Creative Commons has grown tremendously since we started. As we approached the milestone of our 10th birthday, and with a new CEO on board, we began an intensive review of our progress and priorities. Sometimes you need to use big milestones to stop and see where you are, and occasionally you find that decisions made to meet immediate demands don’t always hold up against long-term ambitions. The world is changing pretty quickly, and to remain effective, CC needs to do more than just keep up.

During our review, we spent a lot of time asking questions and listening to our Affiliate Network members around the world. We hired some consultants to help run a process and to talk to people outside of the organization about how they viewed the role of Creative Commons. As navel-gazing goes, we gave it a solid effort. We also realized how important it is to declare our mission, vision, and priorities for action. The resulting publication, The Future of Creative Commons (2.7 MB PDF), lays out priorities for each area in which we work. These overall priorities are already guiding staff in how they use their time and set targets for each program area. They also give us a good base to measure how well we are doing.

As a companion piece, we offer this annual report, Dispatches from the Commons. In it, we call out some of the big accomplishments of the past year and highlight organizations and people who are doing powerful and innovative things with our licenses.

The whole process of evaluating our place in the world and projecting our ambitions for the future repeatedly reminded us of how much we rely on supporters, allies, and friends. Creative Commons is a small staff connected to the whole world through our affiliates and a global community of open advocates, volunteers and creators. Only together are we Creative Commons. You are a powerful engine for change that seems to run on an endless supply of renewable energy!

We hope that this strategy document and annual report help you understand where CC is headed and where you can play a role. Thanks for your sharing. Thanks for your support. Thanks for coming along on this amazing ride.