Become a contributor
Show people the work they never see.
If you run communications or the website at a charity, an NGO, a foundation, a think tank or a research organisation, I would like to publish what you know. Insights is written for people doing the same job somewhere else, and the most useful thing anyone can read is a first-hand account of how the work actually gets done.
It is free to contribute. Email me directly at hello@socialectric.com.
Who I would like to hear from
- Communications and digital directors at charities and NGOs.
- Communications and grants teams at foundations.
- Publications and research communications leads at think tanks and research institutes.
- Operations directors and trustees who ended up owning the website.
- Anyone running communications as a team of one.
What to write about
The pieces I most want are the ones only you can write: the day-to-day of a job most people only see the output of. Some starting points:
- Your working week, as it actually runs. The schedule nobody outside the job sees: the morning a report launches, the hours that go on approvals, what still gets done after everyone else has gone home.
- How you use AI at work. What you hand to it, what you never would, and how your organisation decided. The honest version, including what did not work.
- The week before a deadline. A funding bid, an annual report, a campaign launch: what happens behind the page people eventually read.
- When something went wrong. The site went down, a page said something it should not have, a story broke. What you did in the first hour and what you changed afterwards.
- Getting a decision through. Taking a website or digital project to a board or to trustees: what they asked, and what convinced them.
- Working with developers and agencies. What you wish you had known before signing, and what you would put in the next contract.
- Doing it alone. Running communications single-handed, and what you stopped doing to make it possible.
- Accessibility in practice. What changed when your organisation took it seriously, and what it asked of your team.
If your idea is not on this list, send it anyway.
How it works
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Email me
Send your idea, an outline or a finished draft to hello@socialectric.com, with a line or two on who you are and what you do. Expect a reply within one to two days.
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Editing
I edit for clarity, structure and length, and you see every change. Nothing is published until you have approved the final version. Processing a piece takes five to ten days.
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Publication
The piece is published in Insights under your name, with your role and your organisation, and I share it on LinkedIn. Send me your LinkedIn profile so I can tag you.
Writing guidance
Readers are busy and reading between other things. These help, and I can help with all of them in the edit.
- 800 to 1,200 words.
- Write in the first person, about your own work.
- Put your main point in the first paragraph.
- Short paragraphs, subheadings, and acronyms spelled out.
- Link to the source of any figure you quote.
- Write it yourself. An AI tool can help you tidy it, but the experience in it has to be yours.
- If you describe your organisation’s internal work, check with whoever signs off its public communications first.
- No sponsored posts and no paid links.
Questions
No. It is free to contribute.
No. If you can describe your work clearly in an email, you can write the piece. Editing takes care of the rest, and you approve every change.
Yes, as the setting for what you learned. The piece is about the work and how it gets done, not a profile of the organisation.
One to two days for a reply to your email. Five to ten days to process a piece once you have sent the draft.
Send me your idea
A few lines is enough to start. Write to hello@socialectric.com and you will hear back within one to two days.