Draft a PR brief for your charity

Before starting the selection process, think about what you want to get out of PR. Drafting a brief will help you clarify what you want and will help potential agencies understand who you are and what you need, so they can come up with a proposal.

However, having a brief isn't essential - you can simply tell the agency about your charity and its PR needs in a meeting (this will also test the agency's ability to think on their feet!).

There is no set format for a PR brief, but here are some of the sections you may want to include:

• Background Information

   - include here information about your charity, what you do, who/what you help and where you work.

• Aims and Objectives

   - include here information on what you are hoping to achieve. For example, do you want to be seen as the leading charity in your field? Do you want to raise awareness of your services among your client base? Do you want PR to contribute towards fundraising targets?

• Target audience

   - include here information about who you want to reach. Donors? Services users? Volunteers?

• Budget/timeline

   - include here information on your budget and whether it is ongoing work, or a campaign with a start and end date.

• Proposed PR activities

   - what work do you want the PR agency to get involved in? It may be worth referring to our page on different types of PR to remind yourself what agencies can help you with.

• Evaluation

   - include here information on how you will measure the success of PR activity. For more information see Measuring your PR agency's performance.