Membership Criteria

Require­ments for Membership

As an asso­ci­a­tion aim­ing to ensure qual­ity and per­for­mance stan­dards, GPRA screens agen­cies apply­ing for mem­ber­ship accord­ing to strict cri­te­ria. To be accepted, an agency must prove that it has estab­lished itself on the mar­ket and meets cur­rent pro­fes­sional stan­dards expected of a PR/communications consultancy.

1. Capac­i­ties

An agency apply­ing for mem­ber­ship in the GPRA must pro­vide evi­dence that it has:

• the key capa­bil­ity char­ac­ter­is­tics of a PR agency, i.e. can pro­vide the entire range of ser­vices for media rela­tions, pub­li­ca­tions, and events, from the con­cept and plan­ning to imple­men­ta­tion and eval­u­a­tion of effectiveness;
• full ser­vice capac­ity — while sub­con­trac­tors may be used for cer­tain ser­vices, the agency must be able to super­vise and mon­i­tor these pro­fes­sion­ally (proof must be fur­nished that it has engaged in such activ­i­ties over a period of at least three years);
• at least four salaried con­sul­tants with the req­ui­site pro­fes­sional qual­i­fi­ca­tions and experience.

2. Estab­lished mar­ket position

An agency apply­ing for mem­ber­ship to the GPRA must pro­vide evi­dence that it has estab­lished itself on the mar­ket, in par­tic­u­lar, by fur­nish­ing proof that it has:

• existed in its cur­rent form for at least three years;
• estab­lished long-term work­ing rela­tion­ships with sev­eral clients;
• had a total fee vol­ume of at least €1 mil­lion in the last three years (as attested by a tax accountant).