Essays, Reported Pieces, Criticism, Art & Visual, Video & Hybrid Forms

In 2026, the United States will mark 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence—a document that promised liberty and justice for all, and delivered it to very few.

This anniversary will be loud. It will be choreographed. And we will contest it.

Already, political forces are rewriting history in real time, weaponizing public memory, and narrowing the definition of who counts as American. Without intentional intervention, the America 250 moment risks becoming a monument to mythology—a celebration of a nation that never quite was, sanitized of the people, movements, and organizations that have spent 250 years insisting it become what it claimed.

Nonprofit Quarterly refuses that story.

#WeTheCivic: America 250 is NPQ’s editorial initiative to reclaim the 250th as a national reckoning, and a nonprofit sector celebration. A year to examine not just what America declared, but what it has denied, and the nonprofit workers and movements that have kept the promises of democracy alive anyway.

Background

The multiracial, multilingual, multigenerational nonprofit sector has been the connective tissue of American democracy across those 250 years. Enslaved people building mutual aid networks. Immigrant communities founding neighborhood institutions. Indigenous organizers defending sovereignty. Black women leading civic movements. Queer activists building health infrastructure. Workers organizing for economic dignity across generations. Climate defenders protecting communities that government abandoned.

None of these stories will tell themselves.

The story of America’s 250 years is being written right now. This is a moment that will not come again. We intend to build partnerships for nonprofits advancing the promises of a multiracial democracy to be in that room, tell these stories—and hold the door open for every community that has historically been written out of them.

What We’re Looking For

We are seeking essays, reported pieces, criticism, poetry, visual art, and hybrid forms that illuminate—at any point across 250 years of American history—the nonprofit and philanthropic workers, leaders, organizations, movements, and policy fights that advanced the promises of a multiracial democracy that has never fully arrived.

our piece might recover a person or organization history has overlooked. It might reframe a well-known moment through the lens of who was actually doing the work. It might trace how a current movement, institution, or practice has roots that stretch back decades or centuries. It might reckon honestly with where the sector fell short—or was deliberately undermined.

Examples of the kinds of the nonprofit, philanthropic, and movement stories we’re hungry for:

• How a mutual aid network, fraternal society, or community institution that sustained a neighborhood when government wouldn’t
• How a nonprofit or philanthropic organizer, advocate, or civic leader—particularly from a community written out of dominant narratives— shaped American democracy in ways that went uncredited
• How a nonprofit organization, movement, or philanthropic institution built the infrastructure for a right, a protection, or a social norm we now take for granted
• How a nonprofit-led or philanthropy-supported coalition that crossed lines of race, class, language, or generation to make a democratic win that shouldn’t have been possible
• How nonprofits and philanthropy are advancing the fight for reparation and repair (in partnership with Liberation Ventures)
• Nonprofit or philanthropic policy fight—local, state, or federal—where the sector changed the terms of what democracy could mean for a specific community
• Moments of sector failure, co-optation, or compromise that’s worth naming honestly, because accountability is also part of this history
• The thread between a historical nonprofit or philanthropic moment and the authoritarian fights happening right now

We are especially interested in stories from communities and geographies that rarely anchor national narratives about American democracy—the rural South, the borderlands, Indigenous nations, immigrant enclaves, mid-sized cities, faith communities, labor halls.

Forms We Welcome

• Reported essays and analysis (~1,000–3,000 words)
• Historical or academic essays written for a general audience (~1,000–3,500 words)
• hort-form criticism or commentary (!600–1,200 words)
• Personal essays and memoir (800–2,000 words)
• Original visual art, illustration, and photography

Payment

Every accepted piece will receive $500.

How Your Work Will Circulate

All accepted #WeTheCivic pieces will be published at Nonprofit Quarterly and made available for co-publishing on your own platforms (Substack, Mailchimp, LinkedIn, local newsroom, etc.). NPQ will also aggressively syndicate accepted work to our Newsroom Partnership Network and to mainstream publications covering the America 250 cultural moment. This is your work—we want it seen

To Pitch or Submit

Writers: please Send a completed draft to wethecivic@npqmag.org with the subject line #WeTheCivic Pitch: [Your Title]

Visual artists and photographers: send a portfolio link or representative samples with a brief note about your proposed work to wethecivic@npqmag.org with the #WeTheCivic Visual Pitch: [Your Title]. We welcome pitches on a rolling basis. The 250th is the deadline history gave us—we’d love yours sooner.

Questions? Write us at wethecivic@npqmag.org