Pennine Lancashire Museums is a group of museums comprising Lancashire County Council (Helmshore Textiles and Queen Street Mills) Blackburn with Darwen Council (Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery and Turton Tower), Hyndburn Borough Council (The Howarth Art Gallery), Burnley Borough Council (Towneley Hall) and one independent trust (Gawthorpe Textiles Collection based at Gawthorpe Hall).  The museums have been collaborating since 2010 to achieve shared objectives, including:

• Increasing visitor numbers and raising our profile by developing a shared narrative, PLM brand and joint marketing that connects and promotes the venues 
• Strengthening our resilience by working ‘smarter’ together, sharing and benchmarking data and developing successful joint funding applications and a combined educational offer to schools in Pennine Lancashire.
• Identifying efficiencies to grow organisational capacity through shared posts and commissioning joint activity such as academic research, staff and volunteer development, communications and marketing.

In 2012-13 the PLM were awarded £300,000 Strategic Funding from Arts Council England to develop a number of new and innovative initiatives against these objectives and a further £500,000 (over three years) to develop a joint educational service.

This year (2013-14) we are in receipt of a further round of Arts Council Strategic Funding to make our individual organisations, and the partnership as a whole, more resilient and sustainable by increasing and diversifying income streams, developing new fundraising schemes and business models and exploiting commercial opportunities.

Brief

To this end, we are seeking a proactive, dynamic Business Development professional, to provide Business Development Services for a period of nine (9) months to work with each partner to identify, develop, test and embed initiatives tailored specifically to each venue to improve economic resilience. 

Download more details about this opportunity.