Rural Life Living Museum, Surrey

This outdoor collection of historic rural buildings needed support through a period of renewal.

Conducting an audit of all their assets revealed the activities that could be expanded, new opportunities for audience engagement, improvements to the visitor experience, potential for local partnerships and existing activities to drop.

This helped the new Director to refocus on a different mix of sustainable activity, allowing a re-set and revised relationships with staff and volunteers and a fresh direction to the venue.

The Museum has now recovered well and is thriving. It has a growing, loyal local audience and a better standard offer with fewer, more impactful special events. It has income to invest in the site and is building up reserves. It is continuing to use our work as a guide to future development and to increase its resilience.