Domains and Web Presence

The Guild's ecosystem uses separate domains for each affiliated entity, with a shared brand language and clear disclosures about who's who. This page documents the model so members, partners, and the public know what they're looking at on any given site.

Hub-and-spoke model

The Guild's website (ganjierguild.com) is the public hub. It carries:

• Educational mission and certification information.
• Member directory and program calendar.
• Public-facing governance materials, including this document library.
• A small Ecosystem section linking out to affiliated entities with reference cards explaining the relationship.

Each affiliated entity owns and operates its own domain. Cross-linking happens through clearly labeled reference cards on each site, never through co-branded pages that blur the entity boundary.

Why separate domains

The Guild is a 501©(6) trade association. It exists to promote the common business interests of its members, not to provide particularized commercial benefit to any one for-profit entity. Separate domains support that posture in three ways:

1. Legal separation is visible. A visitor on ganjierguild.com is unambiguously on the Guild's site. A visitor on a partner LLC's site sees that they've moved to a different entity.
2. Editorial control stays clean. Guild educational content stays under Guild editorial control. Commercial content stays on commercial sites.
3. Audit trails are simple. Hosting accounts, DNS records, billing, and support tickets each map cleanly to one entity.

Cross-linking with disclosure

When the Guild's site references an affiliated entity (or vice versa), three things happen:

• A reference card identifies the other entity by name and legal structure.
• A plain-English disclosure explains the relationship in one or two sentences.
• A link sends the visitor to the affiliated entity's own site.

The standard disclosure language is on the cross-reference disclosure template page.

Brand and trademark use

The Guild owns its trademarks and brand assets. Affiliated entities use Guild marks only as expressly permitted by the IP License Schedule held in the signature packet. Brand standards for color, typography, logo treatment, and voice are published in the brand/ section of this site and apply to any entity using Guild marks under license.

Privacy and data

A visitor's interaction with one entity's site stays with that entity. The Guild does not share member email lists, contact details, or behavioral data with affiliated entities except where:

• The member has explicitly opted in (separate opt-ins, not bundled).
• A specific, written data-sharing agreement covers the transfer.
• Required by law or by a written request from law enforcement that satisfies the Guild's records-disclosure policy.

Each entity's site carries its own privacy policy. They are not interchangeable.

Unrelated business income (UBIT) considerations

If the Guild's website carries advertising, sponsorship placements, or paid promotion of any entity's commercial services, the revenue may be unrelated business income. This is not a blocker — trade associations regularly carry sponsor recognition and event sponsorship — but it requires:

• Fair-market-value pricing for placements.
• Documented substantiation that the placement serves the membership broadly, not just the sponsoring entity.
• Accounting treatment that flags UBIT-relevant revenue for the 990 filing.

The Guild's finance committee reviews the website's commercial elements annually as part of the compliance calendar.

Practical operating notes

• All domains the Guild owns or co-administers are listed in the digital asset registry.
• DNS, SSL, and hosting accounts use multi-factor authentication and have documented recovery contacts.
• Domain renewals and SSL renewals are tracked on the operations calendar — there is no auto-renew without a documented billing owner per domain.
• Reference pages on the Guild site that mention an affiliated entity link out via the cross-reference disclosure template.