CARAD Rhayader Museum – AIM Hallmarks in Wales

AIM grant: £3,850
Fundraising mentor and tutor

We applied to AIM for support to employ a fundraising tutor to help us improve our skill set, give us the confidence to complete more complex application forms and help us to be more methodical in our fundraising. We held face to face training sessions for volunteers and trustees and were pointed towards additional funding training.

This has been a really useful appointment because it covered time over lockdown when we were closed to the public; we were able to review the overall direction of the organisation and the purpose and relevance of our existing small folk museum displays. We decided to expand our display space, enabling us to increase the range of subjects in line with community consultations begun the year before.

We looked the sustainability of the organisation. We are volunteer run, with Trustees as managers; we need to employ staff who can take over the day to day running of the organisation and leave Trustees free to concentrate on Governance. This would be better achieved by growing the organisation further and so being able to attract more substantial funding from statutory bodies to cover that cost.  We tackled applications to new funders which were successful.

We also became aware of how poor our original digital presence was but employing a Digital Officer has enabled us to have a new website, to establish, renew and maintain various digital platforms and run many digital projects which had real world outcomes. The possibilities that opened up have had significant positive effects on some members of our community and volunteers.

We then applied for more substantial funding from the Welsh Government under its ‘Transformations’ strand of capital funding.  The application was complex, challenging and was certainly not one we would have entertained trying to complete prior to this training. We were successful and that success has allowed us to dream bigger.  We are developing our outside space as well as looking at new ways to use the building. It will allow us to do more with more people and has already brought new volunteers to us.

All in all, the training sessions we’ve had have enabled us to make substantial organisational changes as well as to feel confident in taking on more complex forms which will allow us to build on those changes going forward.

Catherine Allan, Chair of Trustees, CARAD Rhayader Museum