Audiences

There is support available for projects and programmes to develop your audience engagement. 

Accreditation

• How to Write an Audience Development Plan: A Quick Guide – Museum-iD (museum-id.com)
• Audience Agency: Creating an effective Audience Development plan (pdf)
• ​Example plan: Audience Development Plan 2018-2022.pdf (bristol.gov.uk)
• Collections Trust: Access policy statement template
• See the Collections Trust website for more on this: Users and their experiences – Collections Trust

National Schools Surveys 

For anyone planning educational activities and considering how schools are thinking about potential museum engagement during Covid-19, their needs and priorities and how you can best support them, the following reports may be helpful.  

• National Arts, Creative and Cultural Education Survey – July 2020 – Summary of Findings – from Royal Opera House Bridge  
• Teachers’ Survey on Digital Learning – from National Museums Scotland  

The Audience Agency 

The Audience Agency can help you overcome audience challenges and improve your relationship with them. They can support in the following areas: 

• Access and inclusion 
• Audience profiling and segmentation 
• Audience-centred design 
• Digital confidence 
• Evaluation and impact 
• Participation and learning 
• Place-shaping and collaboration 
• Resilience, innovation and enterprise. 

They have a number of resources freely available on their website or you can contact them to discuss working with them more closely: support@theaudienceagency.org. 

Audience Finder- Home | Audience Finder – a free national audience data and development tool, enabling cultural organisations to understand, compare and apply audience insight – you have to register.

Bounce Forwards: Digital Audience Survey – The Audience Agency have created a free digital survey for you to gain a snapshot of your digital audiences as you adapt your online offer. 

Evaluation and visitor insight resources 

• Evaluation toolkit for museums (SHARE Museums East, May 2020) – a toolkit intended as a guide for organisations, both small and large, to provide them with the confidence to commission and recognise effective evaluation delivered by consultants on their behalf, and / or carry out evaluation themselves. Commissioned by SHARE and supported by Arts Council England. 
• Understanding Your Audiences 2020 (aim-museums.co.uk) This is a useful guide that will help you decide which questions to ask based on what you want to find out and why
• Guidance on Measuring Visitor Satisfaction – Collections Trust

Online learning 

• GEM: learning resources 
• Digital Culture Network (DCN): delivering online webinars and talks 
• My learning: Reaching new audiences and inspiration for your online work 
• SHARE Museums East: Tips on creating resource boxes and other learning sessions 

Digital 

The Digital Culture Network are a sector support organisation who can help with your digital needs. Their online resources, and YouTube channel are free for anyone to use. They also have dedicated Tech Champions that you can go to for 1-1 support, if you are a museum eligible for Arts Council funding.

• Digital guide: working safely online with children and young people from the National Lottery Heritage Fund 
• How to Make Videos on your Smartphone – YouTube tutorial created by The Digital Culture Network   
• 15 tips to guide your web design – also from the Digital Culture Network 
• Social media in museums: Social media knowledge exchange (sharemuseumseast.org.uk)
• Digital accessibility resource for websites – view the guide 
• Planning a website build – key considerations, view the guide

Exhibitions and projects

• A guide to co-creating community projects: Co-creating-Community-Projects.pdf (sharemuseumseast.org.uk)
• Access standards for displays: Access for all (sharemuseumseast.org.uk)
• SHARE guide: Make it snappy: top tips for writing well

Access

Accessibility isn’t just about physical barriers to access. It’s also about ensuring everyone feels comfortable, welcomed and acknowledged in the museum space. The resources below have been compiled from various online sources – organisations mentioned can be contacted for more information, or to work more closely with your organisation on disability access audits and projects. 

• EMBED Reopening Recommendation guidance has been created in collaboration with the Disability Collaborative Network to support organisations in their decision making prior to reopening following COVID-19 lockdown
• Shape Arts: How to put on an accessible exhibition 
• Shape Arts: An Accessible Marketing Guide (20 ways to increase accessibility) 
• The Social Model of Disability  
• For more information on Disability Equality Training and Disability Access Audits, see the Shape Arts website. 
• Stagetext: Digital resources on subtitling and live captioning to make your organisation accessible for d/Deaf audiences 
• VocalEyes: How to make your organisation accessible for blind and partially sighted audiences  
• Autism in Museums: Resources  
• Welcoming (Back) Autistic Visitors – Blog from Jo Gillam, Essex based learning and engagement museum and culture professional
• South East Museum Development: SEND Toolkit (March 2018) 
• SHARE guide: Dementia friendly museums – Dos and Don’ts

If your museum is in the accreditation scheme, you can also get in touch with SHARE’s regional lead for Audiences in the East, Kathy Moore, to find out more about the support SHARE can offer in this area of work.