Hoping to spin silver into gold

By Mirko Petricevic 

OK, folks. Everyone who doesn’t like to receive awards, please put your hands up. 

Mine are firmly planted under my butt. 

Like most people, I’m guessing, I feel a little jolt of pride whenever I’m recognized for a job well done. 

I got that spark recently when I learned that an advocacy project I’m co-ordinating — the ink-stainedwretches.org campaign for local journalism — earned an IABC Canada Silver Leaf Award of Excellence (Government Relations category). 

A win for the team gave us a terrific sense of accomplishment. 

The award also gave us another chance to spread the word that quality journalism, a bedrock of healthy democracies and civil society, has been diminishing across Canada for more than a decade. To our delight, our local campaign spread across the country. So far 26 municipal councils in eight provinces, home to more than 11.5 million people, have passed journalism-support motions proposed or shaped by our campaign. (For details, please view the map and/or go to our campaign web page.)  

But even though the recent award gave us a shot of validation and a platform to spread the message, it was our journey to the award that has been most valuable to my personal learning and career in communications. 

In short: Entering our campaign in the Gold Quill Awards last year (and coming up short) gave me the tools to strengthen our campaign and hone our entry for the Silver Leaf Awards. 

Without exaggeration, spending roughly 20 hours to prepare my first Gold Quill entry was probably the best professional development workshop I’ve ever taken. 

Although I’ve entered many awards in my career, the Gold Quill was unlike any other. First, the entry process was rigorous: I’ve never spent that amount of time entering an awards program. Second, the judging criteria were clear and served as an indispensable guide. Third, the judges’ comprehensive comments gave me practical tips to improve our campaign. 

For example, I learned that a long-term campaign benefits from setting interim goals or milestones.  

You probably already knew that. 

But I came to my communications career after working three decades in journalism. Basic concepts in the communications field are fairly new to me. 

So I’ve been playing catchup by attending IABC webinars and taking online courses. I’ve learned valuable lessons from each one. But sweating through the Gold Quill entry process, at this stage of my learning, has been the best teacher.  

Now I use the Gold Quill’s four-part work plan as a template for various projects at my day job. (The Silver Leaf Awards follows the same four-part work plan.) 

Updated 2023:

After my advocacy group's Campaign for Local Journalism was awarded a Silver Leaf in the fall of 2021, I hoped it would receive a Gold Quill in 2022. Unfortunately, the evaluators had other ideas! So, again, I refined our  entry and re-entered our campaign for the 2023 awards. A few weeks ago, I received the great  news that our campaign won a Gold Quill Award of Merit. So, although we weren't immediately successful, eventually we were able to spin our Silver Leaf into a Gold Quill.

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Mirko Petricevic has been an IABC Waterloo member since August 2020. He’s the Chief Ink-stigator (co-ordinator) of the ink-stainedwretches.org campaign for local journalism. He’s also Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Martin Luther University College, the founding institution of Wilfrid Laurier University. His freelance business is StoneMir Media. Reach him at mirko@stonemirmedia.com