Open Guild is assembling its inaugural cohort of city programs. Founding Sponsors help design the toolkit, shape the curriculum, and decide how participants first encounter your platform.
You have input on what gets taught and how. Founding Sponsor status is limited to the inaugural cohort. Later sponsors join a program that already exists. You get to build it.
Open Guild teaches artisans to build the tools they run their business on. A glassblower builds a commission-and-inventory tracker. A leatherworker builds a custom-order intake system. A brewer builds a taproom loyalty tool. Your product sits inside that workflow: taught as a working tool, not pitched as an ad.
Your company recognized as a Founding Sponsor across all program materials, future cohorts, and the Open Guild website. Permanent. Exclusive to inaugural partners.
Your product or service integrated into the Artisan Business Toolkit, with input on how it's taught and positioned. Branded how-tos, participant-exclusive offers, and a resource artisans will use and share long after the cohort ends.
Participants don't leave the program when the workshop ends. Every cohort alumni gets 12-month access to the city's resource repository — a curated toolkit of skills, templates, and tools maintained after the intensive.
That access is underwritten by sponsors. Which means:
This is the distinction between throwing your logo on a stage and building a year-long relationship with a cohort of working artisans.
"Powered by [Sponsor]" on program materials, city marketing, event collateral, participant certificates, and post-program case studies. Your brand present at every stage of the participant journey.
Speaker slots at the on-site intensive and the community showcase. Your team in the room with artisans, city officials, and local press. Direct relationships with the people you want to reach.
Post-cohort reporting built with your team's input on what metrics matter. Businesses launched, tools adopted, projects shipped. Case studies and testimonials produced for your channels.
Every package is custom. Single-city and multi-city options available. Year-round presence included in all Founding Sponsor agreements.
Corporate-backed programs run by the founding team.
A startup accelerator on the Warner Bros. Discovery lot in Burbank. 13 companies selected from hundreds of applicants across media platforms, software, and digital marketplaces. Executive-level education, investor access, and WBD partnership opportunities around emerging technologies.
18 participants. 100% completion. Each left with a developed business plan. The cohort spanned industries from music to fashion to digital services — confirming that the Guild's framework works across the creative economy.
The Guild's curriculum is built on four programs run by the founding team — from a corporate accelerator on the Warner Bros. lot to an arts-driven community development grant in New Orleans.
Every partnership is custom. Tell us what you're trying to accomplish — we'll build around your objectives. Single-city and multi-city options available. Year-round presence included in all Founding Sponsor agreements.
Reach us directly
Email usWe respond within 48 hours. Come with your objectives and we'll come back with options.