Submissions: FAQ

EHRP is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that produces compelling journalism on economic inequality in America. We give grants to independent journalists reporting on issues related to poverty, economic class, workers’ rights, and income disparity in the U.S., and co-publish their work in partnership with major media outlets. Many of our contributors are journalists struggling to financially sustain themselves in the increasingly low-paying media industry. We encourage people from underrepresented backgrounds to apply.

We commission narrative features, reported personal essays, reported op-eds, investigative reports, podcasts, nonfiction cartoons, photo essays and documentaries about economic inequality in the United States. Personal essays are welcome only if they contain substantial reporting.

We focus on this country, but we will consider an international story – or a pitch from a reporter based outside the U.S. – that also examines inequality in America. For instance, we underwrote a short film about how Immigration and Customs Enforcement broke up one immigrant family from El Salvador.

Our grants range from $500 for an op-ed to $10,000 for a documentary film. For written work, we pay up to $1.25/word, depending on the amount of reporting required. We typically support pieces in the 800-1500 word count range. We occasionally support longer pieces placed in large national publications, but our grants for written work typically top out at $2,500. For photo essays we pay a $600 day rate. We usually pay upon publication but will give advances to financially struggling reporters.

Often. But please keep receipts.

To be eligible for a grant, applicants must have reporting experience, be previously published and self-identify as a journalist. EHRP’s editors expect writers to file multiple drafts of pieces if needed. All contributors should have reported pieces of this kind previously and be able to share links to or clips of reported work.

Many stories are fact-checked by EHRP or our co-publishers. Please annotate drafts.

All sources should be referred to by full names except in rare circumstances that must be approved by EHRP’s editors.

No. Our mission is to support independent journalists.

Yes.

Yes. We believe in collaboration and partnerships.

We ask grant applicants to provide us with a letter of commitment from a large media outlet. The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, and The Guardian, as well as many other media outlets, have co-published stories by EHRP contributors. Typically, we partner only with big national publications (the bigger the reach, the better), but with rare exceptions we partner with smaller outlets that grant us access to a unique audience. Here’s an example.

Applications must have a partner publication lined up. We make rare exceptions for journalists who have a well-developed story pitch that fits our mission but are highly financially stressed and/or positioned outside traditional media networks. If you meet these conditions, in the letter of commitment section of the application, you can upload a brief statement in lieu of a letter of commitment. Please note that response times to pitches without a letter of commitment take much longer.

A story is only eligible for an EHRP grant if it is accepted by a publication that agrees to include a line of attribution with a live link to our organization. A typical credit line reads “This article is supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.” Acknowledgement of our effort and support is critical to our nonprofit’s operation; we rely on credit lines for fundraising and raising awareness about our mission.

Before you click the “Apply Now” button below, make sure you have the following required items for your grant application:

• A well-researched but brief pitch of less than 500 words that includes
  • A nut graf that clearly articulates central thesis
  • A strong voice
  • Supporting data
  • A brief description of the sources you plan to use (bonus if the story is character-driven)
  • A clear class/economic inequality angle (U.S.-based stories about economic inequality only)
• A letter of commitment from a major national publication. Please use this template as a guide. The letter must:
  • State the assignment, estimated due date and assigned word count
  • Agree to give EHRP a credit line in both print (if applicable) and online, including a live link, as follows: This story was supported by the journalism non-profit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
  • Agree to let EHRP co-publish on our website. (We always include a credit line to the partner pub(s) and a live link to their original story.)
• Links to three clips of your published work
• A link to your website or portfolio (optional)
• Links to your active social media accounts (optional)
• Your resume
• Photographers should send us low-resolution images (72 dpi) along with a pitch or a query letter attached. All images should include captions in the metadata or an attached caption document.
• Let us know if other news outlets have covered your story and how your piece will be different.

We accept applications on a rolling basis.

We typically reply to submissions within two weeks. If you haven’t heard back from us in two weeks, thank you for your patience. Please assume that your pitch has not been accepted. We are a small team and cannot reply to every pitch we receive.

If your first application doesn’t get accepted, we encourage you to read our work closely and try again.

Note that we aim to spread our grant money around and tend to say no to contributors who we’ve already supported with more than one grant per year.

We are currently looking for first-person essays, reported features and op-eds tackling stories about economic inequality and how it relates to:

• Housing and eviction, like this piece
• Gig and frontline work, especially first hand accounts
• Religion where it intersects with income inequality
• Union activism and labor organizing
• Tech work, and tech’s impact on work
• Being laid off and unemployment
• Reproductive rights
• Caregiving
• Parenting
• Queer/trans working-class and economically unstable experiences

Other areas we are always interested in: where income inequality intersects with religion, immigration, education, parenting/families, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, health, maternal health, disability, culture, housing, agriculture, aging, work, etc…

Absolutely. We commission a range of genres.

They can be narrative feature stories, such as this piece about coal ash cleanup workers co-published with The Guardian and Southerly, this piece on nursing homes co-published with The Guardian, this piece about working class voters co-published with The New Yorker or this piece about the HIV epidemic among women co-published with National Geographic.

They can be reported personal essays that transport readers to your world and expand their emotional understanding of your experience with economic inequality, such as this piece about homeless veterans co-published with Newsweek, this piece about struggling to find a psychiatrist who takes Medicaid co-published with the Chicago Reader, this piece about working at a grocery store during the pandemic co-published with The New Republic or this piece about falling out of the middle class later in life co-published with The Washington Post.

They can be investigative features, such as this series about housing and evictions done in partnership with The Utah Investigative Journalism Project and co-published with The Salt Lake Tribune.

They can be op-eds. These op-eds can advocate for structural change in the media, such as this piece  that was co-published with CJR. They can use pop culture as a jumping off point to discuss inequality, such as this piece about the cancellation of the TV show “Cops,” co-published with The Intercept and this piece about “Squid Game,” co-published with Teen Vogue. Op-eds grappling with class and economic inequality can draw from an array of research, such as this piece unpacking a study about air rage and class, co-published with The Guardian.

We will expect you to support EHRP by

(1) suggesting other journalists we might want to enlist;

(2) helping us promote your published work through social media and possibly interviews; and

(3) including EHRP in your official bio.

Please use info@economichardship.org to submit further questions that have not been answered on this page. We only answer emails during working hours. We are a small staff fielding hundreds of applications. In order to respond to grant applications in a timely manner, we limit our communication to email.