing and health care bills, inadequate nutrition, lack of access to transportation, diminished savings, and job loss. Every April, NCOA's Boost Your Budget® Week helps educate older adults about the public (and private) benefits that provide hope for the economically insecure. These benefits are often a lifeline to helping low-income people with Medicare age well.
What are examples of public benefits that can help create money savings?
Programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, Medicare Savings Programs, Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and Part D Low-Income Subsidy (Extra Help) can boost older adults' budgets by thousands of dollars each year by helping with the costs of food, health care, prescriptions, and home heating and cooling.
But research has shown that there are still many barriers to enrollment in these programs, including knowledge of benefits and how to apply. As a result, millions of older adults are likely eligible for, but not enrolled in, benefits that can save money on health care, prescriptions, food, and more.
Boost Your Budget® Week: Find Your Benefits to Age Well aims to change that!
NCOA's national campaign unites aging and disability service providers under a common charge to:
- Educate low-income Medicare beneficiaries and their caregivers about the benefits available to improve their health and economic security, and
- Connect individuals to online (BenefitsCheckUp®) and community resources for benefits screening and application assistance.
When is Boost Your Budget Week?
Boost Your Budget Week takes place each year during the second full week of April (this year on April 15-19, 2024). However, you're welcome to use these materials in your outreach messaging at any time of the year.
How should I structure my Boost Your Budget Week campaign?
NCOA welcomes the participation of any community or state agency that is working to assist low-income seniors and adults with disabilities to enroll in benefits. There is no limit on what your organization may do to draw attention to your services. For example, you may wish to:
- Share information about benefits as part of a food drive, health fair, or tax assistance event
- Sponsor a “telethon” at your local radio or TV station
- Run ads in local newspapers or on social media
- Invite media, legislators, and the public to tour your facility and learn about the importance of benefits for your community
Resources to use from NCOA's Boost Your Budget Week Toolkit
Download these tools to use in your organization's Boost Your Budget Week campaign.
| Resource | How to Use | Format |
| Boost Your Budget Week logo | Add the campaign logo to your materials; available in horizontal and stacked vertical formats in black, white, and color |
English horizontal |
| Animated videos | Share these short animated explainer videos to give older adults an overview of key programs that can help them save money | YouTube playlist |
| Social media post messaging | Use these sample graphics and language to promote the campaign on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn (see below for preview of images) |
Graphics: |
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Customizable posters | Hosting an event? Add event details to these posters and tailor them with your contact info | English (PDF) Spanish (PDF) |
| Public Service Announcements (PSAs) | Download television and radio PSAs to market to your community | Watch on YouTube |
| Media toolkit | Get tips (including a sample media advisory and press release) for attracting media interest in your campaign | English (Word) |
| Newsletter blurbs | Use these short blurbs to talk about the campaign to professionals and older adults, or place them in any outgoing emails or newsletters | English (Word) |
| Advocacy toolkit | Learn how to communicate with elected officials about your work | English (Word) |
Tips for posting on social media when promoting Boost Your Budget Week
These images are available in the above table in a variety of formats for social media platforms. (Images appear in order as numbered above.)
You can promote Boost Your Budget Week on social media and emphasize your organization’s capacity to help seniors get what they need. We encourage you to personalize your posts to showcase your organization’s specialties.
The tips below can help you maximize engagement and leads:
- Always schedule posts on your social channels for times your audience will be online. For Boost Your Budget Week, that means matching the schedules of older adults and caregivers. That will mean aiming for 9:00 a.m. or 5:00-7:00 p.m.
- Adding images or videos to your posts will increase the number of people who see them. You can still add a URL in the text of your post to help drive traffic to your site.
- Only have one call-to-action in each post and make it immediately actionable. In other words, don’t tell people about something they have to wait for.
