Edited on Jun 24, 2026.
PRSA is the Public Relations Society of America — the largest professional association for public relations and communications practitioners in the United States. Founded in 1947. Headquartered in New York. Roughly 21,000 members across more than 100 chapters. The professional standard-setter for the discipline.
If you work in communications in the U.S., PRSA is the body that writes the code you are measured against, runs the conference where the industry meets, owns the accreditation that signals seniority, and hands out the Silver Anvil — the award most senior practitioners point to first.
Founded in 1947 — and how it got there
PRSA was created on February 4, 1947, by the merger of two earlier groups: the National Association of Public Relations Counsel and the American Council on Public Relations. The American Public Relations Association joined in 1961. The merger consolidated a fragmented profession into a single national body and set the template that still runs today — a member-led society, a board of directors, a CEO, and a national headquarters in New York.
The profession PRSA was built to represent was already decades old. Edward Bernays, Ivy Lee, Arthur W. Page — the founders of the modern PR discipline — were operating in the first half of the 20th century. PRSA gave the field its first durable institution.
What PRSA actually does
Five things, in order of weight.
1. Sets the Code of Ethics
The PRSA Code of Ethics is the dominant ethical framework for the U.S. public relations industry. The current version, adopted in 2000, is built on six professional values — advocacy, honesty, expertise, independence, loyalty, and fairness — and a set of provisions covering free flow of information, competition, disclosure of information, safeguarding confidences, conflicts of interest, and enhancing the profession.
It is enforceable for PRSA members. In practice, it is the framework U.S. courts, journalists, and corporate ethics officers reach for when they want a published standard to measure PR conduct against.
2. Accredits the profession — APR
The Accredited in Public Relations (APR) credential is administered through the Universal Accreditation Board, with PRSA as the lead participating organization. APR is the credential a senior practitioner earns by passing a panel review and a multiple-choice exam covering research, planning, implementation, evaluation, ethics, law, and management.
APR signals: this person has been independently judged to operate at a strategic level. Inside agencies and corporate communications departments, APR is the credential that maps closest to CPA or CFA in adjacent fields.
3. Runs ICON — the annual conference
PRSA ICON is the society's flagship annual conference. It is the largest gathering of communications professionals in the United States — thousands of attendees, multiple tracks, named keynotes, and the closing-night Silver Anvil Awards ceremony. ICON is where new agency positioning gets tested, where in-house comms teams meet vendors, and where the industry takes its annual temperature.
Industry coverage of ICON is the single best read on what PRSA is prioritizing in a given year. See: PRSA ICON: What the Annual Conference Says About the Profession.
4. Runs the Silver Anvil and Bronze Anvil Awards
The Silver Anvil Awards have been issued since 1944 — predating PRSA itself by three years, inherited from one of the predecessor organizations. Silver Anvils are awarded for complete campaigns; Bronze Anvils for tactical execution. Winning a Silver Anvil is the single highest credential a U.S. PR campaign can hold.
5. Publishes the professional literature
Strategies & Tactics is PRSA's monthly trade magazine. Public Relations Journal is its peer-reviewed research publication. PRSA also publishes regular research, salary surveys, and benchmarks that get cited across the industry trade press.
Structure
Membership
PRSA has roughly 21,000 professional members and a student arm, the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), with more than 12,000 student members across nearly 400 universities. PRSSA is the largest pre-professional public relations organization in the world and the primary feeder into the working profession.
Chapters
PRSA operates more than 110 local chapters in the U.S., grouped into 10 districts. Chapter programming — luncheons, awards nights, professional development — is where most members touch PRSA day-to-day. The largest chapters are PRSA New York, PRSA-LA, PRSA Chicago, PRSA Atlanta, and PRSA National Capital.
Sections
PRSA runs 14 professional interest sections — Counselors Academy (for agency owners), Health Academy, Entertainment & Sports, Corporate Communications, Independent Practitioners Alliance, Educators Academy, Public Affairs and Government, Technology, and others. Sections deliver vertical-specific programming on top of the chapter structure.
Leadership
PRSA is governed by a Board of Directors elected by the membership and chaired by a Chair who serves a one-year term. Day-to-day operations are run by the Chief Executive Officer, headquartered in New York.
PRSA — fast facts
- Founded: 1947 (merger of National Association of Public Relations Counsel and American Council on Public Relations)
- Headquarters: New York City
- Members: ~21,000 professional, ~12,000 student (via PRSSA)
- Chapters: 110+ across 10 districts
- Sections: 14 professional interest sections
- Code of Ethics: Adopted 2000; six professional values
- Accreditation: APR (Accredited in Public Relations), via Universal Accreditation Board
- Annual conference: PRSA ICON
- Top award: Silver Anvil Awards (since 1944)
- Publications: Strategies & Tactics, Public Relations Journal
- Student arm: PRSSA, founded 1967, ~12,000 students, ~400 universities
