Bernard Gives

Your work deserves to be seen.

Bernard Gives is a sponsored year on Bernard for creatives, designers and makers. A website, looked after for you, and the tools to get your work in front of more people.

A sponsored year on Nautilus Medium. For makers who teach, Nautilus Large, with courses and memberships included. Nothing to pay, and nothing to pay back.

Apply or nominateSee the two sponsorships

Why we started Bernard

It started with our friends and family.

We kept watching the same thing happen to people we love. Talented people, making brilliant things, tangled up in technology that was meant to help them.

Five subscriptions before they’d sold a thing. Marketplace fees creeping up every year. Website builders that need a developer the moment you want to change a word. Big tools that cost a fortune and are hard to leave.

None of that is their fault. A lot of it is hard to find your way through even if you work in tech. So we built Bernard to make it simpler: one place that looks after your website and the tools around it, where you just ask for what you need.

Technology should make life easier. That’s the whole idea.

Bernard Gives is how we share that beyond our own circle.

How the chain works

One shell rehouses the whole queue.

A hermit crab can’t make a shell. It grows inside one somebody else left, until the shell starts to pinch. So it goes looking. When it finds an empty shell that’s slightly too big, it doesn’t move in. It waits.

Others turn up and line up by size, biggest at the front. When the biggest crab finally moves in, the next one takes the shell it left, and so on down the line until the smallest has moved too. Marine biologists call it a vacancy chain.

A Bernard sponsorship is a shell for a year. Grow into it. Then it moves on, and the whole chain moves up.

  • High TideIf you stay on after your year, you hand the shell on: you nominate the next maker.
  • The RockpoolYour shell goes back to your partner’s pool for the next local maker. The tide refills the rockpool.
Bernard in his flat cap hands a large whelk shell to the first of a queue of hermit crabs on the sand at the edge of a rockpool, each crab behind eyeing the shell of the one in front

Who it’s for

Creatives, designers and makers.

If you make things and you want more people to see them, this is for you. Whether you’re just starting out or ready for the next step.

  • Illustrators
  • Artists
  • Designers
  • Makers
  • Craftspeople
  • Photographers
  • Workshop leaders

Two ways in

Two kinds of sponsorship.

Both are a sponsored year on Nautilus Medium. Pick the one that fits. For makers who teach, it’s Nautilus Large instead, with courses and memberships included. That’s something we settle with you when we talk, so there’s nothing extra to tick.

The Rockpool sponsorship

Chosen by your community.

We team up with craft fairs, guilds, open-studio schemes, makers’ networks and community groups, and with councils too. Each partner has sponsored years to give, and chooses who gets them, because they know who’s doing good work.

  • Your partner picks who gets one
  • A website, looked after on Bernard for a year
  • The whole kit that comes with it
  • Good for local makers, studios and trades
  • When you move on, your shell goes back to the partner’s pool for the next local maker

Run a craft fair, a guild or a makers’ network? Ask us about becoming a partner.

Become a partner

The High Tide sponsorship

For makers ready to be seen.

You’ve got the work and the people who love it. Now you want a proper home for it online, one that helps you show it off. We choose who gets High Tide.

  • Open to independent creatives and makers
  • Apply yourself, or put someone forward
  • A website, looked after on Bernard for a year
  • Everything you need to get your work in front of more people
  • If you stay on after your year, you hand the shell on by nominating the next maker

Sound like you? Tell us about your work.

Apply for High Tide

What you get

The whole kit, for the whole year.

A website is only the start. Bernard brings together the things you’d usually pay for separately, in one place. A sponsored year is a year on Nautilus Medium: the same plan our customers pay for.

  • A proper websiteMoved in from where it lives now, or started fresh with you. Looked after for the year, and changed by just asking.
  • Getting foundThe work behind the scenes that helps Google and AI assistants find you and describe you properly.
  • Your contactsEveryone who gets in touch, kept in one tidy list that’s yours.
  • Forms and sign-upsEnquiries, commissions, booking requests and waiting lists.
  • Email newslettersWrite to the people who love your work, from your own address.
  • Social postsBernard drafts your posts for you to approve. Nothing goes out until you say so.
  • A marketing planA plan every six weeks, with every piece drafted for you.

Teach as well as make? Your sponsored year is on Nautilus Large: all of the above, with courses and memberships included.

Nothing to pay for the year. What the plans include

Before and after

Google keeps the score. Here it is.

The average site arrives scoring 65 on Google’s mobile speed test. After Bernard’s worked his magic - the average score is 72.And it’s only going to get better.

Real Google Lighthouse scores from 10 live customer sites, each tested before and after, August 2026.

The chain

Meet the makers.

The makers we’re backing. More to come.

  1. MarciaDraw London WorkshopsFirst sponsored year
  2. Next in the chainApplications open

How it works

Four steps.

  1. Step 1

    Tell us about your work

    Who you are, what you make and where people can see it. Or tell us about someone whose work you love.

  2. Step 2

    We get to know you

    We look at your work and what you want it to do. For the Rockpool sponsorship, your partner makes the call.

  3. Step 3

    We build it together

    Bernard sets up your site and your tools, we show you round, and you have a year to grow into it.

  4. Step 4

    Hand the shell on

    High Tide: at the end of your year, if you stay, you nominate the next maker.

    Rockpool: your shell goes back to your partner’s pool for the next local maker.

Apply or nominate

Tell us about the work.

For yourself, or for a maker you think deserves more eyes. A few lines in each box is plenty.

Step 1 of 60%

You

Rather talk first? Write to hello@bernardmoves.com. A person reads every message, usually within 24 hours.

For partners

Bring Bernard to your makers.

We work with craft fairs, guilds, open-studio schemes, makers’ networks and community groups, and with councils too. There are three ways in.

  1. Make the awards yourselvesYou have Rockpool sponsorships to give, and you choose which of your members get them.
  2. Point your members to usSend your makers to this page to apply for themselves.
  3. A year for your organisationBy invitation only: a year of Bernard for the organisation itself, to broadcast with and to see how you get on.
Step 1 of 40%

Who you are

Questions

What’s the catch?

Why are you doing this?
Because it’s why we built Bernard in the first place. We wanted the people around us to have good tools without the cost and the headaches. Bernard Gives lets us do that for more people.
How long does a sponsorship last?
A full year. Nautilus Medium, the website and the whole kit, sponsored for 12 months.
I teach as well as make. Is that different?
Yes. For makers who teach, the sponsored year is on Nautilus Large, with courses and memberships included. We settle that with you when we talk, so there’s nothing extra to choose on the form.
What happens after the year?
We hope it’s gone well and you stay on as a paying customer. If not, that’s fine. Before your year ends, take your words, your images and your pages with you, and if you have your own web address, it’s yours and it goes with you. You can also apply again.
How do you choose?
For the Rockpool sponsorship, the partner chooses. For High Tide, we do, and we’ll be sensible about it. We look at your work and what a website could do for it.
Is there a limit?
No set number. We sponsor makers and work with partner organisations whenever it’s the right fit, and we make sure everyone we take on is properly looked after.
Can I nominate someone else?
Please do. Some of the best makers would never put themselves forward.
Our craft fair, guild or group wants to sponsor makers. How?
Send us the partner enquiry above. You can make the awards yourselves, point your members to us, or both.
We’re a bigger business. Can we apply?
Bernard Gives is for independent creatives and makers. Bigger firms can pay. (Do come and pay, though.)
The small print
Each sponsorship comes from Bernard Moves Ltd. It’s a sponsorship: we’re not a charity, and it’s not a grant. A sponsorship is a year of Bernard (the website and the tools), not cash, and there’s no cash alternative. For the Rockpool sponsorship, the partner decides who gets one. For High Tide, we do. Either way, there’s no appeal. We can withdraw a sponsorship if the site is used for anything unlawful or hateful. And we may say publicly who we’ve sponsored, because we’ll be proud of them.

How leaving works on any plan is in plain words on the cancelling page.

Know a maker whose work deserves more eyes?

Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s someone you know. Either way, we’d love to hear about them.

Apply or nominate

From the Bernard team, with love.