Prepping for meetings is an important step in having a constructive conversation, especially when your audience has little time or knowledge of your field of study. One item that you can prep to help your information stick, even after the meeting is over, is a one-pager. A great one-pager catches your audience’s attention, starts a conversation, and acts as a reference.
A one-pager is a summary of what you will be talking about – the bullet points or headlines. It provides all the key information in one digestible package. Since you’re handing or emailing a copy to your audience, they’ll have it easily accessible, and at minimum, they’ll have to look at it while they figure out what to do with it (though hopefully they’ll find it a useful enough reference to keep)!
A one-pager is also helpful for your audience if they want to share it with others in their office. They don’t have to just rely on any notes they took, and you know it contains the key info that you wanted to share. If you aren’t able to get to one of your top points during the meeting, you know that your audience will still see it on the one-pager.
Policymakers in particular get a lot of one-pagers, and you want to pique their interest so that they will contact you with follow-up questions. So make sure your one-pager has good content articulated clearly and concisely, and that it’s easy to look at!
Below, we’ve put together the anatomy of a one-pager, so that you can see what to include, and we’ve also shared an example one-pager at the end with the kind permission of the author.
Anatomy of a one-pager:
- Clear, Descriptive Title: Your title should tell people exactly what your one-pager is about— no guesswork. Be concise and specific. Prioritize clarity over cleverness. Add a subtitle to provide additional context if needed
- Audience-Focused Message: Frame the issue and impact in a way that matters to the reader. Answer the question, “So What?” (Why should they care? How does it affect them?). Keep your message brief and accessible by using a short paragraph or bullet points. If helpful, include a relevant image or graph to support your message.
- Actionable Solutions: Lay out solutions that your audience has authority over or that are directly relevant to them. What can they do, and what’s the benefit? Be specific — offer clear, relevant next steps.
- Thoughtful Visuals: Visual elements (graphs, photos, maps) can make your one-pager more engaging and easier to understand—when used intentionally. Choose high-quality images, readable graphs, or simple maps that reinforce your message. Every visual should have a descriptive caption and proper attribution. Keep the design clean so that visuals support, rather than compete with, your content.
- Contact information: Make it easy for readers to follow up. Include your name, title, organization, email, and phone number. This builds credibility and offers a clear path to connect with you.
If you have experience working with the Message Box, you already have a strong foundation for building a one-pager. The Message Box can help you distill complex information into concise, audience-centered messages. You can easily turn your Message Box into a one-pager by using the following conversions:
- Problem = Issue
- So What? = Impact
- Solutions and Benefits = Solutions
Remember to be strategic and identify your Audience and Goal before creating a Message Box or a one-pager to ensure that your messages are moving the needle towards your goal.
Additional Tips For Your One-Pager:
- Start with the point, not with background or context.
- Be concise – headlines aren’t just titles. They should add meaning.
- Don’t talk down to the reader (avoid words like ‘Clearly…’ or ‘Obviously…’).
- Use good design principles: make sure that the font is large enough to read, and leave plenty of white space. Make it as easy to read as possible.
- Consider using 1-2 colors that match your institutional logo, if appropriate, or otherwise neutral tones.
- For a polished product, try using Powerpoint, Pages, Keynote, or an online program like Canva.
Getting ready for a meeting? We’ve shared a number of tips on the blog on how to prepare, from sending a clear and concise meeting request, to using the Message Box to figure out what is most relevant for you to share with the person you’re meeting with, to thinking through your answers to the questions that you might be asked, including the sometimes nerve-wracking “What do you want me to do about this?” question. Meetings are a great way to build relationships and share how your work can be relevant to policy, community engagement, and more.
Example below from Dr. Jennifer Pollack.
