At the PRSA Point of Connection Conference yesterday I attended a joint presentation by Katie Paine of KDPaine and Partners and Shonali Burke (twitter: @shonali), until recently the head of Comms at the ASPCA. 

Shonali shared with us some media analysis data from her tenure with the ASPCA with which she was able to prove the value that the PR function brought to the not for profit.  By aligning the PR objectives to the organisation's objectives, focusing on them and instigating a thorough and credible PR measurement programme, Shonali was able to prove the value of the communications function.  The ASPCA's metrics didn't stop at basic media evaluation of outputs, but also went on to disaggregate and correlate these findings against revenue gained through donations.  The result of all of this was that she was able to justify a significant increase in resource and head count for her team.

As I sit here this morning watching yet more dreadful financial news on CNN, the importance of this has never been clearer.  Many of the conversations at PRSA08 have been revolving around the fact that proper PR Measurement is more important than ever.  Shonali herself argues this in a well argued guest post over at Kami Huyse's blog, Communications Overtones. It reinforces the points that Metrica has been making for some time in posts covering how PR can beat the credit crunch.

For the readers of Metrica's Measurement Matters who work in PR consultancy, I also thought it useful to draw your attention to a recent post by Dr Tom Watson, 'How PR agencies survive a recession'. Dr Watson is an acknowledged authority in the field of PR research and measurement, but also brings a serious commercial angle to his thoughts having run a PR agency for over 18 years.  He lists 14 'recession management action points.' 

One of these is particularly relevant: