For many museums a small grant can be a powerful catalyst for development and improvement and our Small Open Grants are designed with exactly this in mind. We awarded 16 Small Open Grants in 2024, read on to find out how three different museums used them to power change for good.
Gillingham Local History Society (GLHS) used their Small Open Grant to fund the first part of a bigger audience and community building project at Gillingham Museum
The volunteer run museum wanted to understand and grow its local and wider audiences. This decision came after ‘Audiences’ were outlined as a priority theme for development following outcomes of the Organisational Health Check.
The project aim was to better connect GLHS with existing and potential audiences, enabling them to help shape the museum’s direction through questionnaires and consultation workshops. They appointed a local consultant to undertake the community consultation, which was essential to gaining insight into audience and volunteering potential, as well as engaging, connecting to and growing their users.
The audience insights gained from the community consultation activities will inform the development of an Audience Development Plan and Marketing Strategy. As an added a result of the activities, the GLHS museum team have an improved sense of pride and place in Gillingham and the local community have left with an enhanced enjoyment of local history. Volunteer growth is expected off the back of the activities.
This work will form the foundations of the second phase of the project, updating the brand identity, associated materials and social platforms which will provide a clear and accessible gateway for museum users. In addition, GLHS are creating branded role summaries to fill identified skills gaps. This will provide greater support to the existing volunteers and committee, while encouraging new volunteers of different backgrounds who have connected with the museum as a result of the project.
In 2020, The Wilson closed their museum wing for refurbishment. With renovation work complete and four large modern galleries now available, they needed to test ideas for their new museum, “Cheltenham’s BIG Museum Project”.
Our Small Open Grant funded “Cheltenham’s BIG Museum Project: Test Space”, The Wilson’s temporary interactive exhibition to consult with their communities. The aim of this exhibition is to understand how their communities connect with their collections, and what local people want from the reopening of the museum wing and its permanent galleries. The exhibition will be up for a whole year, to ensure it reaches as many people and gather as much information from visitors as possible.
They invited voices from all corners of Cheltenham to join in with the project in its first phase which was ensuring that the exhibition itself provided an overview of the collections with displays and interactives that met the needs of the community groups, testing out various opportunities for engagement within the exhibition. By also looking to amplify diverse voices and experiences and to cultivate a sense of ownership and pride in shared cultural heritage, these groups co-created community displays for the Test Space, sharing their stories around living in Cheltenham and their experiences. The temporary exhibition will lay the groundwork for the success of the new museum by cultivating an invested audience base through thoughtful curation and meaningful engagement, which will change throughout the year based on real-time feedback that is received through various feedback stations and workshops which will be held in the space.
Internally, “Cheltenham’s BIG Museum Project: Test Space” created positive change within their organisation, impacting staff and volunteers. By prioritising community engagement initiatives and fostering collaboration with diverse partners, the project cultivated a shared sense of purpose among staff and volunteers. There were also multiple opportunities for professional development and skill enhancement, empowering team members to refine their abilities in community outreach, curation, and audience engagement.
The Young Gallery is a free entry museum and they applied for a Small Open Grant to create resources that communicate the museum’s governance structure and the importance of donations, as well as purchase the infrastructure needed to allow donations.
The gallery’s recent Audience Development and Community Engagement work revealed that visitors do not understand the museum is an independent trust. This led to a skewed view about the governance of the museum, affecting its wider public image and making it difficult to have conversations about donations. The museum recently merged its two trusts and rebranded, making it easier to communicate the governance of the museum and how donations are used. The museum didn’t have any way for visitors to donate to the Trust directly, making this is an untapped revenue stream.
Through the project they trailed suggested donations, experimenting with different wording about donations, assessing different methods of collecting donations, and testing whether charging exhibitions is a future possibility. The Young Gallery worked with a freelance designer to create promotional materials which promoted different messaging. With the grant they purchased a contactless donation point, as well as the accompanying subscription (the latter is paid by from the Trust budget).
The project allowed staff and volunteers to engage visitors more easily by giving them the tools and support to share the messaging about governance and donations. Furthermore, the donations are going to be reinvested in the programme and collection, directly support the work of staff and volunteers, creating a more sustainably infrastructure for the museum.
How would your museum use a Small Open Grant? Apply for up to £10,000 to give your museum a long-lasting boost, you have until Monday 31 March.