As public sources of funding are increasingly pressured, museums must be able to think and act commercially. We have developed a number of relationships, events and resources which support this aim. These include support visits to smaller museums and related training sessions from SHARE contributors.

We are currently working in partnership with the Association of Cultural Enterprises (ACEnt). This has resulted in bursaries to attend their annual convention, supporting organisational membership to ACEnt, and resources on retail tips and thinking like a business. We also offer bursaries for museum staff from the Eastern region to attend the ACEnt Convention. You can read reports on the convention from two past attendees below:

 ACEnt Convention Report – Elise Naish (2013) ACEnt Convention Report – Charlotte Radford (2014)

A SHARE Museums East seminar on commerciality in April 2013 resulted in the creation of the SHARE Retail Forum, a self selecting group of the region’s museums that trained to implement retail KPIs. The group SHARE data and experiences on a quarterly basis.

We use the work of the Retail Forum to share experience and learning to other museums via training events, study days, and resources for tracking and using retail data.

Acknowledging the strong link between successful business and good customer service, we will be working with the SHARE Front of House Forum to establish NVQ awards in Visitor Services for museum staff and volunteers, and in partnership with the Museum of London we are developing a mystery shopper scheme for museums in the East of England.

A new Museum Leaders programme focussed on supporting staff in smaller provincial museums also supports business-minded thinking.

To find out more about our Resilience programmes, please contact [email protected].