Museums Association: Bold Futures
Overview
Programme Mission
To undertake values-led work that involves underrepresented audiences and explores how this can affect future purpose and financial sustainability
Key Audiences
Each programme should involve:
- Underrepresented audiences as active partners/participants
- Senior decision makers who have oversight on values-led operations and financial sustainability or the organisation
Programme Goals
- Bring together a science centre cohort of active champions for community representation and public engagement
- Provide opportunity to shape new routes into financial sustainability, within the context of the Science and Discovery Centre Futures report and impact of the pandemic.
- Significantly increase participation from underrepresented audiences in the work of funded organisations, contributing to broader audiences overall.
- Fund ~10 organisations with grants of £10k-£25k.
- Promote developmental approaches to changemaking and innovation based on evidence and evaluation disseminated from the cross-sector workshops.
Is your Organisation eligible?
Organisations will be eligible to apply for funding if:
This grant is in place for science and discovery centres and museums, reaching beyond the previous restrictions of the ISF fund with no restrictions on visitor numbers. Before applying, please consider whether the Science Centre Futures report aligns with your identity as a science and discovery centre.
The Grants
The grant available is for £10,000 - £25,000 and may be used to contribute to staff time, external expertise, community partnerships, or other costs your organisation needs to make a great success of this project.
All applications must:
- Be for time-limited projects of 6-12 months and
- Be led by a member of the science and discovery centre network
- Identify an existing need, for example how you have defined underrepresented audiences to work with.
Please include in your proposal:
- Explanation of the context of the work you are hoping to do with these capacity building grants
- How this aligns with your values-led practice and supports your future development
- How this work will lead to longer term sustainability and resilience
- How you will address at least one of the themes from the recent learning programme of workshops (September 2022, The Liminal Space)
Grantees
Seven organisations from across the UK have been awarded grants to deliver their Bold Futures programme starting in January 2023. See here