Dive Brief:
- Udemy on Wednesday announced the launch of a new program aimed at supporting nonprofits, social entrepreneurs, and other change-minded parties worldwide.
- Udemy Social Innovation consists of grants to help organizations focused on change create Udemy courses for internal or external use and affordable access to the platform's existing courses and solutions.
- The creation of Udemy Social Innovation was inspired by the online learning and teaching marketplace's existing work with numerous nonprofits, including several universities.
Dive Insight:
According to a release from Udemy, 150 nonprofits have created courses on the platform to date, and those courses were utilized by over 28,000 people worldwide, with an additional 22,000 nonprofit employees benefiting from open, internal Udemy courses.
One way universities have utilized the platform: Mexico's Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo used an early course creation grant to build a course focused on teaching female artists in rural Tiripetio how to make a corn stalk-based sculpting paste called pasta de caña.
Udemy plans to award 12 Social Innovation course grants to nonprofits so they can produce private employee courses or public courses aimed at a broad audience. The grants will total $30,000 and be issued over six months.