Future Proof Museums: 20 museums prepare for intensive workshops

Future Proof Museums is designed to significantly improve the resilience of museums and the selected museums are a range of organisations including small independent museums such as the Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds, to Major Partner Museums like the Horniman; council-operated Southend-on-Sea Museums Service to university-run Museum of English Rural Life. They are located across various regions in England and their diversity should ensure that participants in the programme will benefit from a range of experiences and knowledge as the Future Proof Museums network grows and develops.

Director of Museums at Arts Council England, John Orna-Ornstein said: “Future Proof Museums is an exciting new programme to help museums prosper at a time of challenge. I’m delighted to see such a strong and varied cohort of museums participating, and look forward to seeing the impact of the programme in the months to come.”

The intensive strategic change programme will enable museums to create a compelling manifesto to share across their museum; develop their business model and explore how it delivers value in line with their purpose; innovate around this model; provide a clear toolkit to review how to benefit from change; and give insight into the leadership culture within their organisation.

Stage One of the programme will involve trainer Andrew McIntyre (Morris Hargreaves McIntyre) working with the museum teams within their organisation in a diagnostic session; and will then be joined by fellow trainers Mark Wright (People Create), Susan Royce (Change Management Consultant) and Julie Aldridge (AMA) when the programme brings the leaders of the 20 organisations together for a three-day intensive residential in Stage Two at the Moller Centre, Cambridge from 24-26 September.

The Museum Director from each participating organisation will join us for a residential programme to explore a strategic change toolkit for their museum. Areas of work at the residential will include: Defining your museum’s cause – the difference it makes to the world, exploring the story of your museum and mapping its direction of travel, visualising your current business model, it’s strengths and weaknesses and exploring how to manage change successfully and overcome resistance within your organisation.

Stage Three will then conclude by providing on-going mentoring support, facilitation and leadership development with the museums’ teams.

AMA’s Executive Director, Julie Aldridge, said: “Future Proof Museums provides a unique opportunity for both our member and non-member museum community to benefit from a programme tailored specifically to their needs now, and for the future. We’re delighted at the amount of interest expressed in the programme that will result in more resilient museums being able to change, adapt, influence and remain relevant to an ever-changing external environment.”