I just wanted to share with you some new changes to Sunlight's guest blogging program. We have revamped it to "
" and are inviting you to send us your stories in a guest blog and share your experience in making your respective governments more transparent, either through tech, education, or special innovations. Below is a blog post about it with contact information for those interested in sending us a guest blog.
For a while now, we have been encouraging folks from
across the nation who are either directly or indirectly involved in
opening up their governments -- through the work that they do -- to
write about their experiences. In our guest blogging program, we have heard from several individuals including technologists, civic hackers, journalists, educators and transparency activists.
By opening up the Sunlight platform, for other similar voices to be
heard, we have nurtured a spirit of collaborative action that says: You are not alone in the OpenGov movement.
Are you doing unique work in your community to make your government
more transparent? Maybe you are actively involved in creating special
projects that are opening up your local government. We believe that you
can spur transparency in your hometown by taking action to demand for
openness.
Write a guest blog and share your experience with us and the rest of the
world. Some of our guest bloggers are citizen activists, website
developers, teachers, journalists and local bloggers like you who are
unlocking their governments through the work they are doing.
Our guest blogging program was created to reach out to the growing
yet diverse community of government transparency advocates -- as a way
of sparking national discussion on the issues that are shaping their
democracy. With that in mind, several folks have written inspiring
accounts of how they helped make their leaders more accountable.
- For example, through Barbara Petersens’ Open Government and Florida’s Project Sunburst,
we learnt that the First Amendment Foundation was instrumental in
pushing for disclosure of Governor Rick Scott’s email correspondence to
the public.
- But what will be remembered as perhaps one of the most remarkable guest blogs is Jason Williams’ A Win for Open Government in Utah. Like the title suggests, Utahns had been embroiled in a spirited fight to reject the 2011 anti transparency bill
-- HB477 a bill that would have removed lawmakers' emails and text
messages from the public record. This joint effort illustrated the power
that citizens hold especially when they stand up against measures that
threaten their right to know.
Not a fan of writing? How about some mixed media
With OpenGov Voices, we aim to integrate other media so if you have
photos or videos, throw them in the mixed media pot and send us your
guest blog. Sunlight’s inhouse collection of issue experts is expanding
and we are eager to know if you have used any of our experts’ resources.
Have you used any of our tools? Perhaps you incorporated some of our
APIs in a project you made. Or maybe you have some upcoming legislative
issues, in your city or state. What’s the current legislative news in
your area? Give us your local input on the issues you care about. Write a
guest blog and share with us.
With TransparencyCamp
growing in leaps and bounds, our international pulse is beating faster
than ever before. You don’t have to be living in the U.S. to let us know
how Sunlight’s international transparency work affected your country.
A few things to keep in mind:
If you are interested in guest blogging with Sunlight...
- All guest posts must be relevant to Sunlight’s mission and audience.
- Guest posts should address an issue around government
transparency or open government, provide a non-partisan point of view
and be of original content.
- Posts should be between 500-900 words.
- All guest posts may include a 2-3 sentence author bio,
which will be published at the beginning of the guest post. 1-2 links
to the author's work, website or blog. Author must submit full name,
“LinkedIn” size image of him/herself and preferred contact information.
- Posts should not be inflammatory or disrespectful in any way.
- Guest bloggers can submit posts in either Word or
Google Docs with links/urls where they want them to be. They can also
include relevant credited images.
- Posts may be self-promotional as long as they are
informative or educational in the process and are in line with
Sunlight’s mission.
- Sunlight has the right to correct any grammatical errors found before publishing post.
- Preference will be given to guest posts that have not been already published elsewhere online.
- If there is a comment on a guest blog, the guest blogger will be responsible for responding to it.
Interested in writing a guest blog for Sunlight? Email us at gues...@sunlightfoundation.com
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