Supporting the Restoration Trust’s future
The Restoration Trust is a national charity that connects people with mental health challenges to heritage through projects involving archaeology, ancient landscapes, historic sites and archives.
Challenge
After the retirement of its founding director, the Restoration Trust faced an uncertain future. The organisation received funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to enable the trustees to learn from its past work, conduct a horizon-scanning exercise to identify future strategic opportunities and to set a new strategic direction for long-term sustainability. Restoration Trust wished to evaluate this approach by appointing evaluation consultants.
Collaboration
We often collaborate with other consultants to assemble interdisciplinary teams when cross-sector experience and skills are required. Here, we worked with Nicola Power (Nicola Power Heritage Consulting) to combine specialist evaluation expertise across the heritage, community and charity sectors.
Our solution
- Led an online workshop for trustees to develop a Theory of Change to clarify goals and outcomes for the National Lottery Heritage Fund project.
- Wrote a robust evaluation framework to ensure we captured the process, impact and cost effectiveness of the work.
- Delivered an interim report to inform ongoing project delivery and learning from the approach, highlighting early achievements, challenges and future opportunities to conclude the project successfully.
Results
- The evaluation has provided valuable insights that have informed the development of a new strategic direction as the project has evolved.
- Stakeholder engagement with the Restoration Trust increased, strengthening relationships and broadening support for future work.
- Our approach, working with a wider consultancy team, demonstrates our ability to work closely with others to support funder requirements and deliver greater impact for clients.
“Kirsten’s support, alongside Nicola Power Heritage Consulting and our wider consultancy team, enabled us to clarify our goals, evaluate our work, and engage more effectively with stakeholders. The insights from the evaluation have helped us shape our future direction and demonstrate our impact to funders.”
Trustee, The Restoration Trust
Ready to achieve similar results?
We provide expert, independent evaluation services with extensive experience supporting National Lottery Community Fund and National Lottery Heritage Fund projects. Find out more.
If you have received funding from the National Lottery Community Fund and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, contact us to discuss how we can work with you to meet these funders’ evaluation requirements.
