The Underpinnings Museum is now a member of AIM

Running an online museum has its own special rewards and challenges. Although we have lots of visitors, we don’t get to meet you all in person and chat about what you liked or didn’t like in our exhibitions. Although costs are lower than for a museum with a physical location, there are still many outgoings (including new acquisitions, photography, and web hosting).

Learning how to share our collections to help inspire and increase knowledge is something that we’ve mostly been doing so far by drawing on our own experiences of other museums and then thinking “what would I like to see on the Underpinnings Museum’s website?” This is why we decided to join the Association of Independent Museums (AIM), which is an organisation that was set up to support independent museums in the UK. They offer advice and networking with other museums and heritage sites, access to grants, and practical information on museum operation.

We support and champion independent museums, galleries and heritage organisations in the UK – helping them to achieve their purposes and ensuring their needs are recognised and addressed by policy makers, funders and other organisations working in the sector.

AIM helps heritage organisations prosper. We believe that museums must prosper – grow fit and healthy – to fulfil their purposes and demonstrate the relevance and importance of our heritage to everyone, so that it is preserved and inspires all our futures.

Hopefully membership of AIM will allow our little museum team to expand our knowledge and find new ways to pay for all the exciting things that we’d love to do with this project, whilst also inspiring new directions. Here’s to another two years of underpinnings joy!