During this time of change, we’re looking to bolster the ways the 1871 community is adjusting and engaging one another as founders, members, and partners. To support these goals, we are looking for experts to share their expertise via guest blog post submissions!
Our blog readership is diverse — our member community, Chicago’s tech and entrepreneurship community, media representatives, national interest groups, and even international readers, visit for news and insights into the innovation ecosystem. We know that you all make up one of the most resilient and resourceful collectives around — you’re relentlessly positive, innovative, and forward-thinking. Therefore, we want to hear directly from you.
We’ve created a series of guidelines for contributed content:
CONTENT PROMPTS
By no means is this an exhaustive list. Original ideas will receive priority. Please do some light research to ensure your topic and your perspective have not been covered on the 1871 blog or elsewhere.
- Share something that can be a resource for fellow founders, innovators, and growth-scalers.
- Have you recently reached a milestone? Tell us about it!
- Have you experienced a pivot in your business? Tell us about it!
- Have you had any process changes in your business or industry?
- Have any current events or news items affected your business or industry? How?
CONTENT GUIDELINES
- Write to educate, inspire, or provide insight on industry trends, best practices, or tech/business philosophy. Articles with actionable takeaways are the most effective!
- Consider what is valuable for our audience, which includes entrepreneurs, technology professionals, and Chicago’s innovation ecosystem. Please also write in an easily understandable manner, sans industry jargon and buzzwords.
- Refrain from advertising. Mentioning your company, brand, or product in order to highlight your expertise is acceptable, but excessive self-promotion or backlinking is not. The 1871 Blog is intended to educate, not advertise.
EDITORIAL REQUIREMENTS
- Length: Blogs should be approx. 600-800 words.
- Proofreading: Submissions must be free from glaring typos or errors.
- Sources: If you use a statistic, quote, study, photo, or video from another source, you must cite and/or link to them in your article.
- Format: All blogs must include a (1) title and (2) short introduction.
- Exclusivity: To be considered for the 1871 Blog, submissions cannot have been posted elsewhere, and cannot be reposted elsewhere in the future if accepted.
EXPECTATIONS
- 1871 reserves the right to turn down submissions. Sometimes a subject or piece is not a fit for our community, but we always welcome you to try again!
- If your submission is approved, we will schedule it for publication and share the timing with you. If we’ve approved your submission and you prefer it to run on a certain date, please let us know and we’ll try to meet your request.
- 1871 reserves the right to make revisions. If we require significant content revisions (as opposed to simple typo edits), we will let you know before publishing.
ONCE YOU’RE PUBLISHED - WHAT’S NEXT?
- Share the content on your own website, social media, and email distribution! We’d appreciate you tagging us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
- All guest blogs are widely promoted across 1871’s social media channels and email, with a reach of 100,000+. Show us some love on our social posts! Retweet, share, comment on, like, and engage with us.