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Creating a Fact Sheet

Fact sheets are important to a variety of audiences: reporters use them to supplement their stories and organizations use them to send messages to targeted parties or to the general public. Fact sheets are a time saving tool, so consider the time you put into yours as well spent—it can help you avoid long explanatory phone calls and emails. Often fact sheets deliver complicated information so try to choose a simple, well-organized format, with headers that guide the reader quickly to what they need to know. Feel free to look at examples and choose the style that best fits your needs.

Follow these easy steps to create your fact sheet:

Step 1: Gather content

  • Find all relevant documents you have on the subject by collecting information from the Research & Analyze section of this Action Kit, Internationaled.org and your state department of education.
  • Talk to people in your organization, community or state who know the subject and can help you with facts or resources
  • Think about the fact sheet from the perspective of your audience and consider what information they really need
  • Make it a self-contained document; do not refer to previous documents or assume your audience remembers information from the past

Step 2: Organize and Outline

  • Move the most important information to the top: what is the issue, what action should be taken, main messages
  • For additional information that you do not have room to include, have links or phone numbers at the bottom
  • If presenting a large quantity of data, try to use charts, graphs or other visual devices so it is easy for the reader to understand

Step 3: Prune, Combine and Simplify

  • One page is best, two maximum
  • Text should be brief and concise
  • If several broad subjects need to be covered, consider creating more than one fact sheet

Step 4: Format and Produce

  • Use an easy to read 12 point font
  • Use bullets
  • You do not have to double space, but add an extra space between paragraphs and add as much white space as possible
  • Add in bold, text boxes, underline, etc. to add emphasis to the most important action items
  • Give readers tools for action: i.e. instead of telling them to call their local representative, include or attach a phone number for the representative
  • Include contact numbers for your spokesperson

On the right side of this page, under Tools, is a template that you can copy for your fact sheet on your own letterhead. Feel free to use this format and any of the facts that we have gathered or add more that pertain to your initiative and state.

References and more information:

Cawley, Rusty. Create a Powerful PR ‘Fact Sheet’ in Just Four Steps. Accessed on December 15, 2004 at: http://www.howtoadvice.com/PRfactSheet

Fact Sheets. It All Adds Up to Cleaner Air. Accessed on December 15, 2004 at: http://www.italladdsup.gov/pdfs/factsheet.pdf

Health Advocacy Toolbox. Fact Sheets and Action Alerts. Accessed on December 15, 2004 at: http://www.cthealthpolicy.org/toolbox/tools/fact_sheets.htm
Fact Sheet Template
Sample 1
Sample 2
Sample 3
Sample 4
Sample 5
Sample 6

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