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Submission Guidelines

Submission Guidelines

Our mission is to make critical knowledge available and accessible to people working in voluntary family planning and related reproductive health (FP/RH) programs. We strive to connect FP/RH professionals to news, resources, and opportunities that are relevant and timely to their work—without jargon or overly complex, technical language.

We do not accept unsolicited submissions.

We do not accept paid submissions.

We only publish content from individuals and organizations working in family planning and reproductive health with a focus on low- and middle-income countries.

 

I was invited to submit content. What are you looking for in a submission?

Please ensure your submitted content is relevant, attractive, easy, and timely. We’ll break down what we mean:

  1. Relevant: Written with a clear audience in mind.
  2. Easy: Uses plain language when possible and incorporates highlighted keywords, subheadings, bullet lists and other strategies to make the post easily scannable.
  3. Attractive: Includes images, charts, tables, and other visual elements.
  4. Timely: Focuses on a current technical topic in voluntary family planning and related reproductive health programs.

While we accept posts on any technical topic related to voluntary family planning and reproductive health care, the following technical areas are priorities:

  • Quality of contraceptive information and care
  • Accessibility of contraceptive information and care
  • Meeting the contraceptive needs of diverse populations
  • Gender and family planning
  • Family planning for development
  • Cross-cutting topics (e.g., what works and what doesn’t work in FP/RH programs; data; knowledge management)

How do I submit a post?

Please use our Contact Us form to express your interest in a content partnership or writing a post for KnowledgeSUCCESS.org. Your request will be directed to our Managing Editor, who will contact you by email for more details. Once you have been invited to submit a post, email your draft to the Managing Editor, either as a Google Doc link or a Word attachment.

We recommend that posts include images, graphics, or charts. We would be very grateful to receive those as separate files in .jpg, .jpeg, or .png format if at all possible.

All guest contributors must have a profile. If this is your first piece for Knowledge SUCCESS, please include the following for each author (one post can have multiple authors):

  • Full name
  • Title
  • Organization
  • Photo (preferably a headshot); file must be less than 3MB (png, jpg, or jpeg)
  • Brief biography (150-300 words)
  • Optional:
    • Links to your personal or your project/organization’s website
    • LinkedIn profile, Twitter handle, and/or Facebook page

What happens next?

All submissions are reviewed regularly by our content team. We’ll notify you of a target publication date as soon as possible. If you do not hear from our Managing Editor within a month, please feel free to reach out again. We typically require a final draft two weeks before the desired publication date in order to fit it into our production workflow.

What is the review process?

Each published post goes through a review process to make sure the article is a good fit for the Knowledge SUCCESS platform.

Within a few business days of sending your submission, you will receive a receipt confirmation email. The Knowledge SUCCESS team reviews submissions at least biweekly and within the following week, the author is notified by email of the team’s decision.

Can I co-author a post?

Absolutely. You and your colleagues are welcome to submit a joint piece. Every author will need a separate profile.

What about images?

Yes, please! Include at least 2-3 photos or images that illustrate your post. Only use images for which you have permission or which are in the public domain (and be sure to credit your source).

Do you post already published content?

We are happy to republish relevant pieces, provided the original publisher gives their permission. Sharing great content from others working in the FP/RH field is one of our favorite things.

How does Knowledge SUCCESS promote my post?

Knowledge SUCCESS promotes all posts to our 19,000+ Twitter followers. Posts are also emailed weekly to our subscribers.

You can help your post get maximum exposure, too:

  • Tweet it out to your network. Feel free to tag us @fprhknowledge!
  • Use the social share button on your post to share it on Facebook, LinkedIn, or other social media platforms.
  • Include it in your organization’s newsletter.

WHOM exactly should I write for?

Glad you asked! While we hope our website content has broad appeal, our primary audiences are:

  • Decision makers
  • Program managers
  • Technical advisors
  • …and the conveners who bring them all together.

As you can see, these are specialized groups, but they all have one thing in common: They work together to make FP/RH programs as strong as possible, and they need accessible, high-quality information to make it happen. That’s where we come in, and we hope you do too.

What tone should I use in my post?

Sound like yourself. Be human. Aim for these characteristics:

  • Authoritative but not pretentious
  • Approachable but knowledgeable
  • Informative but not dry
  • Entertaining but grounded

Avoid clichés, technical jargon, and the alphabet soup of acronyms. Be that interesting person you’d want to learn something from, whether you’re at a conference or cocktail party. Web Writing for Beginners is a great resource, no matter your level of experience.

What could lead to my post being rejected?

If you write a post with one or more of these characteristics:

  • It is self-promotional and does not otherwise add value for the reader.
  • The post lacks a clear tie to family planning and reproductive health.
  • It’s a things-to-do overview with little detail on how to do those things.
  • It lacks a clear main point.
  • It leaves the reader wondering what to do with the information.
  • It’s an op-ed-style post that discusses why an issue is important without discussing what, specifically, people in the FP/RH world can do.

We appreciate you taking the time to learn more about Knowledge SUCCESS. Still have additional questions? Feel free to contact us.