Excellence in Pro Bono Working

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This award highlights the benefits of pro bono working within the healthcare communications and medical affairs industry. It recognises sector-leading work in this field by celebrating those agencies and in-house departments who are already doing it and documents the benefits in this win/win scenario.

While recognising that pro bono work may be entered into other Communiqué categories, this category will provide singular focus and interrogation of the concept of pro bono working.

Organisational commitment to pro bono working

  • Evidence that pro bono is built into the organisation business or resource plan, for 2024 and in the future.
  • The amount of time dedicated to the pro bono partnership, proportional to the size of the agency/team and/or income.

Impact of the work delivered (in line with other Communiqué campaign categories outcomes criteria and guidance)

• Impact of the work and the contribution it made to the beneficiary’s goals

  • Benefits seen to the Agency or In-house team delivering the pro bono work (e.g. employee engagement, professional development, profile, etc)

Quality of the partnership

  • Evidence of good team-working across the partnership, including measures taken to ensure a shared vision across the partnership
  • Benefits to the beneficiary organisation (short-term and long-term)
  • Benefits to the agency or in-house team
  • Testimonials from agency/in-house teams and from the non-profit organisation (non-profit testimonial is REQUIRED)

JUDGING CRITERIA AND ENTRY FORMAT:

Executive Summary – 200 words. 0 (zero) marks

This will be used if your entry is selected as a finalist and does not need to be anonymised. Please state clearly why this event is award-worthy – what is unique, differentiating and innovative about it.

Main entry

Budget Band* Information, as below:

Band A under £10,000

Band B £10,001-£25,000

Band C £25,001-£50,000

Band D £50,001-£100,000

Band E £100,001-£200,000

Band F over £200,001.

*fee value of time spent

If your client has declined to allow this, you must state this within your submission.

  • Failure to provide the budget band seriously impacts the judge’s ability to assess the entry against other entries and may result in the entry being disqualified
  • The budget band provides important context for judging the innovation, delivery and impact of a piece of work.
  • Impressive work is not always dependent on budget size, so there is no right or wrong budget.

Situation Analysis, needs assessment and desired impact – 15 marks (300 words)

  • In this section you should explain to the judges both the rationale for making a commitment to pro bono working as well as the rationale for how you spent your time/the project or campaign delivered
  • Use this section/analysis to clearly lay out benchmark data that you will refer to in your measurement of effectiveness later
  • Show the judges the best information, data and insights you have about uptake of health interventions, current practice, defining/segmenting audiences, identifying educational or information needs, which channels will best reach the audience, competitive environment, creative landscape etc before the start of your work.

Judges’ top tip

  • We work and operate in a world where there is a wealth of data and insights, so there is no excuse for projects and programmes that are planned without this data. The judges will reward the strength, robustness and variety of data and insights used to help to shape a holistic view of the situation and audiences.

Objectives – 15 marks (250 words)

Describe the objectives for the project or programme including outputs (i.e., what materials/platforms are produced), out-takes (i.e., post-event evaluation, surveys showing changes in knowledge/understanding, social media/website engagement, sharing and commenting), and outcomes (i.e., changes in patient behaviour or outcomes, clinical practice or health policy versus the benchmark stated in the situation analysis) and specifically how these will be measured

Strategy – 15 marks (250 words)

  • Please outline the rationale behind the specific approach undertaken
  • Refer to the data and insight in the situation analysis section
  • Share any strategic considerations that were given to ensure optimal inclusivity, representation and sustainability in this initiative
  • Explain why this was an effective strategy and any points to emphasise bold or innovative strategy selection.

Judges’ top tips

The judges will:

  • Reward clarity of thought around strategies and how they are communicated – bullet points may be better than long prose
  • Assess how well the chosen strategy/ strategies might achieve objectives
  • Reward entries showing a clever or insightful way that you interpreted the data and insights from the situation analysis to set your strategy
  • Reward innovation in strategy what does this mean? Suggest “reward innovative thinking reflected in the strategy”
  • Recognise how different communications disciplines are blended as part of the strategic approach, if appropriate to the project or campaign

Implementation – 25 marks (400 words)

  • Please describe how you implemented the project or programme
  • Please briefly outline why these specific tactics were selected
  • For a programme this should include describing what tactics were deployed to implement the strategy
  • For a meeting or stand-alone event this should describe how the meeting or event was delivered.

Judging notes/judges’ top tips

  • The judges need to know what you did or developed to judge this section – please keep descriptions clear and succinct
  • When awarding marks in this section the judges will reward:
  • a logical selection of tactical projects or outputs
  • creativity and innovation in the way you THINK and execute the tactics
  • clever selection and maximisation of channels
  • robustness
  • the use of insights in finding creative ways to engage the defined audiences.

Effectiveness Part One: Outputs and Outtakes vs Objectives – 10 marks (200 words)

  • To help the judges assess the strength of the evaluation, please describe how successful the project or programme was in terms of outputs and outtakes achieved versus the relevant measurements set in the Objectives section
  • You may include comments from third-party stakeholders in this section but ONLY if they clearly help to demonstrate the impact of the work and were a pre-planned part of your measurement approach

Effectiveness Part Two: Outcomes vs Objectives – 10 marks (200 words)

  • To help the judges assess the strength of the evaluation, please describe how successful the project or programme was in terms of the outcomes achieved versus the relevant measurements set in the Objectives section
  • You may include comments from third-party stakeholders in this section but ONLY if they clearly help to demonstrate the impact of the work and were a pre-planned part of your measurement approach.