Guest Author Guidelines & Agreement

Thank you for your interest in writing for our blog!

Christian Heritage (CH) is a Christian non-profit organization that exists to help every child flourish in the face of adversity and trauma. Our mission is to change the future of child welfare by mobilizing a gospel-centered community to support vulnerable children and families.

As Christians, we believe that quality and excellence are expected daily in our work with children, parents, churches, and community organizations. We expect the same standard of quality and excellence on our blog, too. That’s why this document exists.

We welcome you to submit articles or proposals on:

• Caring for vulnerable children and families
• Foster care and adoption
• Trauma
• Mental health
• Any issues related to child wellbeing
• Other topics we may consider relevant

Our Verbal Branding

Our visual branding with our logo and colors represents warmth, joy, energy, movement, and flourishing.

We strive to be consistent with this in our verbal branding as well. All of our blog posts will convey those same feelings and ideas.

That’s not to say we won’t discuss hard things–in our work with children and families, we encounter incredibly difficult situations! But our ultimate goal is to inspire hope as we seek to mobilize God’s people to change the future of child welfare.

Our “verbal branding” can be described in three words: professional, warm, and hopeful. Every piece of copy and content on our website should reflect this tone and feel.

This means that even when we talk about something hard or devastating, our tone is not cynical, insensitive, or defeated.

Our blog generally features two types of content: informative and human interest.

• Informative articles are evergreen content that people may find useful as they explore trauma, child welfare, taking action, etc. These can be lists, how-tos, or other “practical” posts. They should be informative and to the point. They should not contain unnecessary statements or paragraphs that do not have to do with the main point.
• Human interest articles often contain information, but this content is aimed at capturing the reader’s heart and inspiring them toward serving the vulnerable. These articles may be personal stories of heartache, loss, grief, growth, victory, encouragement, etc.

Our Guest Author Guidelines

Please read the following to understand what being a Guest Author entails.

As a Guest Author on our blog, you agree to and acknowledge that:

• Guest posts must be your original work, not published on any other website or social media network. Plagiarism or copyright infringement is not permitted.
• Any sources must be cited when quoting others, referring to statistics, or using ideas from other works.
• Posts will acknowledge your authorship but will be the property of CH once posted. Once the post has been submitted to CH, you may not publish it anywhere else online, in part or whole, including your website or blog. The exception is if it is posted with a note at the beginning or end of the article that says, “This article originally appeared at [URL].”
• If we use your post, you may promote it on your website or other online channels. You are not permitted to post the entire article. You may include a link to your guest post and a short sentence or two explaining what the article is about.
• Submissions should be kept between 500-1500 words. Longer posts are allowed if it is necessary and relevant. The final length of the article is decided by CH. If we invite you personally to write a post, we may request an article of up to 1500+ words for SEO purposes.
• Affiliate links may not be included in guest post submissions. CH reserves the right to add affiliate links where appropriate.
• CH will credit Guest Author at the beginning and end of the article. Guest Author may submit a short bio statement (that may be used at the end of each article. You may link to your website, blog, business, etc., in the author bio. You may also provide a photo to be used with your bio.
• CH does not pay for submissions, and there is no compensation for Guest Authors associated with any articles posted.
• CH welcomes images and/or video to accompany your post CH reserves the right to change/edit the image/video if necessary.
• Your images/video must meet these requirements:
  • They must be relevant to the post.
  • The Guest Author must be the copyright holder of the image/video OR the image/video must be licensed under an appropriate Creative Commons license or in the public domain. Proof must be submitted with any image/video showing it does not infringe on copyright laws. We encourage using websites like Unsplash or FreePik to find royalty-free images.
  • If people are included in non-stock images/videos, then the Guest Author must provide a written release allowing the use of their likeness.
• CH will share and promote the guest post on various social media networks but does not guarantee any particular site or audience reach.
• Links to any third-party site must be relevant to the topic and approved by CH.
• All search engine optimization (“SEO”) information, such as anchor text or alt tags, will be reviewed and subject to inclusion at the discretion of CH.
• Excessive links or links that appear to be affiliated or spam-related will be removed at the discretion of CH.
• All guest posts are reviewed and approved by CH before posting.
• CH reserves the right to edit guest posts where necessary, especially parts inconsistent with our purpose, vision, mission, or general organizational tone. This includes adding relevant information about our purpose, mission, vision, core values, etc.
• CH reserves the right to refuse publication or remove a guest post without prior notice to the Guest Author.
• By providing a post to CH, you agree that you are in no way becoming a part of the website or company, nor shall you hold yourself out to be a member of the CH website or organization.
• If a submission is inappropriate or needs improvements, a CH staff person will offer suggested edits. CH will review your submissions promptly. (Aka, we want your writing on our website!)
• CH reserves the right to refuse publication of any guest post.

By submitting a guest post to CH, you agree that you have read and understand this agreement and agree to abide by its terms.