The Chronicle’s Opinion section is designed to spark robust debate about all aspects of the nonprofit world. We seek submissions that provide new insights and promote innovative thinking about current events, leadership, fundraising, grant making policy, and more.
We welcome submissions from people within and outside the nonprofit world, and especially appreciate articles about timely topics. The op-eds we tend to accept don’t focus on one specific issue but explore sectorwide problems or trends. If your message is simply, “Philanthropy must fund x cause or program,” we likely won’t accept the piece. Most of the op-eds we publish are about 1,000 to 1,200 words, but we are willing to review some that are slightly longer.
A few tips to improve your chances of getting a piece accepted:
- Provide backup to show that your op-ed is based on solid facts, including relevant links to research or other articles that support your argument.
- Avoid using the op-ed primarily to promote your organization. If the piece focuses on lessons learned from a program or strategy, also include examples or research from other groups to support your points and broaden the op-ed’s appeal to a cross-section of readers.
- If the op-ed is about problems in the sector, provide detailed solutions on how you propose to fix them. Typically, about one-third of an op-ed explains the problem being addressed, while the remainder discusses the proposed solutions.
- Avoid jargon that may be part of everyday conversation in your field but could be unfamiliar or confusing to a larger audience. This opinion piece provides a good analysis of the type of language to avoid — and why.
- Phrase your arguments as provocatively as you can. Our goal is to encourage lively discussion and question conventional wisdom, as appropriate.
You may submit a finished draft of the op-ed or make a pitch by email first.
If you are submitting the piece, please do so by email, either with an attached Word document or in the body of the email. Include a short pitch explaining its key points. All submissions must be exclusive to the Chronicle of Philanthropy. We don’t respond to every pitch, but if we want to accept your submission, we will typically let you know within a week. Please send your submission to opinions@philanthropy.com.
All pieces accepted will be edited, and authors will have a chance to review the changes before they appear on our website. Select articles published online also appear in our monthly print edition. The editing process takes at least a week so keep that in mind if you’re submitting an op-ed pegged to a specific event. If a piece is connected to an anniversary or holiday, you should ideally let us know it’s coming about a month in advance.
We also welcome letters to the editor in response to articles and opinion pieces in the Chronicle. These should be no more than 400 words. Send them to letters@philanthropy.com.