3 parts of the project
The project is in 3 parts.
Part 1: Case studies of 10 cultural heritage organisations.
These are:
Bradford District Museums & Galleries
Land of Iron at Cleveland Ironstone Museum
National Mining Museum Scotland
St. Andrews Preservation Trust
Through the case studies, we will explore the complex relationships between older peoples’ experiences of moving out of a volunteering role and volunteer managers’ experiences of managing people through this process. The different organisations capture something of the diversity of the sector: national/local authority/independent museums; venues with paid staff/fully volunteer-run venues; the nature of the venue and collections (which draws different groups to volunteer there); urban/rural venues; different home nations (England & Scotland).
Documentary research will be used to develop a rich description of each case study organisation in terms of their history and current organisational structures and policies to understand the organisational context for the volunteer’s experiences. We will carry out semi-structured interviews with staff, volunteers and ex-volunteers. Our goal is to identify the mix of factors that shape the experience of volunteers and volunteer managers.
Part 2: National survey of volunteer managers designed and delivered with the support of our dissemination partners.
The survey will be aimed at volunteer managers in cultural heritage and other volunteer-involving sectors across the UK (e.g., health and social care or civil society groups), with a goal of 1000 responses. Survey questions will be based on the configurations of factors identified through the case studies. Analysis of the survey results will be used to test the findings of the case studies against the wider population of volunteer managers and establish the transferability of the findings to sectors beyond cultural heritage.
Part 3: Reflective conversations with staff at case study organisations and events organised to share project findings with non-partner organisations.
These conversations will explore the implications of the findings for practice We aim to encourage participants to share their own experiences. We plan to create time within these events for participants to reflect on their own practices and how they might be changed.
We anticipate that the successful management of this aspect of volunteering will depend on each individuals' circumstances and that there will not be a one-size-fits-all solution. So the goal is to produce a toolkit containing a repertoire of agreed good practice responses to commonly identified situations.