We believe that good ideas can come from anywhere. Whether you’re a practitioner, researcher, philanthropist, community leader, CSR head, or frontline worker, we invite you to contribute your lessons, challenges, and insights in a format of your preference—text, video, image, or audio.
What we publish
When we review a pitch, we consider what our readers will find most useful and engaging. We look for:
- Expertise: Articles that come from real knowledge or experience (lived experience counts too!), even if the author isn’t widely known.
- Relevance: Stories connected to challenges, learnings, or opportunities within the social impact space.
- Transferability: Ideas, lessons, or approaches that others can adapt and apply in their own contexts.
- Evidence: Knowledge grounded in research, data, and/or lived experience.
- New insight: Fresh perspectives that expand or deepen existing understanding.
When submitting a draft to us, please ensure that it:
- Is written in simple and clear language, free of jargon or overly technical terminology.
- Is written in the active voice, ensuring clarity and conciseness.
- Uses examples to substantiate claims or clarify concepts that might be difficult to understand.
- Hyperlinks to sources when citing data or making claims that aren’t evident.
We accept:
- Op-eds and essays relevant to social change and development in India, including insights on what it takes to run organisations effectively. We also encourage the submission of images and infographics that complement the piece. An example of the same can be found here.
- Shorter, hyperlocal Ground Up stories.
- Multimedia features that contain relevant images, audio, and/or videos. An example of the same can be found here.
- Photo essays that depict ground realities, explore pressing issues, and outline innovative solutions.
- Articles/illustrations that capture the humour and peculiarity of working in social impact.
We don’t accept:
- Promotional or advertorial content.
- Pieces without appropriate citations.
- Content that draws on community experiences without centring their voices.
- Articles based solely on secondary research from writers without direct experience or engagement with the issue they’re writing about.
- Plagiarised insights.
Your submissions can be in either English or Hindi (or both!).
How to contribute
You can send us:
- A pitch (max. 200 words) or
- A full draft (max. 1,700 words)
Email us at: writetous@staging.idronline.org
Your email should include:
- A few lines about yourself and your experience to help communicate your knowledge on this topic.
- Why the piece is relevant for our audience.
We typically respond within two weeks. If selected, our editors will work with you to develop your draft for publication.
Don’t have a draft? No problem.
If you have a strong idea and need help shaping it into an article, we offer ghostwriting support. Share your insights, and our editorial team can work with you to turn them into a polished piece that will be published in your name.
On plagiarism and AI tools
Plagiarism undermines credibility and disrespects the intellectual work of others. As a knowledge platform, IDR is committed to integrity and accountability. By submitting your work, you confirm that:
- No text is copied verbatim or paraphrased from other sources, unless said sources are appropriately attributed.
- The text isn’t self-plagiarised. In other words, you are not presenting your previously published work as new or original without due acknowledgements.
- The article was not written entirely by AI tools such as ChatGPT.
We allow the use of AI for the following purposes:
- Translation
- Improving language and structure
- Generating ideas (such as through the analysis feature of IDR Answers)
However, the usage of AI during any part of an article’s production should be completely transparent. For more information on our plagiarism and AI guidelines, please refer to this document.
Amplifying marginalised voices
We prioritise and pay contributors who are marginalised by caste, class, gender, disability, sexuality, religion, or geography.
What happens after submission
- If a pitch is accepted, we will ask for a draft. Once received, a draft typically goes through at least two rounds of editing.
- Our editors will edit the draft for length and flow, offer feedback, and request further revisions or input if necessary.
- Final decisions on titles, blurbs, visuals, and publication dates rest with our editorial team.
- We ask our authors to disclose any relationships they have with any organisations cited in the proposed article. For example, we need to know if you work for an organisation, have a consulting relationship with them, or serve on their governing board.
Re-publishing
We’re happy to republish articles that have appeared elsewhere, as long as they meet our guidelines and what our readers are looking for. If the piece you are submitting to us has already been published elsewhere, please include permission from the original publisher in your email.
Additionally, we believe in the free flow of information and therefore publish under a Creative Commons —Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license (CC-BY-SA 4.0). This means that articles on IDR can be republished online or in print for free, provided our republishing guidelines are followed.
Ready to submit?
Pitch or send your draft to:
writetous@staging.idronline.org
We’re excited to hear from you.