AIM Director Lisa Ollerhead looks ahead.
I wrote recently about the value of advocacy – what AIM does on your behalf, and with sector colleagues, and how you can advocate for your own organisation – particularly through using our Economic Impact Toolkit. We continue our advocacy work with ever more urgency this year and are asking you to do so as well. In part, this is because we are preparing for a Comprehensive Spending Review in Westminster, which will set spending levels for the coming years, including for Arts Council England, and via settlements to the devolved governments. We expect this to be announced by June, which gives a bit of extra time to make the case.
At the national level we are hearing strong messages that economic growth is the priority. The creative industries have been identified as a British success story, one of eight industries the Government will focus on over the next few years. Museums are part of this – a foundational sector, in the language of the Industrial Strategy – and we are working with Art Fund and National Museum Directors’ Council at speed to ensure we can make the argument effectively as to why museums and heritage need to be supported for the creative industries to do better.
Local Advocacy
At AIM Conference last year, I was asked for tips on advocating to local decision-makers. I believe the key to any advocacy work is understanding what the people you’re advocating to want, and being able to tell them how you will help them to achieve it. At the local level, your councillors and councils, MPs, and other voluntary organisations likely all want the same thing as you: a happy, healthy, educated and inspired community. Local advocacy is showing how your museum or heritage site helps make that happen.
We encourage you to contact and involve your MPs. Letters from MPs to Government are taken seriously because they show something is important to a local area and its constituents. You can use the Economic Impact Toolkit to show your financial value to your local area (a language local and central government speak best, or at least most), audience data you collect shows who visits and how much they enjoy it, and anecdotes about particular exhibitions, programmes, activities, or visitors demonstrate your contributions. If your MP hasn’t been to your museum recently, invite them in to see what you do, and ask them to share it with DCMS and ask for support for museums, now, and in the future.
Resources
Our website holds useful resources that can help in your advocacy work, including the Economic Impact work and Pleasure, Connection, Purpose research published in 2023 on how museums can build greater support. Check out the links below and do let us know how we can further support your local advocacy.
Other news
Blandford Town Museum bringing history to the visually impaired and disabled
“Reaching Out with Sound” aims to bring history to the visually impaired and disabled using Navilens codes alongside exhibits in the museum.
Bridging Continents: How Trimontium empowers volunteers with CatalogIt
How The Trimontium Museum streamlined its cataloging and enabled remote volunteers to bring stories of this Roman fort to life.
Delapré Abbey unveils new exhibition funded by AIM
Delapré Abbey has launched a new exhibition exploring the refugee heritage of the Bouverie family, the last family to own the historic site.