PRSA’s Public Relations Professional of the Year Award (awarded at the June 4, 2009, Silver Anvil Celebration Event) honors the individual who represents the best in public relations in 2008. As you prepare your Silver Anvil entry and identify its strengths, is there one individual whose contributions to the program — or to the profession — stand out as an outstanding example of the management function that establishes mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the public on whom its success or failure depends? Don’t miss this opportunity to nominate worthy candidates for one of PRSA’s most prestigious awards. Click here for nomination instructions.

Judging Criteria:
This award represents the definition of public relations as demonstrated by a public relations practitioner in a given year — specifically the management function that establishes mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the public on whom its success or failure depends.

The recipient must clearly have demonstrated the superb employment of each of the four components of the public relations planning process:

• Research

• Planning

• Execution

• Evaluation

In a given year, the recipient must have demonstrated outstanding leadership/management skills, innovation and creativity in a project or program that was challenging and/or difficult in nature. All entries are reviewed and judged by PRSA’s Honors & Awards Committee. The Honors & Awards Committee also reserves the right to request that professionals submit an entry.

Judging Procedures:
All entries are reviewed and judged by PRSA’s Honors & Awards Committee. The Honors & Awards Committee also reserves the right to request that professionals submit an entry.

Nomination Procedures:

• Candidates must be nominated by someone in the profession, with support letters from no more than two other individuals who had knowledge and involvement of/with the extraordinary individual’s accomplishment/contribution. (Individuals may not endorse more than one candidate.)

• Provide a two-page summary of the accomplishment in a given year in clear, complete and concise terms that illustrate why the candidate warrants further evaluation by the grading individual/team.