PRISM

Contribute to PRISM

PRISM publishes evidence-led humanitarian analysis and keeps a permanent record of protection incidents. Both are open to outside contributors — writers who bring an argument and the data behind it, and analysts who track what is happening in the countries they know.

The platform began by serving the big institutional datasets. Through its contributors it is learning to make its own record — because the humanitarian system funds what it can see, and what it can see is decided by who is allowed to know. The people best placed to describe a crisis are routinely handed a credibility deficit for knowing it firsthand. This desk judges what you can show, never who signed your credentials. Every contribution goes through editorial review; published work carries your byline, and every entry joins a record that accumulates and never deletes.

How it works

01

Create an account

Free, and the same account you would use to read PRISM. Contributing is attached to a person, so there is no separate contributor login.

02

Apply from your profile

A short bio, your affiliation, and what the track asks for — an idea to write about, the countries you would cover, or your CV for the editing and engagement seats.

03

The editor reads it

A person, not a filter. You hear either way, and a no always comes with a reason.

04

You are commissioned

Write in the workspace, work with an editor on the draft, and approve the edited version before anything appears under your name.

You need a PRISM account before you can apply — it takes a minute, and applying happens from your profile afterwards.

Become an author

Deep dives are argued pieces grounded in data — a claim, the evidence for it, and honest limits. You pitch an idea; if it is commissioned you draft in the workspace, an editor works with you on it, and nothing is published under your name until you have approved the edited version.

  • A short bio, your affiliation and a LinkedIn profile
  • One idea, described in a paragraph or two

Become a crisis analyst

Analysts track protection incidents in the countries they cover, working from PRISM’s archive of situation reports. Entries are reviewed by an editor before they appear, and approved ones show on the country pages with your coverage behind them.

  • A short bio, your affiliation and a CV
  • The countries you would cover

Become an editor

Editors hold the desk’s standard: they review pieces against the published criteria, work with authors on drafts, decide routed pitches, and review filed observations. Other people’s words, in your hands, with the handbook as the rulebook.

  • A short bio, your affiliation, a LinkedIn profile and a CV
  • Editing or reviewing experience — journals, newsrooms, reports

Become a digital engagement intern

The intern carries PRISM’s public voice: managing the platform’s social media accounts, designing social cards from published content — sized for each platform — running the newsletter, and supporting audience management and strategy. Real tools and real responsibility from the first week, behind an onboarding call.

  • A short bio, your affiliation, a LinkedIn profile and a CV
  • Work that reached people — a channel you ran, cards you designed, a newsletter, a campaign

Independent, and honest about what that means

PRISM runs without funders and without a paywall. Its costs are carried privately, and every seat at the desk — the editor’s included — is voluntary at this stage. That independence is what lets the platform publish what the record shows.

What contributing carries: a real byline — on the piece, in the citation, and in the structured data search engines read; work preserved in an archive that accumulates and never deletes; and a hand in building the record this platform exists to make.