Forum Connections: Building Capacity for Scotland's Museums Forums

Forum Connections was a 4-year project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF), to encourage greater partnership working in Scottish museums through investment in Scotland’s geographic forums. Forum Connections offered training courses and facilitated support in key areas of need, such as forward planning, fundraising, relationship building, and evaluating projects. The project also trained key staff and Forum leads. Additional support was offered to Forums on collaborative project development, funding applications, and audience development initiatives.

Undertaking more work in partnership is an important way for museums to develop more sustainable working practices. The aim of this project supports our National Strategy strand Resilience and the priority area Collaboration.

A dedicated Forums Fund was created to support museums to participate in the project. This supported museums to undertake the preparatory work required to ensure sustainability and effective partnership working. Forums were able to share best practice and resources, maximising opportunities for training, audience development, funding and advice.

The project concluded in 2025. The project evaluation was undertaken by the Diffley Partnership and their final report is available in our research and evaluation section.

MGS continues to work closely with geographic forums with each forum assigned a MGS Representative – a member of staff from MGS who acts as a main point of contact for the forum and offers ongoing support. MGS arranges two inter-forum meetings per year to provide a space for forum members to meet together with other forums to share knowledge and experience.