Taking Digital Forward

An open laptop. A notebook. A lit sign says: You got this.

Taking digital forward

Taking Digital Forward was funded through The National Lottery Heritage Fund as part of the Digital Skills for Heritage initiative to help small to medium sized heritage organisations grow their own digital skills and confidence.

Taking Digital Forward comprised of the Digital Heritage Lab and The Lab, and Heritage Digital and the Heritage Digital Academy.

The Digital Heritage Lab was a free digital skills development programme managed by the Arts Marketing Association with project partners Cause4, the Collections Trust and One Further.

It helped heritage organisations to develop their digital capabilities and capacity with free training. It also provided digital mentoring support to 60 heritage organisations as part of The Lab.

Recordings of Digital Heritage Hub online training sessions and case studies from The Lab can be found below.

Heritage Digital and the Heritage Digital Academy provided free digital skills training and support to heritage organisations in a series of unique digital business support courses focused on innovation, enterprise, and organisational planning; providing tools heritage organisations need to make effective use of digital within strategic and operational planning. It was managed by The Heritage Alliance with project partners Media Trust, Charity Digital and Naomi Korn Associates.

Recordings of Heritage Digital training sessions and written resources can be found on the Heritage Digital website.

Stories from The Lab

How a very small museum is using digital to tell its big story
Image courtesy of Richard Jefferies Museum ©

How a very small museum is using digital to tell its big story

Covid secure boom pole in action during recording of Podtours podcast
Image courtesy of St Mellitus Organ Restoration Project © Photo Charlotte Wilson.

Using podcasts to engage with new audiences

The red brink frontageof Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery. Flowers edge the path
Nuneaton Museum & Art Gallery

How a local museum used data and insight to develop a focused digital content plan

A young boy in a blue top and yellow hat uses a blue magnifying glass to look closer at a tea scale.
Image courtesy of the Museum of Royal Worcester. Photo Steve Carse ©.

How the events of the past year gave a museum the opportunity to improve their digital foundations

A cutaway illustration of the original Rose Theatre.
The reconstituted cutaway view of the first Rose. Image courtesy of The Rose Theatre Trust.

How online events can increase audience engagement and donations

Hereford Cathedral welcoming visitors to Heritage Open Days 2020.
Image courtesy of Hereford Cathedral ©.

Digital audience engagement during a heritage project … and a pandemic

The reconstituted cutaway view of the first Rose, by William Dudley, incorporating material by Jon Greenfield and C. Walter Hodges, taken from the guidebook, ‘The Rose, Bankside’s first theatre 1587’.
Image courtesy of The Rose Theatre Trust.

How online events had a positive impact on audience engagement and donations for a small heritage organisation

Image of a steam train No. 46203.
Image courtesy of Princess Royal Class Locomotive Trust ©

Using digital collections to educate, inform and motivate

Digital Heritage Lab online training

Digital Heritage Hub is managed by Arts Marketing Association (AMA) in partnership with The Heritage Digital Consortium and The University of Leeds. It has received Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and National Lottery funding, distributed by The Heritage Fund as part of their Digital Skills for Heritage initiative. Digital Heritage Hub is free and answers small to medium sized heritage organisations most pressing and frequently asked digital questions.

Arts Marketing Association
Heritage Digital
University of Leeds logo
The Heritage Fund logo