There is something particularly interesting about Arts Council England’s new £13.6 million Museum Transformation Programme. Not simply the amount of money available – or even the fact that income generation is explicitly part of it. What feels significant is what the programme is prepared to invest in.
This is not a capital fund. Instead, the focus is on transforming operating models and strengthening long-term financial resilience – potentially through digital capability, data, organisational change, skills, leadership, partnerships, income diversification and new ways of working.
That feels important. For a long time, the cultural sector has been comfortable talking about the need for greater financial resilience, yet resilience is sometimes treated as though it is principally an income problem.
Earn more. Fundraise more. Find another sponsor. Increase secondary spend. Grow audiences. All of those things may be part of the answer, but they are rarely the whole answer.
Resilience is an organisational challenge
If an organisation’s systems are not working, its data is poor, its people are overstretched, its structure no longer fits its purpose or its operating model has become unaffordable, simply setting a bigger income target will not solve the underlying problem. Indeed, it may simply place more pressure on an organisation that is already stretched.
That is why I think the Museum Transformation Programme represents an interesting development in the way we talk about public investment in culture.
Investing in capability
We often think about investment in culture through what we can see – a restored building, a new gallery, a programme, or an exhibition. But investment in the capability of the organisation itself can be just as important to its future:
- Better data
- Different skills
- Stronger leadership
- Systems that work
- A more appropriate operating model
- Teams working differently
- New partnerships.
All of these can increase an organisation’s ability to respond, adapt and make better use of limited resources. They may be less visible than restoring a roof or opening a gallery, but they can be every bit as important to an organisation’s ability to deliver its mission – and that leads to an important distinction.
Public investment and income generation are not opposing ideas. Public investment can help organisations build the capability, confidence and resilience to generate more of their own resources – while continuing to deliver public benefit. That feels like a much more useful conversation.
Enterprise is bigger than income
For Cultural Enterprises, there is another reason this matters. Enterprise in culture is still too often understood simply as commercial activity – retail, catering, events, venue hire, membership, licensing, and so on.
Those activities are hugely important. They generate income, create experiences and can strengthen the relationship between cultural organisations and their audiences. But enterprise is bigger than any individual income stream – it is about resourcefulness.
The ability to understand what is changing around you, make good decisions, use assets well, test new approaches, build partnerships, adapt when something no longer works and find new ways to create value.
That is why organisational capability matters. A strong commercial idea will not reach its potential if the systems around it are weak. A fundraising strategy will struggle if the underlying data is unreliable. Digital transformation will achieve little if people do not have the skills or confidence to use it. And diversification is difficult if every part of an organisation is already operating at full stretch.
Enterprise works best when it is embedded in how an organisation thinks and operates, not bolted on as an income target.
Collaboration can be part of resilience too
There is another aspect of the programme that caught my attention. It recognises partnerships, consortia and shared services as legitimate routes to transformation. That matters because resilience does not necessarily mean every organisation becoming completely self-sufficient. Sometimes the opposite is true.
There are capabilities that smaller organisations may never sensibly be able to maintain permanently in-house. There are systems, skills and expertise that can be shared. And there are common problems that may be better tackled together.
That exchange should work both ways. Larger organisations may have specialist capability they can share. Smaller organisations can bring agility, ingenuity and different ways of working. Organisations in the same place may find opportunities to collaborate, while organisations separated by hundreds of miles may still be wrestling with the same challenge.
Collaboration should not simply consume capacity. Done well, it can create it – and at a time when so many cultural organisations are operating with stretched teams, that matters.
Transformation requires choices
I was also struck by the programme’s willingness to acknowledge something we do not always talk about comfortably enough in culture – transformation may involve stopping things.
Too often, resilience conversations focus entirely on what organisations should add – whether that’s a new income stream, a new audience, a new programme, a new partnership, or a new piece of technology.
But organisations rarely create meaningful capacity simply by adding more. Sometimes transformation means redesigning, or concentrating effort. Sometimes it means partnership – and sometimes it means deciding that something which once made sense no longer does.
That is not failure. It is part of being an enterprising organisation.
This is ultimately about mission
The purpose of all this is not commercialisation for its own sake. The programme connects financial and operational resilience with museums remaining open, collections remaining accessible and organisations continuing to serve audiences and communities.
That connection is crucial. Culture should not have to choose between mission and enterprise. The question is how enterprise can help make mission sustainable:
- How better data can help us make better decisions
- How stronger income can protect public access
- How digital capability can deepen engagement
- How partnerships can increase capacity
- How organisational change can allow limited resources to have greater impact.
That is why I think the Museum Transformation Programme is worth paying attention to beyond the organisations that ultimately receive funding. It reflects a broader and more useful understanding of resilience. Not simply, how do we raise more money? But, what kind of organisation do we need to become in order to thrive?
That is a much bigger question. And it is one the whole cultural sector should be asking.
Applications for the Museum Transformation Programme are open until 12 noon on 30 September 2026. Find out more
