Details

What is Write for DOnations?

The Write for DOnations program brings together two initiatives: building content to help developers, and supporting tech-focused charities and nonprofits.

Through the program, community authors help grow DigitalOcean’s library of DevOps, software development, and production systems tutorials—all based on free and open-source software. These authors then receive a personal payout and select a tech-focused charity to receive a donation.

Payouts

What is the payout structure?

Authors typically receive $300 per tutorial. The author then selects a single tech-focused charity or nonprofit or a group of nonprofits united by similar missions to receive a donation from DigitalOcean.

Most new tutorials are paid out at $300; complex production-focused topics may be paid out at up to $400. Updates for existing tutorials, such as distribution changes, are typically paid out at $75 to $150, based on the quantity of changes and technical content. All payouts are at editorial discretion.

Additional Write for DOnation FAQ

Testimonials

What people are saying

“This is a fantastic opportunity to not only improve your writing skills, but to give back to the open source community and help fund incredible charities doing great work!” - Elliot Forbes, 2019

“Writing for DigitalOcean is an opportunity for you to share your knowledge with hundreds of thousands of developers around the world, while also improving your technical writing skills. Everyone wins!”  - Chuks Opia, 2019 

“Writing for DigitalOcean has been a very positive experience. The editors are friendly and effective, and the process has improved my writing and organization skills. It is very rewarding to give back to the community in this way. Highly recommended!” - Rafe Colton, 2019

“The DigitalOcean team made the whole editorial process so simple that it was a pleasure writing the tutorial. I just wanted to share that contributing to the "Write For DOnations program" was a very enriching experience for me.“ - Damaso Sanoja, 2020

Timeline

What is the publication process?

Apply, collaborate, write, revise, publish, and repeat.

• Apply: Apply to the program with your topic idea, an outline of your tutorial, and a writing sample that showcases your ability to explain your technical knowledge to others. We publish only original, first-run content under a Creative Commons license.
• Collaborate: If you're accepted, you'll work with the editorial team to refine your topic and outline for your tutorial.
• Write: Once your topic is approved, it's time to write. We provide resources, like our writing guidelines, technical best practices recommendations and article templates, to help you get started.
• Revise: Submit your first draft and collaborate one-on-one with a professional editor to revise your work.
• Publish: After revisions, your editor will send your payment, publish your article, make your charitable contribution—and ask what you want to write about next. DigitalOcean will also promote your article across all of our social networks (including to our 200,000 Twitter followers).
• Repeat: Build a relationship with the editorial team by suggesting new articles that you want to write.

About You

What are you looking for in an author?

We’re looking for a diverse group of strong technical writers with demonstrated experience in the topics we’re publishing. You’ll have written before, and are comfortable receiving feedback on your writing during the publishing process. Our readers have a wide range of skills, but we’re looking for authors who can write for beginning and intermediate developers. 

Apply Now

Apply to Write For DOnations

Thank you for your interest in the Write for Donations program, and for sending in so many proposals. We’ve temporarily suspended the application process for new authors while we work on all the great content we’ve received so far!

Please check back on March 1!

Our articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), meaning you can repost your DigitalOcean articles with attribution and with the same license on non-commercial sites after they're published here.

All of our community authors sign our Freelance Writers Contract.

Additional Write for DOnation FAQ