Museum of Oxford listens to young voices

Museum of Oxford decided to apply for National Lottery Project Grants to develop and expand its work with local young people. David Juler, Museum Development Officer, tells us more about their application experience and how it helped the museum to engage more meaningfully with young people.

The Museum of Oxford is the only place to learn about the city and its people. In a city usually dominated by the story of its historic University, the museum’s collections, community work and focus are on Oxford’s diverse communities, both past and present.

An expansion project – which will create new spaces and displays featuring objects like Oxford United football shirts and spikes that adorned the Cutteslowe Walls – has brought the museum to a milestone in its development. It wanted to ensure young audiences in Oxford felt connected to the museum during the transformation and beyond. To achieve this, the museum applied for National Lottery Project Grants funding for Young Voices, an initiative designed to support the museum to work with young people, rather than for them.

“Oxford has the largest percentage to population of young people in the country. Many have volunteered with us, however there was a clear need to better engage with this important group in the city. At the centre of the Young Voices project is a youth panel, which is managed and guided by our Volunteer Engagement Officer. The youth panel is currently planning its first event for the Autumn of this year and will continue to produce these.”

The project also focuses on skills, training and career development. A paid traineeship and accredited course, developed in consultation with the youth panel, will give a young person the opportunity to step into a career in culture and museums. ‘This is my Object’ has seen a group of ESOL students from the City College receive training in photography and researching objects in the museum’s collections.

“As the project develops, we hope it will benefit both the museum and the young participants. By giving the young people involved the means to develop events, they will become engaged with the Museum and its collections. These projects hand over control to young people, working with them, rather than for them, to develop activity they will enjoy.”

The museum found the application process relatively straightforward, particularly because National Lottery Project Grants is a rolling funding scheme with a short turn around – offering a responsive funding opportunity.

“We felt that the [National Lottery] Project Grants guidelines had progressed from the Grants for the Arts scheme to better include the important work of museums. Young Voices was developed by staff within the Museum and the application completed by our Development Officer. Keeping the conversation open between our Development Officer and Volunteer Engagement Officer for this application was vital to ensure the expected outcomes were achievable.”

Top tip

“Read the guidance section focused on Museum projects. If anything is putting museums off from applying, such as the potential lack of ‘arts’ in their projects, this section clearly describes the types of projects [National Lottery] Project Grants can fund.”

Thinking of applying?