Through 2024 (and now into 2025-26), AIM delivered the Connected Communities programme, part of the DCMS Know Your Neighbourhood fund.
This programme was designed to help museums both tackle chronic loneliness through their activities and to improve access to high-quality volunteering. As well as distributing grants totalling nearly £700,000, there was supporting capacity building programme, which I was a part of.
As the project support officer and legacy manager (the latter role co-delivered with Sophina Jagot), I witnessed each of the grant-awarded museums really strive to deliver outreach, programming and initiatives that were ambitious and impactful. Each worked with one, often several, partners to reach their most vulnerable and isolated communities, co-creating activities and supporting systems that were truly inclusive. It is not hyperbole to say these were projects that had a profound mpact not only on participants but on the organisations as well.
Part of my role was to create two new success guides on those themes: tackling chronic loneliness through your organisation’s activities, and improving access to high-quality volunteering.
If, like me, you have known and interacted with AIM for some time (my first involvement with AIM was 12 years ago, when I received an AIM Higher grant for some fundraising advice!), you’ll be very familiar with their success guides. The range is astonishing – from interpretation to audiences, from collections care to business planning – all written by experts in their field. Each one is free to download and access at any time.
And now, my writing joins the resource family! On 27th August, the Connected Communities success guides, written by me, were published and released to the world. There are contributions from Ingrid Abreu-Scherer, Jenni Waugh and Sophina Jagot, case studies, exercises to work through in your teams and links to further resources. There are also two accompanying videos where the toolkits are broken down for those who struggle with the written word.
You can access the guides and videos via this link. I hope you find them useful.
The Collett Consultancy 