Creative Commons Launches Catalyst Campaign

Readers of our blog no doubt understand our fundamental mission statement featuring that very simple phrase:

Free education for all.

And that we license our work under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Given our fundamental commitment to providing cost-free educational resources, we featured a three part series on the need for a free, unregulated Commons, a series that featured Ahrash Bissell of the Creative Commons and highlighted some of the amazing projects underway based on the Creative Commons concept.

Our support for the movement today leads us to help the folks at CC with their new effort, the Catalyst Campaign, a program designed to raise seed funding for projects around the world devoted to increasing access and openness.

Launched June 1st and continuing for the entire month of June, the Catalyst Grants program is designed to help individuals as well as organizations harness the power of Creative Commons. Grants could theoretically support a study of entrepreneurs using Creative Commons licenses to create a new class of socially responsible businesses or enable a group in a developing country to research how Open Educational Resources can positively impact its community.

Jane Park, Communications Coordinator at Creative Commons, explains the Catalyst Grants will “empower individuals and communities that are deeply rooted in the principles of openness and sharing” while spurring the capacity for “CC adoption in much needed areas” including education.

“With the Catalyst Grants program, Creative Commons will seed activities around the globe that support our mission,” explains Park. “Our goal is to scale our community’s efforts and support them in becoming self-sustainable—hence, the grant sizes are around $1,000-$10,000 to catalyze communities into action.

“We are expecting at least a good number of CC jurisdictions to apply (currently, we have over 70 jurisdictions), and perhaps a few non-jurisdiction or jointly developed project proposals.”

According to Park, many of these jurisdictions could use the grant to jumpstart projects in open education, open web, open science, etc. The key is to help provide funding for those jurisdictions that are lagging behind other, more well-funded peers.

“We want to do all we can to help them become sustainable so that they can continue to do the great work they’re doing,” adds Park, “or start on innovative open projects that could transform the web.

The goal, to raise $100,000 from CC supporters, is off to a great start. The Milan Chamber of Commerce got the program off and running with a generous donation of EUR 10,000.

But the program could well rely on the basic generosity of thousands of small donors. With that in mind, donors offering pledging as little as $75 or more will be entitled to a limited edition “I Love to Share” t-shirts.

For more on how readers and fellow bloggers can ignite openness and innovation around the world, visit the CC Grants page.