Local history and heritage groups in communities across Ireland are being invited to access a new guide to help secure the future of their volunteer organisation.
Succession Planning: A Guide for Community Archives and Heritage Groups is a free resource developed by the Irish Community Archive Network (iCAN) - a National Museum of Ireland initiative delivered in partnership with the Heritage Council, participating Local Authorities and community groups across Ireland.
The Guide looks at ways volunteer groups can address some of the challenges that can influence their future success. Common challenges include attracting new members, getting young people involved; keeping adequate records; or losing access to accounts due to lost passwords or IT crashes.
Effective succession planning addresses these challenges so that groups can safeguard their work into the future.
iCAN was set-up to support volunteer groups across Ireland to develop and maintain their own community archive. It developed the Guide to provide a simple step-by-step process for good succession planning - from having written goals, objectives and operational procedures to protecting passwords and access to websites and social media accounts.
The Guide is now available to download for free.
Speaking at the launch, Lorna Elms, iCAN Development Officer, said:
iCAN works to empower local communities to document their own history, heritage and culture. This Succession Planning Guide is designed for community archives and heritage groups to ensure their work is future-proofed. It provides a structured approach to forward-planning which, if carried out on an annual basis, will help to ensure groups are maintained and continue to thrive.”
Aalia Kamal, Cultural and Inclusive Heritage Officer with the Heritage Council and a member of the iCAN Advisory Group, also attended the launch. She said:
Local heritage groups are doing invaluable work developing archives and sharing knowledge, collections, stories and local history. The Heritage Council is delighted to support this work through our involvement with iCAN. The Succession Planning Guide we are launching here today is another great resource provided by iCAN to volunteer researchers and archivists in communities.”
Mary O’Malley, from the Louisburgh-Killeen Heritage Group in Co. Mayo and member of the iCAN Advisory Group, also attended the launch. Welcoming the publication of the new Guide, she said:
I am delighted this Succession Planning Guide is now available to download for free to groups across Ireland. iCAN members have drawn on their collective experience and contributed their thoughts and ideas to develop the guidelines, audits and checklists comprised in the guide and I am sure these will provide a very useful tool and resource for groups who are working to document their local history, heritage and culture and make it available to others. Indeed this Succession Planning Guide is a template for any volunteer led community group looking to plan for the future."
Marie Mannion, Heritage Officer with Galway County Council, also welcomed the launch of the Guide:
There are 36 community archives developed through iCAN with heritage groups across Ireland and this resource will help to promote the long term sustainability of these archives and groups. It is hugely important to ensure volunteers can continue to access their websites into the future and to prioritise the ongoing feasibility of the volunteer group itself. The Succession Planning Guide provides lots of practical tips, advice and processes for that purpose.”
The Succession Planning Guide follows on from the recent launch of the iCAN publication ‘The Possession of his every neighbour’: A guide to researching and writing local history’ by Tomás Mac Conmara. This guide is available now from the National Museum of Ireland book shops or by request to ican@museum.ie.