Award Submission Tips for a Winning Application!
Posted by StarChapter on Sep. 4, 2025 / Subscribe 0
PRSA Dallas, who is celebrating their 75th anniversary this year, recently hosted a very informative webinar on submitting a winning Pegasus Award application! Christopher Ruth, APR, current PRSA Dallas President, moderated a panel discussion with THREE of last year’s Pegasus Award winners:
Connor Gray, Regional Public Relations Manager, Meow Wolf Grapevine
Jeremy Little, Principal and Head of Accounts, CKP
Colby Walton, Chairman and CEO, Cooksey Communications
Chris also offered his own tips as well. Chris has served as a judge for sister PRSA chapters who offer similar award opportunities in the Public Relations and Pro Comms field. Oh, and by the way – the award submission period is OPEN NOW! The early bird application deadline is August 25, 2025, the regular deadline is September 8, and the late deadline is September 15. Consider submitting for this prestigious award today! Your next question might be – do you have some tips for submitting an award-winning entry? We’re so glad you asked! Keep reading. (You don’t want to tldr this blog if you’re planning on submitting for an award. This is your hack!)
What ARE the Pegasus Awards?
PRSA Dallas wanted to honor the finest achievements in strategic communications and celebrate the professionals who bring bold ideas to life, and so, the Pegasus Awards were born. There’s no better symbol than this iconic Dallas landmark.
This year, in addition to recognizing the collective industry achievements across our great city, PRSA Dallas is celebrating 75 years in operation! We invite everyone to join us on November 14, 2025 at the Tower Club for Diamonds over Dallas, as we acknowledge and celebrate industry professionals who are sparkling across our past, present, and future.
Connor Gray is the Regional Public Relations Manager for Meow Wolf Grapevine. At last year’s Pegasus Awards, Connor was nominated for Young PR Pro of the Year and Meow Wolf received several Pegasus Awards including Best Media Relations, Best Community PR Relations, and Best in Show! Connor is an in-house PR pro and shared some great insights on submitting for a Pegasus Award, summarized below.
Be very direct and clear regarding research, including informal research. Our submission didn’t include formal research although we were honest and up front regarding our research and what we could have done differently if the needs of the non-profit we were working with had been different.
Remember, all sections of the submission should be telling the same story! Make sure everything submitted is supporting the story being told.
Much of the evaluation phase of our project, in collaboration with Spark! Dallas, involved media metrics. While there were some great media metrics and press moments to share for our submission, we ALSO focused on sharing challenges, such as the need for media training which we provided to students and other project stakeholders who were not experienced in front of the camera.
In addition to showing the value of the media coverage garnered, we made sure to show the overall value to the organizations involved, avoiding the temptation to hyper fixate on media metrics.
When we were finalizing supporting documents, we made sure to put the most important visuals on TOP. Think about what the judges will see FIRST within those 20 pages.
Connor’s biggest tip for us? “Make sure everything in your application is clear and that every single thing that you’re doing is going back to your objective. Tell the story with your application.”
Jeremy Little is Principal and Head of Accounts for CKP, a Public Relations and Communications Services agency. CKP won Best in Show in the projects category for the 2024 Pegasus Awards! Jeremy shared some great tips on how they crafted their submissions.
Spoiler – BULLET POINTS are the key!
Our project focused on a real and tangible business challenge for the client AND demonstrated the ways we were able to help this international organization.
Our submission highlighted one of the biggest challenges faced by the client: how to stay locally relevant and simultaneously consistent with national direction. We demonstrated the ways we integrated this larger and ongoing organizational challenge into this project for the client. We showed that we satisfied the timeframe and budget constraints while navigating internal (client) politics, geographic pressures, and demographic pressures, which was not easy. We clearly presented the challenge and the ways we were able to navigate.
Our submission demonstrated that we didn’t just set goals, we achieved them and exceeded them in a very real and tangible way in the PR space. It was evident that our PR effort had a clear and identifiable impact on the business.
For the research phase of the project, we were able to leverage information that the organization already had, and this was highlighted in the submission.
We focused on demonstrating BOTH the macro objectives and specific project objectives.
It is important to truly tell the story within the two page submission. Use the supporting documentation only as a visual to support the submission story. Don’t go overboard with the supporting documentation, particularly if it isn’t supporting the story.
Jeremy’s biggest tip for us? “Write like a busy executive and not like an academic. Do it like a press release and don’t bury the lede.”
Colby Walton is Chairman and CEO of Cooksey Communications. Cooksey won Best Small Agency of the year for the 2024 Pegasus Awards! Colby shared how they prepared an award-winning submission
Highlight the great work you’ve done and how it improves the entire agency (or organization) in addition to achieving project goals.
Clearly highlight the big picture. For our submission we outlined seven identified goals and our project submission clearly indicated performance for each of the seven goals and indicated areas where we were still a work in progress. Be authentic with the submission.
We started with a SIX PAGE document and then edited it down to TWO PAGES. Follow the structure laid out for Pegasus Awards and PR projects in general and follow it all the way through the submission.
Use short paragraphs and lots of bullet points.
In the planning section for our award submission, we also referenced how the process was ongoing. We did NOT “set it and forget it” and we illustrated that in our submission.
Ensure submissions are well organized in the way they are laid out. Use bullets and quotes and cite direct sources.
Some examples of what we included in the supporting documents are the internal project presentation, our anniversary logo, survey results, and photos of new signage.
Colby’s biggest tip for us? “Have others read your draft and refine it. Don’t rely on yourself to be your own best editor.”
Award entries are open to members and non-members alike; there is significant financial benefit for members.
For award submissions that impact both the Dallas and Fort Worth areas, consider applying for both a Pegasus Award (Dallas) and a Worthy Award (Fort Worth) which may require only a few minor tweaks.
Submit! Submit! Submit! Strengthening quality and quantity of submissions means better competition and stronger validation.
Take the judges on a very clear path, efficiently use the limited amount of space.
Primary quantitative research is expensive and time consuming and it’s understood this may not be feasible for all projects. Acknowledge whether it was used or not. If not, reference ways it could be incorporated in the future and/or barriers such as client decision, limited time, budget.
It’s easy to overlook primary qualitative research that WAS conducted. For example, an agency spent time interviewing the client to obtain relevant information – that’s primary qualitative research.
The submission process provides an opportunity to take time to reflect on work in the field, which is not something we often do during the day to day rigor. There’s great VALUE in the process regardless of outcome.
Don’t forget about the audience: how was the audience identified? Reached? Refined? Audience is often overlooked in submissions but you can’t create effective strategies without defining your audience.
Without measurable objectives, submissions will receive lower scores in both planning and evaluation. Include measurable objectives with submissions.
Don’t hesitate to acknowledge what didn’t go well. The implementation section is a great place to highlight challenges and ways the team was able to rise above or apply learnings for next time.
Focus on organizational objectives in addition to department or project (PR) metrics. Show how the needle is moving for the overall organizational advancement.
Use supporting documents to visually represent each of those four RPIE components.
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