The Dos and Don’ts of The Pinnacle Awards
Posted by admincarolyn on Mar. 20, 2026 / Blog / Subscribe 0
By Nancy Weaver, PRSA-LVVC Pinnacle Entry Submission & Judging Coordinator | Director of Communications & Marketing, UNLV College of Education
The incoming heat wave is an early warning. Not only are higher temps ahead, but the deadline for Pinnacle Award entries (June 22) will be here before you know it. You've put a lot of time, care, and attention into your work. Make sure that it carries over to your entry preparation process. Miss the entry prep webinar earlier this month? Have no fear. You can watch the recording here. If you want the highlights, here are some top tips:
In general:
- Give yourself enough time to make a thorough, complete entry.
- Put yourself in the judges’ place:
- They will spend about 15-20 minutes on each entry and be judging 10-15 entries.
- Most of that time will be spent on the two-page summary.
- Make it easy to find the elements from the judging criteria (i.e., bold terms if you need to).
- Follow AP style and proofread.
- Partner with a colleague (who hasn’t been involved in your campaign) to review the entry before submission.
- With campaigns, include relevant supporting materials (e.g., a list of earned coverage with links to a few of the top ones is fine).
In your two-page summary:
- Explain why you chose to do what you did using primary and secondary research and identify what was qualitative vs. quantitative.
- Make sure your objectives are measurable and align with business/organization goals.
- Objectives should identify:
- Your target audience (e.g., Parents of Southern Nevada kids birth-5 years)
- What you want them to do (e.g., Attend an early childhood education information fair)
- How much of it that you want them to go (e.g., At least 500 families)
- When you want them to do it by (e.g., The event date)
- Outcome objectives (e.g., received 100 entries--used for sales leads--for product giveaway) are far better than output objectives (i.e., the ones you can control like the number of media outlets you pitched).
- Objectives should identify:
- Include a budget (“covered within client retainer” or "used in-house team" doesn’t count) and timeline. (Watch the webinar for a deeper explanation on this.)
- Align your evaluation with your measurable objectives and show the impact of your work.
- Follow the Barcelona Principles in evaluation (TL;DR AVE's are not an acceptable measurement tool.)
Take a few minutes to check out the categories and timeline for this year's award cycle. Please note that we've expanded the eligibility window to August 1, 2024-June 30, 2026. Entry fees are pending board approval and will be announced soon, but rest assured, members will save significantly (so if you're not a member, join.) Have questions? They've probably been answered in the webinar. We’ve also shared the presentation for your reference as well.
However, you can also email [email protected]. We're happy to help.
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