Over the past year, Creative Commons communities around the world have continued to show what’s possible when people come together around shared values of openness, collaboration, and care. From regional gatherings and thematic conversations to hands-on creative work, CC’s communities have remained active as the digital landscape grows more complex.

In 2025 we were focused on gathering feedback on our ongoing preference signals explorations, creating and gathering feedback on new governance frameworks for future implementation, streamlining community communication channels, and transitioning to an open source chat platform for community collaboration.

As we look ahead, we want to share how we’re thinking about deepening community engagement, strengthening connections across the network, and creating more meaningful ways for everyone to contribute to CC’s work in partnership with one another.

A Clearer Path Into the Commons

One theme we’ve heard consistently is that people want more clarity about how to get involved with CC and more connection once they do. In response, we’re beginning work on a set of new engagement opportunities that enable community members with varying degrees of expertise and diverse skillsets to participate in our work.  We will work to support community members in getting involved, learning more, and leveling up their experience and expertise along the way, from participating in conversations to leading community initiatives.

We are excited that our new unified Community Intake Form will allow for more collaboration across interest areas and lower the barrier to entry for participating in CC’s work. Alongside this, we’ll be working to strengthen our onboarding process with more information about CC’s work as well as more opportunities to plug in and connect with longstanding efforts and leaders in the Open Movement.

Strengthening the Network

CC’s community doesn’t live in one place, and we want our engagement approach to reflect that. Over the coming months, we’ll be:

• Creating best practices for chapters, a model for supporting community-driven working groups, and a workflow for volunteer translations
• Researching and reaching out to adjacent movements and open communities to create more intentional bridges across the broader open ecosystem
• Facilitating peer sharing and documenting best practices and effective strategies across our communities through regular sharing and more frequent communication
• Supporting regional and topical groupings to share knowledge directly with one another, including experimenting with topic-based show-and-tells in place of more formal meetings

The goal is simple: reduce friction, encourage peer learning, and help communities align and collaborate on their own terms.

Supporting Communities to Tell Their Stories

As Creative Commons approaches its 25th anniversary, storytelling—especially community-led storytelling—will be central. 

One part of these efforts is publishing a 25th anniversary zine which will commemorate our community’s contributions, achievements and memories over the past quarter of a century. We plan to launch the zine full of community-created work at Wikimania as part of our anniversary activities. The call for zine submissions is open until March 31, 2026. Submit your work here!

For our anniversary, we are also developing training and templates to help communities document and share their own stories through writing, visuals, or other creative formats. Our aim is not to centralize narratives but to create tools and support that make it easier for communities to speak in their own voices.

Listening, Learning, and Building Capacity

Looking ahead, we’ll continue to prioritize listening as a core part of our work. This includes conducting an annual community survey, which helps us understand what’s working, what’s missing, and where we should focus our energy.

We’re also beginning work on guidance for chapter activities, informed by what chapters are already doing well. By supporting regional and topical groups to share practices and lessons learned, we hope to strengthen the network as a whole, not by prescribing solutions but by amplifying what’s already effective.

An Ongoing Invitation

This work is iterative by design. Not everything is fully formed, and that’s intentional. Community engagement at Creative Commons isn’t about rolling out a finished product; it’s about building relationships, creating space for experimentation, and learning together.

We’re grateful to everyone who continues to show up, share knowledge, ask hard questions, and imagine what the commons can be next. More updates and more invitations to participate are coming soon.

Stay connected, and thank you for being part of this work. We’ll also be launching a new series of community office hours.

• March 20, 12 pm EST: Register here.
• June 8, 5pm EST: Register here.

Sign up and stay tuned for more details if you’d like to chat! 

Posted 17 February 2026