How to Submit a Virginia PR Award

Gone are the days of printouts, binders and late night assembly sessions at the office. For the third year, the Virginia Public Relations Awards has taken the awards process online, making it easier than ever to submit an entry. Whether this is your first entry or your 21st, here are five steps to get you started for 2017.

Step one: Strategize your submission process. Figure out which projects from January 1 – December 31, 2016 were rockstars and check your files to make sure you have documentation to support the project from initiation to evaluation. Determine your budget for the submission process and narrow down the projects you want to submit.

Step two: Visit the Virginia PR Awards page to register and log-in to our online system. You will need to create a new log-in account for the awards. If you’ve submitted an award before, log-in using the top boxes; if you need to create an account, use the boxes at the bottom of the page.

Step three: Stage your awards before you start working on your narrative. Particularly if you’re submitting multiple entries, it’s easy to get tangled up in the process when you’re thinking about all the bits and pieces for multiple entries. Go ahead and start submissions for each of the awards you plan on submitting. This will come in handy if you plan on working on entries over the course of a couple of weeks, and it will serve as a visual reminder of which projects you’re planning on submitting.

Step four: Draft your narrative and assemble your documentation. Depending on how you like to work, you may do this online and draft your narrative and upload your documents directly into the submission portal. Or, you may jot down the areas you need to cover, work offline in a Word document and bring things over to the website when everything is final. No matter how you like to work, make sure your narrative and documentation address a project’s research, planning, execution and evaluation. If you’re working online, be sure to save as you go.

Step five: Submit your entries. Once your narrative and documentation have been added to the submission portal, click “Add to Cart” and checkout. The hard part is over!

The early deadline for submissions is February 27, 2017. The regular deadline is March 6, 2017.

For additional questions, please contact Second Vice President of Awards, Casey Prentice at cprentice@hodgespart.com.