Scratch is a free, nonprofit community and platform where millions of you imagine, create, and share. As we continue to grow and develop, the costs to keep Scratch running smoothly are growing, too. 

 

We are a small team of developers and creative ideators, community engagement specialists and moderators, QA testers, engineers, and more who keep the site reliable, friendly, and kind for everyone in our community. Scratchers share nearly 400,000 projects every day – that’s more than 16,000 per hour and almost 300 per minute. The pieces that make up every project – sprites, costumes, code, backdrops, sound, and even comments on project pages – are all stored by Scratch. It takes time and money to host your amazing creations and maintain the community around them. This is a great problem to have: it means there are tons of exciting ideas being added to Scratch each day. But it’s a problem we have to solve to keep Scratch free now and in the future.

 

Scratch sometimes collaborates with partners we trust to bring Scratchers cool opportunities like special sprites, studios, or live create-alongs. This helps us to support the servers and community that keep Scratch going, and we hope it’s a fun way for you to connect with brands that you may know and love.

 

We encourage you to spend time in Scratch doing the things you love. If you’re not a fan of a branded studio or event Scratch is running, that is totally fine. These types of events are opt-in: that means you are not obligated to spend time in studios or other spaces you aren’t interested in. Behind these partnerships are real people who are excited to connect with Scratchers and see the types of projects their assets and ideas inspire. We want to remind you that it is not kind or respectful to the community or to our partners to spend time spreading negativity or discouraging Scratchers who are excited about these events.

 

We hope you enjoy future partnerships. If they aren’t your cup of tea, that’s okay – just remember to be kind and to follow the Community Guidelines.

 

Scratch On!

Scratch Team