Contributing to The Content Hub
Contributing to The CCF Content Hub:
What is The Content Hub?
The Content Hub is a free, educational resource featuring essays, podcasts, art, poetry, and practical fundraising guidance, completely resourced from the members—those who are new and those who are true to the CCF movement!
The Content Hub has helped the larger philanthropic sector shift fundraising practices, strengthen community accountability, and create space for more ethical fundraising approaches.
Additionally, it provides paid opportunities, visibility, and professional support to BIPOC and other marginalized creatives who have historically been excluded and under-appreciated in the nonprofit industrial complex and philanthropic sector.
What we are looking for in The Content Hub:
The Content Hub is a place for folks with familiarity working in nonprofits and foundations to share knowledge, lift up beautiful practices, highlight difficult conversations and awful practices, and continue to examine and put a prominent voice to inequitable fundraising practices so we can change the entire sector, together!
Here are the kinds of original content* we are looking for (not an all-inclusive list, just a sampling):
- First-person essays about experiences in the sector
- Research articles featuring sector thought leadership
- Visual artwork with a written explanation or an artist statement
- Poetry with a written explanation or an artist statement
- Podcasts with good production value (“good” is subjective, so let’s talk)
- Videos with good production value (“good” is subjective, so let’s talk)
Here are the kinds of topics we would love to hear about (not an all-inclusive list, just a sampling):
- Critiques, failures, and lessons learned from your organization or community
- Cool things happening at your organization or in your community
- Challenges you are facing that you don’t yet have an answer to, but you are currently exploring and learning
- Your own personal story about your journey in understanding race and fundraising
You’ll notice that all of these topics include “you” or “yours.” We require works that follow the principle of own voices. This means that a piece that refers to marginalized groups and their experiences are created by people who share that identity. Pieces that follow this principle reflect the contributors’ own lived experiences and perspectives.
We ask that contributors consider whether their proposed piece is their story to tell before submitting their pitches. Proximity to people with a lived experience is not a proxy for having that lived experience and will not be considered adhering to the own voices guideline.
This guideline is non-negotiable for us as our movement is full of people who have historically been spoken about but are rarely allowed a platform to speak for themselves.
Our complete editorial guidelines can be found here.
*By original content, we mean content that you create specifically for CCF. We typically don’t reprint previously published pieces as we are prioritizing new voices (however, long-form, time-consuming mediums like podcasts will be considered).
What we do not want for The Content Hub:
- Sorry content farmers. We’re not for you.
- Sorry AI enthusiasts. We do not accept AI generated content.
- Pieces that are essentially long-form advertisements for a business or a product.
- Pieces that do not come from your lived experience; that’s a story we want to hear from someone else.
Other considerations:
- At least 75% of the pieces in The Content Hub will be created by BIPOC creatives. That means that we may not accept your pitch due to the amount of pitches we have accepted already from white folks, we may delay your pitch, or we may ask you to co-author your piece with a BIPOC creative to ensure a more robust piece.
- Please give credit where credit is due. This means naming who you are learning from, naming people doing good works, and not taking this BIPOC-led movement’s values and principles, repackaging it, claiming you discovered or created it, and giving it a new name. (👀 Believe it or not, it’s happened.)
- If we like your idea submission and ask you to create the full piece, there is still no guarantee that we will publish the piece. If it is clear there is not values-alignment or there is resistance to equity-based edits, we will not proceed.
- We recognize that content creators should be paid for their time and work. The current rate is $250 per piece, which is paid after the piece has gone to print.