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ELIGIBILITY:

  • You must be an active member of the organization to qualify for the awards program. Be sure your membership is up-to-date with your local chapter.
  • The work associated with your PRAM PRism entry must have appeared (published, printed, presented, etc.) between January 1, 2024, and December 31, 2024.
  • The work associated with your BULLDOG PRism entry must have appeared (published, printed, presented, etc.) between November 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023.

EACH ENTRY:
1. Must follow entry guidelines and meet eligibility criteria precisely.
2. The Project Profile Sheet generated by the online entry system should cover the following information:

  • Research / Situation Analysis: Summarize the situation and/or provide information gathered through formal or informal research methods. Provide the judges with information about your organization/client and the impetus for the project. (up to 500 words)
  • Planning: Discuss the strategy and identify goals, objectives and key publics which this program was created to achieve. How were the objectives specific, measurable, attainable, audience-specific, relevant, outcome-oriented and time-specific. (up to 500 words)
  • Implementation: Describe your work and discuss the tactics used to achieve the stated objectives. Include timeline and budget information. Demonstrate how your efforts were creative, exemplary or otherwise worthy of recognition. (up to 500 words)
  • Evaluation: Identify research methods used to evaluate the success of the campaign/project during and after. Did the campaign/project achieve its objectives? If the project had limitations, how were they overcome? Did the project stay within the timeline and budget? If this was a pro bono project, give a value for the hours donated. (up to 500 words)

3. Will be evaluated on its own merit.

4. Will be compared to other entries only when being considered for a Best of Show or Judges' Choice Award. Entries should not be compared against each other nor awarded as first, second, and third place in each category.

5. Will receive judges' feedback.

6. Will be judged based on the factual material and documentation presented.

7. Include ALL samples/supporting materials that are referred to in the corresponding entry summary. Entries SHOULD NOT include everything (i.e. excessive working documents) associated with the production of the entry. They must be attached in the attachments section of the entry. NO BINDERS WILL BE SUBMITTED. A maximum of three attachments is allowed. Attachments must be titled/named as follows: Last Name_First Name_Entry Title. Do not use punctuation. Use underscores (_) 

8. For web-related categories, entries should include the live URL.

9. Audio or video categories must provide the URL where judges can access the audio or video online. Attachments of audio/video will not be allowed. 

10. Must be entered in the appropriate category. The judges or the awards committee may choose to accept and reclassify an entry submitted in an inappropriate category OR they may disqualify the inappropriately classified entry based solely upon the judges' discretion.

POINT ALLOCATION 

Tiers 1 & 2 and Student campaigns:

  • Research.................................20 points
  • Planning .................................30 points
  • Implementation.......................20 points
  • Evaluation...............................20 points
  • Creativity ...............................10 points

Tier 3 and Student entries:

  • Research.................................20 points
  • Planning .................................20 points
  • Implementation.......................30 points
  • Evaluation...............................10 points
  • Creativity ................................20 points

Entry procedures and judging criteria are the same across SPRF, PRAM, and PRCA awards programs.

AWARD LEVELS/SCORING:

PRAM is paired with a similar-sizing organization through the national PRSA judging pool. That reciprocal organization provides a pool of judges which is then randomly assigned to entries. Each entry is scored by two judges, with one required to be an APR or senior (15 years or more) practitioner. For this initial round, each entry is evaluated on its individual merit and not compared with other entries. Each category may have multiple award-winning entries, or none, based on cumulative numerical scoring. If the two judges' scores on an entry exhibit more than a 20 point difference, an additional judge will be called on to score that entry and the outlying score is removed.

As scoring is subjective and subject to fluctuations, these winning score averages are subject to adjustment based on overall scoring. At minimum, the top 15% of entries are awarded PRism Awards. 

  • Lantern/PRism/Bulldog/SPARK Award: entries receiving averages of 90 to 100 
  • Award of Excellence: entries receiving averages of 80 to 89
  • Certificate of Merit: entries receiving averages of 70 to 79

BEST OF TIER/BEST OF SHOW SELECTION:

A panel of three APRs comparatively rank the top five entries in each tier to select the Best of Tier. Once the winner of each tier is selected, the judges comparatively rank those three entries to determine the Best of Show.