Editorial Guidelines E-mail
Written by James David Morgan   

The basics
The Nonprofit Quarterly is a 72-page print publication. We synthesize and circulate accessible and timely management information that emphasizes the role of the nonprofit sector and accurately addresses the realities of those working within it.

Content
The Nonprofit Quarterly offers a different angle—we dig deep into issues that people face as they strive to further their organization’s mission. By covering one topic from various points of view and vantage points, we intend to offer emerging ideas.

We strive to offer reflective, critical thinking told through vivid examples/stories of nonprofit organizations/experiences. Like the academic world, we want to have our authors set their ideas in the larger context of thinking around an issue. Their ideas should add some new thoughts to the existing body of literature/ conversations/ policy—really advancing the thinking and analysis to another level. When critical, the authors also need to share reasonable strategies for change or action that an executive director of a community based organization can take. We want to illustrate and share constructive thinking and action. We prefer to have ideas set within in a context of research-based material.We do not promote highly formatted solutions for problems.

Our coverage is derived from listening to the discourse occurring amongst community-based leaders (please see our basic editorial cycle below). We do not accept unsolicited articles because they rarely fit the scheduled editorial coverage.

Style
In terms of style, we also want to be completely down-to-earth, communicate in walking-across-the-street nonprofit language. A common question we pose to many of our contributors: So given your idea/ theory/ principle, how does an executive director begin to implement your idea tomorrow in their under-resourced day? It should feel real and reasonably attainable given their working environment—otherwise it will feel too far from their reality and not worth their time. Often this is achieved through story telling, especially of peers in a similar circumstance who may be ahead of the curve and been dabbling in the practice and have some reflections/ tips to share.

The Nonprofit Quarterly editors work with authors to ensure your ideas are as vivid and useful to the reader.

The magazine has two major sections:

   1. The Featured Topic approximately six to eight articles. Because the development of this section is very research intensive, these articles are generated by invitation from the editors based on our findings (See our basic editorial cycle below).
   2. The Departments include: advocacy, boards of directors, financial management, fundraising, human resources, opinion, and technology. (1,400 words). We also encourage the submission of working tools and other processes used by those in the field to assess their operations and strategies.

Our basic editorial cycle:

   1. LISTEN – LISTEN – LISTEN wherever nonprofit leaders gather. What are the issues that nonprofit managers and leaders are struggling with?
   2. Identify common themes we have heard. What are the elements and the component parts of these? Are there underlying issues not being spoken?
   3. Go out and ask those who may have been thinking about these issues—what’s going on? What’s the concern about?
   4. Review the literature and identify a range of practitioner experiences and expertise.
   5. Identify “guides” who are immersed in the feature topic—a guest editor or issue advisors and readers.
   6. Develop a treatment including sub-questions. Develop a table of contents that includes a mixture of ideas, data, tangible stories and experience, tools, critical thinking and analysis.
   7. Approach authors, interviewees about articles.
   8. Commission articles and help authors develop them in relationship to one another so the treatment of the feature topic hangs together.
   9. As a result of publication a new “platform” of understanding has been constructed.

Connecting with us:

If you’d like to share some thoughts with our editors, we currently request that (1) you make a phone appointment with Andrew Crosby, to discuss your ideas, 617-227-4628, or (2) if you have some material already written, you are welcome to send it to Andrew Crosby, Editor, Nonprofit Quarterly, 112 Water Street, Suite 400, Boston, MA 02109.

Please note that although we encourage case studies, stories, and other firsthand material, we strongly discourage any public relations and self promotional orientation in submissions.

We are very interested in hearing from you and encourage you to contact us. Let us know what you are thinking, what conundrums and innovations you have encountered, and how you might be able to help us and your nonprofit colleagues by sharing this experience.