Case Study: Canadian Mental Health Association achieves major provincial commitments and a new Ministry with New/Mode

How a mental health association achieved a big victory using targeted engagement

The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA BC) faced a major communications challenge: despite strong public concern about mental illness, provincial party platforms rarely addressed mental health or addictions in the run‑up to the BC election. To change that, CMHA BC partnered with New/Mode and deployed tools such as Storm Social, One‑Click Email and Letters to the Editor alongside an action hub (powered by NationBuilder) to build a low‑barrier, sustained engagement program called b4stage4.

New/Mode helped CMHA BC run an 18‑month sequence of sign‑ups, emails, calls, tweets and letters that mobilized supporters and pressured candidates; the campaign delivered clear, measurable impact — 2,858 people signed the declaration, 2,033 contacted provincial candidates, 382 volunteers joined, 44 candidates committed, “mental health” mentions rose to 84 and “addiction” to 39 (a roughly 10x increase), and the government appointed a Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and moved to create a dedicated ministry.

Canadian Mental Health Association