You already have the community. Maybe what you need is the stage.

Every 100 Stories place has a lead Producer. That Producer becomes the local steward and public face of 100 Stories: [Place]. She works with 100 Stories Central to build a festival rooted in her community while remaining part of the larger platform.

1 Producer → 10 Curators → 100 Storytellers

The Producer does not have to discover, select, manage, and produce 100 storytellers alone. She builds the team that makes it possible.

Producers never select storytellers — curators do. That's the firewall that makes selection mean something.

You might be a founder, filmmaker, event producer, executive, artist, journalist, creative director, community organizer, philanthropist, educator, cultural leader, or entrepreneur. Your title matters less than the role you already play in your community.

People know you. People trust you. People answer when you call. You have relationships across worlds that do not always meet one another. You know interesting people. You know where things happen. You know who can open a door.

And you have some version of this desire: I want to build a stage for the people and stories I believe deserve to be experienced. That is what we are looking for.

Production experience is useful. It is not the most important qualification. Production teams can be hired. What is harder to hire is trust, taste, relationships, judgment, entrepreneurial energy, knowledge of a place, and the ability to gather people around an idea. A great 100 Stories Producer understands her community and wants to build something meaningful within it.

• The people — potential curators, storytellers, collaborators, advisors, community champions.
• The relationships — companies, foundations, philanthropists, cultural institutions, venues, media, community organizations.
• The room — the people who need to experience 100 Stories in your community.
• The place — what makes this festival unmistakably Missoula, Detroit, Atlanta, New York, New Orleans, or wherever it lives.
• The energy — the belief and momentum required to make something new real.

You are not expected to personally finance a 100 Stories festival, and you are not handed a logo and told to raise the entire budget yourself. The Producer and 100 Stories Central develop the business together. You bring local relationships and opportunities; we bring the partnership proposition, brand, materials, national relationships, sales infrastructure, and founder-level support. A festival moves into full production only once the agreed funding threshold is reached.

We want producing 100 Stories to create meaningful economic opportunity — not unpaid cultural labor.

A paid producer fee, built directly into the local festival budget.

Participation in the upside — Producers share meaningfully in the financial success of the local festival after agreed expenses and reserves are covered. If you build something culturally and financially valuable in your community, you should share meaningfully in the value you create.

Exact terms are established before a festival moves forward.

We are not building a network of contractors who execute the same festival in different cities. We are building a network of people who create stages for their communities. Montana should feel like Montana. New York should feel like New York. Detroit should feel like Detroit. 100 Stories provides the recognizable structure; the Producer helps the place speak for itself.

As 100 Stories grows, Producers become part of a national network — women in communities across the country who know how to gather people, move ideas, discover extraordinary voices, create partnerships, and build cultural experiences. They share knowledge, relationships, and sometimes storytellers.

100 Stories Producers are not behind the scenes. They are part of the story.

You don't need to arrive with a completed business plan. We want to know: Who are you? What place do you know deeply? What community have you already built? Who answers when you call? What kinds of people and worlds can you bring together? Why does your place need something like 100 Stories? And if you had a stage for 100 extraordinary stories — who would you want on it?