AIM (Association of Independent Museums) helps heritage organisations to improve their resilience and thereby to prosper. They do this by providing regular sector updates, targeted grants, training programmes, and a range of expert advice and guidance services. AIM also commissions research on behalf of the sector and undertakes advocacy for the sector. Through their ‘helping organisations’ strand they provide a wide variety of advice including setting up a museum, governance, and trustee and volunteer. Their latest video case studies include two industrial heritage sites in England https://aim-museums.co.uk/helping-organisations/case-studies/

Amberley Museum in Sussex (left), which received a Culture Recovery Fund grant, undertook a strategic review with museum staff and volunteers. They went back to the museum’s vision in order to create a two-year action plan, reflecting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, for the 36 acre site to help them fulfill their overarching objectives.

The London Museum of Water and Steam took part in AIM’s Prospering Boards initiative in 2019. The museum’s director, Liz Power, discusses in the video her experience of this process and how this helped to make the board stronger and more effective. This proved a timely move, with the pandemic making it even more important to have a clear strategy, objectives, and values for the museum.