Tools for Advocacy: Mon Ami's ROI Infographic for OAA Advocacy

We’ve developed a free resource to help agencies in the Older Americans Act network leverage their data for storytelling and advocacy efforts to communicate the impact your work has in the community. The infographic template below turns your data into an ROI story on the economic and health impacts of aging services delivered in home and community-based settings. With unprecedented pressure on the aging network, it’s more important than ever to educate decision makers on the critical role aging services play in keeping communities healthy and health care costs down. 

Plug in your data to calculate an ROI and generate your customized infographic for sharing. Here’s how: 

You will need access to your agency’s data sources and the ability to pull key metrics around clients, services, and coverage areas. If your agency does OAAPS reporting, we point you to the data fields to query to complete the data submission. 

Note: If you are currently a Mon Ami state database user, reach out to us directly to receive a pre-populated infographic with your data. 

We reviewed every Older Americans Act (OAA)-related study we could find to understand how common OAA services, like meals or case management or transportation, translate to an economic Return-on-Investment (ROI). We retained only ROI estimates with conclusive economic returns; we found no robust evidence of losses and set aside those with inconclusive or break-even results. For example, rigorous research demonstrates that congregate meals produce clear economic benefits when served to older adults at or below the poverty line. When the program extends to a broader (younger, healthier) population, however, the estimated returns fall to levels indistinguishable from break-even—because the pay-back horizon for that group exceeds typical study windows, we excluded congregate-meal ROI from our headline calculations. For services satisfying our “conclusive economic returns” criterion, we selected the most recent peer-reviewed paper with the strongest methodology and preferred more conservative estimates when selecting. Where evidence was about a combination of services, we apply an especially cautious 2 : 1 return based on the best available study focused on diverse in-home service delivery, and flag those categories for future updates as more definitive research appears. For more specifics on individual ROI calculations, we provide detailed footnotes and sources in our infographic template. We welcome any additional rigorous studies you’re aware of and will publish a follow-up discussing gaps in the literature and strategies OAA might pursue to fill them.

We know many of you are already engaged in advocacy efforts with your local representatives. We hope this template provides an additional resource to share in those conversations. For those who are just starting, we pulled together some trusted resources on how to contact your local representatives and sample language to use. 

(NCOA) Tell Congress Why the Older Americans Act Matters - NCOA has provided an easy template to customize your message and automatically send it to the Representative who represents you. 

(USAging) OAA Programs Under Attack, Contact Your Members of Congress Today - USAging has its own email template that can be used to contact members of Congress. Data sheets like the infographic can be included as attachments. 

(USAging) Congressional Visit Tips - If you happen to arrange a face-to-face meeting with a representative, congrats! USAging has provided some tips to keep in mind.