We invigorate an international community of educators, activists, scientists, advocates, and creators to realize the benefits of the Commons. We build essential tools to make the Commons more discoverable, usable, and connected to communities everywhere.

The past few years have been transformative for Creative Commons. In 2015, we set out with an ambitious new strategy to nurture a vibrant, usable Commons powered by collaboration and gratitude. Our ambition is fueled by our technology projects and an energetic and productive global community. Each of CC’s initiatives works in support of this goal, unleashing the potential of the Commons through the work of our committed global communities.

In 2017, we hosted our largest Global Summit yet, organized by our community and supported by new sponsors and donors. With your guidance, we redesigned the Creative Commons Global Network in a massive, collaborative, international process, and we built new online infrastructure to support this unprecedented expansion of the movement for sharing. Our new engineering team shipped the CC Search beta and established new partnerships to expand our reach.

We launched an exciting certification program, meeting demand for the course from librarians and educators around the world. We fought against the TPP and for copyright reform in Europe, and helped national governments adopt open education policies. With our help, UNESCO made significant progress this year towards open education policies and support for member states. We moved the needle on these issues while still maintaining and defending our core tools: CC licenses, which have been used well over a billion times by creators and rightsholders looking to expand the range of creativity and knowledge available to everyone.

CC’s ambitious goals for the future will enable greater access and equality in education for everyone, accelerate innovation and discovery to cure disease, inspire delightful works of art and culture, and create deeper connections across cultures and communities. Our model is radically open, with community at the center.

We believe sharing and collaboration can unlock the full potential for the Web, and more importantly, for all of the individuals who use it.

It takes a group of driven, inspired, and talented humans to light up the Commons, and I feel privileged to work with them every day. You’ll see many of their stories in this year’s report — and that’s just a tiny percentage of the people who make this movement so powerful. We have the highest appreciation for those who make the choice to contribute to the Commons by freely sharing their work under CC licenses.

With gratitude,

Ryan Merkley

CEO, Creative Commons