Connected Communities Commission – Call for Freelance Support

4th September 2025 10:29 am

Uncategorized

Commission Details

Fee Available: A maximum budget of £18,000. Up to £300 per day.
Application Deadline: Monday 22^nd September 2025, 5pm
Project Duration: October 2025 – February 2026 (2-3 day per week)

About Heritage Doncaster

Heritage Doncaster is a service of the City of Doncaster Council. We manage key cultural sites:

Danum Gallery, Library and Museum (in partnership with Doncaster Libraries)

Cusworth Hall & Park

City of Doncaster Archives

Learning and Community outreach service

We are committed to providing heritage for all and embed ourselves at the heart of Doncaster’s communities. Our work is bold, innovative, and provides high quality engagements.

Our award-winning History, Health and Happiness community outreach programme, funded by Arts Council England, tackles social isolation and promotes wellbeing through cultural engagement.

Background

In 2024, Heritage Doncaster partnered with B:friend to develop and pilot ‘Museum in a Box’ and ‘Museum at Home’ kits – Interactive resources designed for community groups and individuals unable to access cultural venues. This was funded by the Know Your Neighbourhood: Connected Communities initiative via AIM (Association of Independent Museums) on behalf of DCMS (Government Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport) and Arts Council England (ACE).

We now have:

10 Museum in a Box kits

15 Museum at Home kits

They cover different topics from, Stone Age to Life in the 1960’s.

Each kit includes:

A session plan or information booklet

Museum objects

Activity ideas including quizzes, games and crafts

Further funding has been unlocked to extend the reach of the Museum in a Box and Museum at Home Projects.

What we are looking for

We are commissioning a creative practitioner to:

Collaborate with our Culture Services Volunteer Co-ordinator to recruit and train up to 40 volunteers (new and existing) to deliver Museum in a Box sessions

Plan and support the delivery of sessions in at least 5 libraries or community venues

Engage with the Home Library Service to share Museum at Home kits

Identify and deliver sessions in 5 new care homes

Coordinate logistics for kit bookings, deliveries, and returns

Support group visits to cultural venues such as Cusworth Hall and Danum Gallery Library and Museum

Who we are looking for:

The ideal candidate will:

Be able to demonstrate experience of the successful delivery of previous creative community engagement projects

Be confident delivering heritage focused sessions to participants with a variety of lived experiences

Have demonstrable experience of delivering in an inclusive and accessible way

Understand specific additional needs of project volunteers and other participants

Be able to be flexible in adjusting the content/ format of the sessions if required

Be able to work with the Heritage Doncaster staff team

Participate in evaluation activity where required

Submission Details

Please submit the following:

A proposal of no more than four-pages A4 or a 5-minute audio/video clip, this must include a project description, engagement plan, any technical requirements and a simple breakdown of spend proposed (including a day rate and amount of days delivery).

A one-page outline of your experience of delivering similar work and other relevant experience.

An additional four pages of images are acceptable where relevant.

Submissions must not exceed 5MB.

To Jo McQuade [email protected] by noon on Monday 22^nd September 2025.

Applications will be scored against the following criteria: quality, experience, engagement, value for money, feasibility, and sustainability.

If you’d like to have an informal chat about the project please contact [email protected]

Written by Jo McQuade