Thirty Years of CMM

June 22, 2025, marks 30 years since the founding of Chocolate Moose Media in Ottawa, Canada, to create “media to better the human condition”. My work rests on our interdependence and shared values.

From 1995 to today I have created or co-created 5,034 productions/episodes in hundreds of languages from Amharic to Zulu. To the best of my knowledge, they have been used in 198 countries and territories, reaching well over a billion viewers. About 3,700 videos reside in my Vimeo channel and hundreds of others reside in sponsors’ sites. They may be the largest number and most linguistically diverse media collection for social good on the Internet.

Above all else, I am immensely grateful to the users on the ground who are deeply committed partner organizations, broadcasters, and individuals. These tools are only as impactful as their use, and I salute all that have joined this journey over the last 30 years. The people on the ground are my heroes.

Since the beginning, I have implemented a fully open access model. Over 95% of my productions carry no copyright notice and are created under a Creative Commons license. There has never been a charge to view, download and use any of the media by anyone. No data by users, including emails or any personal identifier, is asked for or collected.

The productions are grouped into 104 series, each on different topics. The series cover a vast array of topics from Anti-racism to Zika eradication. Capacity building, children’s rights, climate change, democracy, dementia, disease containment, disease prevention, domestic violence, education, governance, health, housing, human rights, literacy, mental health, migration, peace, refugees, sexual harassment, universal values, and violence reduction, are some of the main topics that span the entire spectrum of social challenges.

To keep costs at a minimum, there is no permanent full-time staff except me and no office. I have relied on a talented group of creative people and volunteers around the world.

There is a great – and growing – need. My quest to spread human dignity is not over. As values get crushed, I intend to decrease productions and pivot to using my experience to teach future generations how to communicate with impact, and to speak out more on the commonalities we share as human beings.

Our future depends on the wisdom of our choices. Our focus on dangers and threats blinds us to the potential for a transformational moment of hope and opportunity. We must choose wisely, shifting from self-protective responses that will inevitably be self-defeating to collaborative problem-solving and a future of shared thriving. Our collective strength lies in our ability to see not just the distinctions, but also the profound commonalities that bind us as humans.