New Stories New Audiences Evaluation Brief – AIM

Introduction

The Association of Independent Museums is a thriving UK museum membership organisation with over 1000 museum members. We represent a wide range of the UK’s museum and heritage organisations, from some of the largest attractions in the country to small, grassroots heritage organisations across a huge range of subject areas and localities. AIM helps heritage organisations prosper. We believe that museums must grow to fulfil their purpose and demonstrate the relevance of heritage to everyone.

Funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund, AIM’s New Stories New Audiences scheme offers grants of up £15,000 to AIM’s smaller members to deliver projects that tell a new story that will attract a new audience for their organisation. We’ll support museums to work with new partners and try out something new. The grant scheme will run over three years.

We know that all museums need to increase and widen their audiences to enhance their sustainability and to widen participation to groups that they do not currently attract. We want New Stories New Audiences to inspire museums to stay relevant to their audiences and to increase their impact.

The scope of this evaluation work will cover overall delivery of the project, led by AIM staff and a freelance Project Support Officer as well as the 36 different museum projects. The evaluation will need to consider the impact that the grants have had on the museums and their audiences and whether the projects have delivered the NLHF outcomes.

Evaluation aims

The evaluation will measure which of the NLHF outcomes the projects have delivered. They must all achieve the first outcome and one other.

1. Audiences: How successful has the project been at enabling museums to get a wider range of people involved in heritage?
2. The Heritage: Has the project ensured that heritage is better identified and better explained? Have people learnt about heritage leading to change in ideas and actions?
3. Skills: What skills have people developed during the project (volunteers, museum staff and participants)?
4. Quality and enjoyment: Have people enjoyed taking part and has wellbeing improved?
5. Community impact:  How has the project improved museum’s relationships with their community and have they developed new partnerships?
6. Resilience: Are the funded organisations (AIM and the participant museums) more resilient?
7. Economic impact: Has this project made the local area (for the museums) a better place to live, work or visit?
8. Lessons learnt: What lessons can be learnt from this project for future developments?

The Brief

We are looking for a consultant (or team of consultants) to partner with us to undertake the following deliverables:

• An Evaluation Framework that sets out the methodology for the evaluation and tools to enable the museums to collect data and information.
• A workshop for each cohort to help explain the requirements for the evaluation of each project.
•  A workshop or focus group for each cohort (at the end of each year) to help understand the impact and delivery of the outcomes.
• A short framework for each project to complete at the end of their grant phase to measure the outcomes and understand lessons learnt from the project (see note below).
• A report at the end of each year to summarise the projects and demonstrate how they have delivered the outcomes and the impact that the project has had on the organisations involved.
• A final evaluation report at the end of three years to summarise the impact on the organisations who took part and for AIM’s strategic aims.

For each project the following information will be required:

• Numbers of visitors before and after the project
• The number of people involved in the project (and demographic information)
• Volunteer hours and how volunteers were involved
• The impact on the organisation and partners
• How the project has met the NLHF outcomes
• New partners and the impact this has had on the organisation
• Long term benefits and the impact on the organisation as a whole

The process of gathering this information from each museum must be straightforward and made as simple as possible.

The final written report should interpret the full range of agreed monitoring and evaluation data from across the whole project against the project’s logic model; and provide evidence for achievement of relevant outcomes in the NLHF outcomes. In addition to the final report, we would like a one-page infographic based on the evaluation, that describes our achievements and successes to share with stakeholders and to use in our promotions.

Skills and experience

• Experience in developing and implementing monitoring, evaluation systems and framework
• Understanding of Theory of Change and the logic-model approach to
• Proven skills in measurement of programme outcomes, including people and community engagement/ wellbeing and social inclusion and advocacy outcomes using a range of evaluation techniques
• Experience of analysing monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment data to draw meaningful conclusions and reports
• Experience of training and supporting others, including volunteers, in getting the best of out of evaluation
• Strong report writing, presentation writing and presentation delivery skills; to engage a wide range of internal and external stakeholders

Management and reporting arrangements

The appointed consultant will be contracted by AIM and will report to the Programmes Manager.

Quote process

This is a competitive quote based on the submission of a project proposal that can be fully delivered within the allocated budget to include all expenses and materials. The schedule for payment will be agreed at the initiation meeting. Phased payments are anticipated.

The indicative budget available for this work is £17,000 plus VAT and is spread over four years. There is more budget allocated to years one and three to allow for initial work to set up the framework and for the completion of an overall report.

Year one (2022): £5,500

Year two (2023): £4,500

Year three and four (2024-2025): £7,000

Submitted quotations should:

• Provide a project proposal outlining in detail the approach and methodology you would propose to deliver this project and engage with the internal project team
• Provide a budget breakdown based on the needs outlined in this brief i.e. overall costs including a breakdown giving the daily rates of each team member’s expenses and VAT, if applicable.
• An overview of your relevant skills and experience
• Provide contact details of two referees who can be contacted to confirm the consultants’ expertise, experience and track
• The extent of professional insurance or indemnity cover

We would expect the successful consultant to be familiar with the National Lottery Heritage Fund guidance documents around monitoring and evaluation.

Scoring criteria for initial submission:

• An exciting and creative project proposal that includes all elements of the brief and meets our aspirations for the evaluation process 35%
• Value for Money 25%
• Relevant experience 25%
• Feasibility of the proposal in relation to timescale and resources 10%
• Risk management 5%

Quote arrangements:

Quotes should be submitted as electronic copies to the main contact:

AIM Programmes Manager, Margaret Harrison Margaret@aim-museums.co.uk

Timescale

Quotes should be submitted by 5pm on Monday 6 December and we intend to make an appointment by Tuesday 14 December.

The successful contractor should be able to start work at the beginning of January 2022.