Resources

Useful documents and resources have been carefully selected by our team, to support you in the work you do.

Browse and click the link to download information that is relevant to you. Remember to let us know if you see or produce something you think may be of interest to others.

Audience and Visitors

NEW! AIM Success Guide: Successful Visitor Experience
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Collections Care, Documentation and Display

AIM Focus Paper: Basic Conservation & Environmental Monitoring
Basic advice about conserving your collections, maintaining and monitoring their environment.
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Creating a safe environment for employees, volunteers and visitors

AIM Focus Paper: Risk Management and Insurance for Museums
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Environmental Sustainability

Green Museums Toolkit
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Museums Association guidance on sustainability in museums
Find out more here

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Fundraising and Grants

NEW! AIM Success Guide: Successful Fundraising
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AIM Focus Paper: Fundraising for Museums 
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Governance and Trustees

Governance

Setting up Voluntary and Community Sector Groups
This guide will take you step by step through the process of setting up a new group. It covers aspects such as recruiting a management committee, drafting your constitution and roles and responsibilities of a management committee.
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Governance & Organisational Structures (Governance Hub)
Guidance of governance and organisational structures and how to set up.
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Your Guide to Voluntary and Community Sector Legal Structures
This guide outlines the different legal structures for new groups or to help established groups review their current legal status.
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Co-operative UK – Simply Legal
A clear, simple and understandable guide to the legal and governance processes required to support the third sector – from co-operatives to social enterprises. Second Edition.
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Choosing and preparing a governing document (CC22)
Find out how what type of governing document a charity might use and how to formally adopt your governing document.
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Model Memorandum and Articles of Association (GD1)
Guidance on Model Memorandum and Model Articles of Association for a charitable group.
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Model Trust Deed for a Charitable Trust (GD2)
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Model Constitution for a Charitable Association (GD3)
Download here

Trustees

Good Trustee Guide
Ideal as an introductory pack for new board members, or as a refresher for long serving trustees. The Good Trustee Guide provides comprehensive information about a Trustee’s role and guidance on developing an effective trustee board.
Find out more here

Trustee Recruitment Toolkit
The Toolkit sets out practical advice for seeking the best people to govern a community or voluntary organisation.
Find out more here

The Essential Trustee (CC3)
Find out what is required of you as a charity trustee and your rile and responsibility to the charity.
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Finding New Trustees (CC30)
Find out about the recruitment, appointment and induction process for new trustees and ow to set a framework for recruitment.
Download here

Effective Governance

Good Governance – A code for the Voluntary and Community Sector
It sets out best practice for governing a voluntary or community organisation, summary version also available.
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Learning to Fly: Piloting your local voluntary or community organisation
Guidelines and tips on how a committee should run a local organisation
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Tending your board
This guide recognises that many organisations struggle to find the time to review their board’s performance. Suggestions are grouped into monthly themes, in order to help Trustees make inroads into improving the work they do.
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What management committees need to know
A guide aimed at helping small voluntary organisations and community groups understand the Trustee and management Committee National Occupational Standards.This is a Governance Hub publication.
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Hallmarks of an effective charity (CC10, previously CC60)
Find out how charity Trustees can set standards to improve the effectiveness of their charity’s work.
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Trustee Liabilities and Risk Management

Reducing the Risks – A guide to Trustee Liabilities (version 3.0, published March 2011)
A guide designed to help Trustees learn to assess and minimise the risks associated with Trustee liabilities.
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Learning

AIM Focus Paper: Learning in Smaller Museums
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Marketing and Promotion

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Museum and Gallery

NEW! AIM Success Guides: Successful Venue Hire and Corporate Hospitality
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Preservation and conservation (RR9)
Summarises the views of the Charity Commission on organisations set up for the charitable purposes of preservation and / conservation.
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Museums and Art Galleries (RR10)
Provides the Charity Commission’s views on the need for a museum or art gallery to satisfy a criterion of merit in order to be recognised as charitable.
Download here

AIM Focus Paper: Governing Independent Museums
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AIM Focus Paper: Using Museum Consultants
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AIM Focus Paper: Creating and Implementing Forward Plans
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Partnerships

NEW! AIM Success Guide: Working Internationally
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Retail

NEW! AIM Success Guide: Successful Museum Cafes
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NEW! AIM Success Guide: Successful Retail
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AIM Focus Paper: Retail Guidelines for Small Museums
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AIM Focus Paper: Successful Museum Cafes
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AIM Focus Paper: Venue & Location Hire 
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Setting up a new museum

Useful information

Are you thinking about setting up a new museum? Have you considered other options? Is a new museum the right course of action? Would it be better to organise exhibitions in temporary locations with partners? Or what about a virtual museum?

There is nothing wrong in setting up a new museum, but they can be costly to run and are a lot more than a building with a collection of objects. Before you take the plunge make sure you have considered all of the options.

The following are essential reading:

AIM Focus Paper: Setting up a New Museum
The AIM website has a range of advice and information papers aimed at independent museums.  Setting up a New Museum specifically addresses these issues but there are also several others that are really useful and relevant including Creating and Implementing Forward Plans, Risk Management and Insurance for Museums, Learning in Smaller Museums and Working with Volunteers: An Introduction to Good Practice.
Download here

Big Questions, Big Answers: A guide to issues surrounding heritage development
Published by the Scottish Museums Council.This takes a wider look at heritage than traditional museum displays and has a variety of case studies and suggested options.  It is useful for helping to focus thinking around the kinds of activities you can undertake with heritage and what interest there might be in them.  If you are seriously considering setting up a new museum, running through the ‘big questions’ at the back of this publication is an excellent place to start.
Download here

The Museums Association
The MA website has a number of downloadable documents about Ethical Guidelines, Toolkits and Advice.  These will help you to become aware of the ethical issues you need to be aware of when setting up a new museum.
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Volunteers

NEW! AIM Success Guide: Successfully Recruiting and Retaining Volunteers
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AIM Focus Paper: Working with Volunteers – An Introduction to Good Practice
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AIM Focus Paper: Recruiting and Retaining Volunteers – a practical introduction
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