1. Evaluation of Digital Skills for Heritage

2. Digital Skills for Heritage initiative

The National Lottery Heritage Fund launched its £4.2million initiative to raise the digital skills and confidence of the heritage sector in February 2020. The ambitious programme responded to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) Culture is Digital policy work, which identified significant opportunities for heritage sector development through the use of technologies. DCMS later contributed an additional £1m to expand our successful work.

The aim of the initiative was to build digital confidence among small and volunteer-led organisations; to provide digital training and learning opportunities to increase the reach and impact of small and medium-sized organisations; and support digital leadership across the sector.

The initiative funded 55 projects that have supported over 53,000 individuals working and volunteering in over 6,400 organisations.

3. What the investment has made possible

The projects The National Lottery Heritage Fund has supported delivered at least 242,000 hours of training and development and created over 880 openly licenced learning resources. This has led to:

• 85% of projects increasing their digital skills and confidence
• 100% of Leading the Sector participants increasing their digital confidence
• the development of a UK ecosystem of 64 digital support organisations and experts
• an increase in access to heritage and an increase in reach to new heritage audiences

The impact and legacy of our Digital Skills for Heritage initiative has been impressive and thousands of individuals and organisations have improved their skills and confidence to use digital to make heritage more discoverable, accessible and open.

Eilish McGuinness, Chief Executive of The National Lottery Heritage Fund

4. Commitment to digital transformation

The evaluators, InFocus, identified a clear demand and need for digital skills and training. Organisations said they still struggled with time, capacity, resources and access to expertise.

Supporting the confidence of leaders and boards to prioritise digital transformation, and more knowledge sharing about low-cost uses of technology, will be crucial to achieving digital maturity in the heritage sector.

Digital remains a key priority under The National Lottery Heritage Fund’s 10-year Heritage 2033 strategy and runs through the investment principles that will guide its grant decision making over the next decade.

The Heritage Fund will continue to invest in digital for heritage through its National Lottery Heritage Grants.

5. Useful links

• The impact and legacy of our Digital Skills for Heritage initiative, The National Lottery Heritage Fund website

More help here

Video: Digital Skills for Heritage Initiative Evaluation Briefing

To accompany the publication of the report: Evaluation of the Digital Skills for Heritage initiative, a webinar was hosted by The National Lottery Heritage Fund on 8 March 2024. The speakers included Tom Keyte, Co-founder and Senior Consultant at inFocus and co-author of this report, and Josie Fraser, Head of Digital Policy at The National Lottery Heritage Fund. This webinar discussed the impact and legacy of the Digital Skills for Heritage initiative including recommendations for the future.

 

Welcome to Reflect, Share, Inspire – Digital Skills for Heritage

Eilish McGuinness, CEO, National Lottery Heritage Fund welcomes delegates to the Reflect, Share, Inspire event. This is followed by the opening panel session that reflects on the achievements of the Digital Skills for Heritage initiative over the past three years, share thoughts on some of the highlights and successes, as well as considering the initiative’s legacy.

 

Digital volunteering – panel session

The Digital Skills for Heritage digital volunteering programme was created following feedback from the Digital Attitudes and Skills for Heritage (DASH) survey, which identified the need for the heritage sector to create new types of volunteering opportunities that make use of digital skills. In this Reflect, Share, Inspire panel session five of the 17 heritage organisations that took part in this programme discuss their digital volunteering journeys.

 

Except where noted and excluding company and organisation logos this work is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) Licence

Please attribute as: "Evaluation of the Digital Skills for Heritage Initiative (2024) by supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, licensed under CC BY 4.0