En Español

Today, the Creative Commons community is opening consultation on its draft strategy to support a strong and growing global movement. The proposal is part of a community-led process that began at the Global Summit in Seoul, South Korea in October 2015. Today we are opening a two-month consultation period with the broader CC community. The final proposal will be revised and finalized at the Global Summit in Toronto from April 28-30, 2017

The proposal recommends significant but necessary changes to the current CC affiliate structure, which was originally developed to support the porting of licenses to national legal structures. Today, the CC movement is broad and diverse, engaging in issues of open education, copyright reform, open access, open data, and more. The new model is designed to empower individuals and organizations that want to contribute towards our shared values, to build stronger, more resilient teams, and to co-ordinate goals and activities for greater impact. Today’s CC contributors and affiliates will form the core of this new structure, which we hope will grow and flourish in a new community-led model.

CC has never undertaken such a review of our network, but as we celebrate our 15th anniversary, it’s time for a renewed focus on community and collaboration. With a strong push from our community, and support from the board to renew the movement, we initiated the project with a volunteer committee of affiliates from around the world. This process has required new research, analysis, and hundreds of hours of contributions from this group of diverse global leaders. We worked by consensus, and everyone contributed actively. I’m proud of what we’ve drafted together, and excited to help the CC movement build this network together.

Key elements of the proposal include:

• Membership structure for individual network member and partner organizations to take leadership in the movement and participate in governance and community goal-setting
• There will be a Global Network Council established with national representatives to provide movement governance, allocate fund resources, and define areas of focus and global policy positions
• Contributors, network members and partners will be organized under national teams, with a national lead and an elected representative to the Global Network Council
• Development of new fund to provide resources to community teams for projects that advance the movement’s goals
• Establishment of defined areas of work, called platforms, for CC’s global activities, such as copyright reform, open education, and license stewardship. Each platform will include goals, positions, and a co-ordinator

The community consultation will be open until March 24, 2017. We need to hear from the CC community to ensure broad support for these proposed changes. Our research recommended we work in multiple languages, so we have translated the proposals into Spanish, Arabic, and French. We have posted a page on our website with the background information, the research, the proposal, and opportunities to share comments. We have opened a Slack channel (#network-consultation), and will be conducting online discussions and in-person sessions. Find out more here.

Finally, I want to end this post with gratitude. So many people have contributed to this work, and I want to offer my thanks. We have much more to do, but we couldn’t have come this far without:

• The CC community of affiliates, board, advisory board, regional coordinators, and staff
• The steering committee, and committee co-chair Alek Tarkowski
• Anna Mazgal and the researchers behind Faces of the Commons reports
• Paul Stacey and Kamil Sliwowski, our talented facilitators
• The Hewlett Foundation for their generous support and deep commitment to the Creative Commons community around the world
• Our donors and supporters, who choose to fund CC’s vital work