Funding archive services in England and Wales: institutional realities and professional perceptions

How are archive services in England and Wales funded?

The research sought to establish the sources of funds that support archive services. The proportions of funding received from various sources in the previous financial year across all types of archive services in England and Wales are shown in Figure 3. Whilst recognizing that these figures represent a snapshot of a single accounting year for responding services, the findings support the assertion that archive services are reliant on parent organizations for either the whole or the majority of their funding. Indeed, a significant number of services, 12% of respondents, reported 100% of their funding was from their parent organization.

Figure 3 Archives in England and Wales: how much income did your archive service receive from each of the following sources in the last financial year?

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There were some variations between the funding sources accessed by different types of services and the scale of external funding, for example university archives received 31% of funding from external sources – mainly private investment (15%), plus government and additional higher education funds (5%), MLA funding (7%), Lottery (1%), and earned income and recharging. This compared to 16% in local authorities, whilst organizations with charitable status attracted 23% of their funding from external sources.

The relative success of London-based organizations in attracting private investment in comparison with other regions is one that is often referenced within the wider cultural sector. The 2010–2011 Arts & Business Private Investment in Culture survey showed that London received 71.1% of all private investment and 81% of all individual giving.Footnote41 However, this picture does not appear to be replicated in the archive sector. The data show that London archives are more reliant on parent organizations for funding than the rest of England, with only 13% of income from external sources.

The survey also sought to establish actual levels of turnover for the previous financial year. The definition of turnover used for the survey was ‘Total income, including all monies fundraised, earned by and awarded to your archive service (included budget allocation from parent organisation)’. Figure 4 illustrates the range of turnover figures, showing that the mode is between £100K and £199K. The median turnover was £299,086. The mean average turnover was £468,471.

Figure 4 Range of turnover figures.

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However, one challenge in data interpretation is that not all services have the same administrative structures or responsibilities and therefore what the turnover relates to varies amongst respondents. Approaches to joint service delivery and budget allocation and oversight are also very varied, as illustrated in Figure 5.

Figure 5 What service does your turnover figure represent?

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The research collected data about sources of funds in several categories: earned income, private investment (including business investment, individual investment, and trust and foundations), and the Lottery. Nationally, earned income represented 5% of overall income. Just over half of the respondents (53%) stated that they had control over setting targets for earned income and decisions on how to spend this money. Earned income derives from several sources, including use of facilities, publishing services, knowledge services and ‘Other’, such as sales from shops, vending machines and catering facilities, and charging for records management services. Respondents in the focus group commented about disincentives in accounting systems to earn income, for example ‘if you consistently over-achieve your earned income targets, they will rise’, although one remarked, ‘everything is devolved to me (and it is hard work) but it does mean I can do what I like with the earned income. It is an incentive’. Another noted, ‘any income we earn above core becomes development funding and does not pay for staffing etc. We don't get any money taken away from us as a result of earning’.

The survey asked about private investment: the questions concerning this area of investment were modelled on the Arts & Business Private Investment in Culture survey. The Arts & Business report 2010–2011 shows that investment in library/archives stood at £8,654,762, which accounts for 1.3% of regional investment in culture.Footnote42 Private investment in the archive sector, according to the responses to Q15, Q18, and Q19 in our survey, comes from trusts and foundations (71%), businesses (20%), and individuals (9%). The Arts & Business report 2010–2011 reported that business investment accounted for 19.5% of total private investment, which would appear comparable to the archive figure of 20%, but these percentages mask significant differences. In total, only 10 business relationships were identified by respondents, and one of these relationships accounts for 90% of the total business investment. Just over £204,000 was invested by business in archive services in our survey, compared to the £134.1 million reported in the Arts & Business report.Footnote43 However, one respondent in the focus group commented that although some money might come directly from a business, an approach might unlock other funds, ‘we would approach the company and get a small amount, but the managing director might give a personal contribution or have access to a trust fund’.

The Arts & Business report 2010–2011 found that trusts and foundations accounted for 24.8% of total private investment, compared with 71% for the archive sector, illustrating a significant reliance on this funding source by archives.Footnote44 A total of 97% of archive services income in this category was from UK-based trusts, with 3% from those based overseas. The survey responses regarding HLF funding were surprising, representing only around 1% of total income with a total figure of £359,113. The HLF's own figures for a comparable period, state that £4.37 million was awarded to projects in archives and libraries.Footnote45 The discrepancies between these figures may be due to the size and character of the survey population, or to the fact that, as HLF grants are paid out in instalments, turnover figures may only record a proportion of the individual grant award in any given year. However, some respondents noted problems with trust and Lottery funding, which ‘is never for core or boring stuff … trusts are interested in eye-catching stories’.

Individual giving represents 9% of private investment in archives services (£87,284), whereas the Arts & Business report 2010–2011 reported that individual giving made up 55.7% of total private investment (£382.2 million).Footnote46 Survey respondents were asked to break down the sources of individual giving and this showed that the majority of individual giving takes the form of donations (79%), followed by 18% from friends or membership schemes, 2% from legacies, and 1% gift aid. One respondent at the focus group commented that they were setting up a development trust with the intention of approaching private investors, although it was ‘tentative because there is no track record in the sector’. Respondents were asked if they record a financial equivalent against volunteer support. Only two respondents stated that they did so. Of those respondents who provided a total of volunteer hours contributed over the last financial year to their service, the total was 82,935 hours. The average per responding organization was 2176 hours. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy Archive Service Statistics record 240,663 volunteer hours within local authorities in England and Wales in 2010–2011.Footnote47 A respondent in the focus group commented, ‘if you put a value on the volunteer time it would be quite something. If you said, don't give your time, give money instead, they wouldn't’.

Allocation of resources

The survey identified how earned income and private investment were being used. Earned income predominantly went into operational costs (59%), but private investment was split more evenly between activity and capital projects, most of the remainder spent on operational costs (Q15, Q18, and Q19). When respondents were asked about allocation from the perspective of access versus preservation spending, 69% of private investment was allocated to costs associated with preservation and 24% to access; whereas with earned income, 5% was allocated to preservation and 23% to access. This left the largest element (61%) of earned income as not specifically allocated (Q13), which may reflect the fact that many services also reported that income is not retained by the archives service itself, but is reallocated at a higher level of budgeting within the organization.

Fundraising expertise and techniques

The final section of the survey sought to identify what fundraising expertise and resources archive services were able to access, and where support was needed. Respondents were asked about strategic fundraising. Only 33% stated that their organization had a fundraising strategy, although this compares favourably with the figure of 18% recorded in 2010 self-assessment returns.Footnote48 The low number of organizations with fundraising strategies is perhaps not surprising when contextualized by respondents' ratings for their own experience and confidence in developing a strategy. Of the sample, 88% of the respondents rated themselves between 1 and 3 (on a scale ranging from 1 = low to 5 = high) for experience and 85% between 1 and 3 for confidence. A respondent in the focus group commented that there were ‘two issues – ability and attitudinal’ and another suggested that ‘if archives were trusts and put out in the cold, we would have to learn. At the moment, we don't have to’ and that many archivists were ‘not naturally entrepreneurial’.

The survey sought to identify what resources archive services had to help them with fundraising and income generation. When comparing the full-time equivalent (FTE)staffing allocated to fundraising and income generation with the total FTE used by the archive service, the national figure allocated to this activity is only 3.2%, and only 17% of respondents have a budget allocation towards fundraising activities, resources, and training. This suggests that fundraising is not seen as a core activity for services. However, 56% of respondents stated that they could access fundraising expertise and resource from their parent organization, in local authority, university, and specialist archives.

All respondents were asked to identify their experience and confidence levels in relation to a number of fundraising areas and techniques (Q31 and Q32; on a scale ranging from 1 =  no confidence/no experience to 5 = very confident/very experienced). The data for running a capital campaign, developing relationships with business, developing relationships with high net-worth individuals, setting up online giving opportunities, setting up and running legacy programmes, and using direct marketing, all display a strong correlation between confidence and experience levels and show that very few respondents have either confidence or experience in these techniques. Slightly higher confidence/experience was shown in organizing fundraising events and developing a fundraising strategy. The only area where respondents indicated significantly higher levels of confidence was in writing applications to trusts and foundations and even here the largest number of respondents recorded a mid-range score (3). Respondents in the focus group commented that ‘writing bids is seen as part of the job in a local authority but spending time networking might be questioned’ and another said, ‘the expectation from the public is that they have already paid for the service’ through their taxes.

Figure 6 takes the responses to individual questions about the different fundraising approaches and compares confidence in different techniques, based on an analysis of responses ranged between 3 and 5 (i.e. where respondents expressed average or above experience or confidence).

Figure 6 Comparison of confidence and experience levels.

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So for the first time, the sector has an evidence base that begins to answer the research question ‘how are archives in the UK funded?’ Some of the common assertions made within the archives sector are now supported by evidence:

• Services are reliant on parent organizations for either the whole or the majority of their funding.

• Little investment is made at a service level to diversifying funding sources.

• Archivists are lacking in confidence and experience in a range of fundraising techniques.

However, analysis of the current climate does not represent a wholly gloomy picture. Recognizing that fundraising is still in its infancy within the archives sector, there are a number of healthy signs of the potential for future improvement and interventions to address some of the weaknesses and tackle some of the threats to this area of work.

Knowledge and understanding amongst archivists of HLF funding

Data from both the research projects helped the researchers to understand better what funding resources are well developed and which are underdeveloped within the sector. The data from both pieces of research will be employed here, using the results of the 2007–2008 survey of the impact of the HLF on perceptions and roles of archivists to illustrate aspects and to deepen the discussion.

The archive sector has received substantial investment from the HLF (£290.48 million to archive and library projects between 1994 and 2010).Footnote49 Archivists have been developing the capacity to access funding from HLF, with nearly 450 attending funding workshops through the Archive Lottery Advisory Service. Amongst focus group respondents, the HLF was still identified as the top funder that the sector should focus upon. Engaging with the funder at policy-making level and providing tailored support for individual applicants, as the Archive Lottery Advisory Service has done, is a model that can be drawn on for engagement with other funding sources. HLF increased funding for new grant awards, £375 million a year from 2013 to deliver its new strategic framework, so initiatives to support archive services to access HLF funding are still valuable.

The 2007–2008 research project sought to explore the level of knowledge and understanding of the HLF within the archive sector and how it had affected the role of the archivist. Survey respondents were asked to identify their relationship with HLF against a series of statements, including: ‘My post is funded by HLF’; ‘I have worked on an HLF application’; ‘I have project managed or run an HLF project’; ‘I have been part of a team working on an HLF funded project’; ‘My organisation has received HLF funding, but I didn't work on the project’; and ‘No previous involvement with HLF’. Of the sample, 45% of the survey group indicated some active engagement with the HLF, with another 27% having worked in an organization in receipt of HLF funding. However, a substantial proportion, 28% of those who responded, had no direct experience of HLF. Length of time in the profession does not appear to be an indicator of experience of the HLF. It might be expected that the longer the career, the more likely an archivist would be to have had contact with HLF, and yet 38% of those who stated that they had ‘no previous involvement with HLF’ had worked in the sector for 13 years or more (i.e. they have worked in the sector for the duration of the Fund's existence). Those working in specialist archives were much more likely to have had no experience of HLF (48%) than those working in publicly funded archives (21%). For this substantial group with only an indirect relationship to HLF, their perceptions of the funder, and the way these perceptions have developed, are a significant factor in HLF's impact on the archive sector.

Even if an archivist was employed on an HLF-funded project, or within an archive service that has run an HLF-funded project, they do not necessarily gain an understanding of HLF's aims or funding criteria. Once HLF has awarded a grant to a project, ownership of the project aims and plan seem to be transferred to it, and the role of the applicant organization and its staff seems to be minimized. Criticisms of the project, or its fit with the organization's broader aims, can develop over time into a critical view of the funder, particularly where the link between those that developed the project and those involved with the project delivery is broken. One respondent commented:

An embattled profession?

Perhaps it is because such word-of-mouth stories play into a sense that archives are either beleaguered, or ignored, that lends them greater credence. A report on the effect of bidding culture on local authority museums, libraries, and archives, identified that archives were disproportionately affected by unsuccessful bids; whilst 25% of museums and libraries felt an unsuccessful funding bid would have a negative impact on their future bidding, this figure rose to 50% of archives.Footnote50 Archivists seem to interpret ‘no’ as ‘no, go away’, whereas, as Ross and Segal have suggested, most fundraising ‘no's’ actually leave room to continue exploring a relationship with that funder.Footnote51 Reponses to the survey question ‘How successful do you believe each domain is at gaining grant funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund?’ suggest a perception of archives as the ‘Cinderella domain’ in comparison with museums and libraries. Of the sample, 85% of archivists in the survey ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ that museums were successful at gaining grant funding, 48% ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ that libraries were successful at gaining grant funding, whereas only 31% ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ to this statement in relation to archives. In fact, whilst museums had indeed received over £1.42 billion from the HLF, in comparison with £191.9 million for archives, libraries had received less HLF funding than archives at around £92.2 million.Footnote52 The belief that archives lose out to museums and libraries was exacerbated by the way the different domains fared after the creation of the MLA in 2000, which was also criticized for underplaying the evidential value of the archive. The comparative successes of the ‘Renaissance in the Regions’ and ‘Framework for the Future’ as advocacy campaigns and funding initiatives for museums and libraries compared to the lack of government funding in response to the 2004 Archives Task Force perhaps demonstrate this point. Whether this will change with the transfer of archives powers to TNA in 2011, and those for museums and libraries to Arts Council England, is not yet clear.

At the time of the 2007–2008 survey, the HLF's aims were ‘to encourage more people to be involved in and make decisions about their heritage’; ‘to conserve and enhance the UK's diverse heritage’; and ‘to ensure that everyone can learn about, have access to and enjoy their heritage’.Footnote53 The survey and focus groups invited archivists to consider the appropriateness of these aims: did they agree or disagree with these as broad aims in relation to the heritage of the UK? Did they agree or disagree that these aims are priorities for the archive profession as a whole; or important to their own archive service; or to their parent organization? Very few respondents contested the overall aims of the HLF in relation to the heritage sector and many commented along the lines that ‘HLF has had a positive cultural effect on archive services, encouraging them to address modern agendas and take a more creative and experimental approach’.

However, many respondents expressed concern that the evidential value of archives was not reflected in these aims. One respondent said that:

No topic is more likely to elicit comments in relation to the HLF than cataloguing. There was a view amongst respondents that the HLF underplays the value of cataloguing:

On one level, this is clearly a pragmatic approach to an almost limitless need for archive cataloguing, but perhaps this is indicative of a broader issue. Is the terminology of archival practice hampering an understanding of its importance amongst funders? Why, in the HLF's own language, are certain archival practices not seen as valid ‘as ends in themselves’? Perhaps to non-professionals, cataloguing is symbolic of ‘order, rationalisation, regularising’ when the HLF's aspiration is to showcase the heritage sector as embracing creative dynamic opportunities.

It seems surprising that archivists have not expressed similar concern about HLF's approach to digital preservation needs, given that appraisal and preservation are the core to archival practice. The more archivists emphasize the core nature of cataloguing to their practice, the further they remove cataloguing from the concept of ‘additionality’ (i.e. that Lottery funding is not being used as a substitute for government funding), thus damaging the argument for cataloguing to be supported by the HLF. So why has cataloguing becoming such a focus of tension between the HLF's aims and the archivist? One possible explanation is that cataloguing is a signifier of much more than the act of creating effective finding aids, cataloguing has somehow become symbolic of professional practices under threat.

The idea of an embattled profession seems to link with much of the language used in exploring perceptions of the HLF's impact in both survey responses and focus groups. A common complaint, particularly in terms of external factors that influenced the role of the archivist, was a lack of understanding of the profession: ‘Most people don't know who or what we are, which has been a bit hard sometimes!’ together with questions about self-image eliciting self-deprecating responses, such as ‘I'm a bit of an anorak when it comes to filing’. Comments suggest that archivists can feel that there are unrealistic expectations of their service, whilst simultaneously believing it to be undervalued and underutilized. This article earlier referred to archives being disproportionately affected by the failure of funding bids, of the ability of bad news stories to gain validity through word-of-mouth transmission, of frustration that aspects of the value of archives are overlooked, and that archives are compared unfavourably with museums and libraries. As one survey respondent commented ‘I think Archives have not reached their full potential – the world seems to see archives in a certain limited sort of light, and the profession still acts to fit the role they have been cast in’. This perception has to be shifted and in a poor economic climate it is even more essential for archive services to articulate their value in order to fight for scarce resources. This requires archive services to have a more robust and nuanced approach to fundraising.

What support, advice, and training do archivists need to improve fundraising?

The tradition of word of mouth in the archive sector can be used in a positive way, encouraging knowledge-sharing through networking. Some level of cultural shift in attitudes to fundraising could be achieved without the need for large-scale top-down change programmes. Models such as the Major Archives Project Learning ExchangeFootnote55 show how archive services can come together to create communities of practice; sharing knowledge based on their experience. Collaboration within the sector has created national inter-organizational infrastructures, such as the Archives Hub and Access to Archives. Local partnerships such as that investigated in the Greater Manchester Archives Feasibility Study could be built on.Footnote56 A project led by the Archives and Records Association (ARA) in partnership with TNA to create a national digitization consortium focused on school records could provide a model for future collaborative working, in particular helping services with less experience of income generation to explore the potential of licensing images.Footnote57 It also demonstrated how TNA can, in its leadership role, harness its own technical expertise, in particular its experiences around income generation, to support and advise the wider sector.

There are also precedents for bringing together funders to work collaboratively to support the sector. The National Cataloguing Grants Scheme launched in 2006 was instigated by The Pilgrim Trust. Working with TNA, this private trust has encouraged a number of foundations to contribute to a fund to support cataloguing projects, including The Foyle Foundation, The Wolfson Foundation, The Monument Trust, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, The Mercers Company Charitable Foundation, The Goldsmiths Company, and The J Paul Getty Jnr Charitable Trust.Footnote58 The demand for this scheme has more than demonstrated its value and the model shows that with the right argument to the right funders, cataloguing can attract external funding. The scheme not only supports the cataloguing work it funds, but also acts as a ‘nursery slope’ for archivists and organizations new to fundraising, enabling them to gain valuable experience of developing a case for support within a programme that is closely aligned to their core objectives. Collaborative approaches could also be explored with other forms of private giving.

With relatively small budgets and low profiles within their parent organization, it is not surprising that most archive services are risk averse, preferring to draw on the experience of fellow archivists to improve their services, rather than pilot completely new approaches. This article reports above both a lack of experience and a lack of confidence within the sector in relation to testing out fundraising techniques. The difficulty of this professional culture is that if no service is willing to take the first step to try new approaches then stasis prevails. This has been recognized and initiatives such as the Archive Pace Setters programme have sought to support and celebrate innovation.Footnote59

Future professionals do have some education about fundraising: UCL, University of Dundee, and University of Liverpool all include financial planning and fundraising in core management courses for archivists and records managers in their postgraduate programmes,Footnote60 however, this is inevitably a small part of an overall teaching programme and the timescales for graduating students progressing to budget holder roles will inevitably vary. Providing access to financial training might help to ameliorate this issue. This could be tackled at an individual level at key moments within a career progression (as identified via the competencies framework) through the ARA's Continuing Professional Development programme. It could also be embedded into support at an organizational level via the Archive Services Accreditation programme or mentoring. The identified need across the wider cultural sector might also enable collaboration between strategic agencies in supporting this area of development work, and the HLF is taking a lead in this area through its Catalyst Heritage building fundraising capacity programme.Footnote61

The profile of good fundraising practice needs to be raised within the sector. Identifying good practice from outside the sector and encouraging learning from it is one route, although traditionally archivists have struggled with learning from outside, finding this easiest where the good practice examples are from related sectors, for example libraries and museums. An alternative is to support innovation by reducing the risk to an individual archive service of testing out a new approach, for example by a ‘development laboratory’ providing small amounts of funding and support for pilots of new approaches. A ‘development laboratory’ provides an environment within which a pilot is not judged on a crude success/failure measure. In this way, the archive sector can be moved from struggling to learn from external good practice, to drawing from peer learning.

At a national level the sector lacks strong advocates, members of the profession with a public profile and ‘the great and the good’ willing to present the case for funding of archive services. Some attempts have been made to improve this situation, through the creation of the All Party Group on Archives and History and through individuals such as Professor Lisa Jardine, patron of the ARA. However, much more progress is needed to get key advocacy messages across at a national level and to set a context for local fundraising. At a local level, services need strong advocates both within and outside their organization to support their fundraising. Archivists need to have the confidence and skills to understand the motivations of individuals and businesses to give. The research suggested potential to capitalize on the highly engaged user of archives to attract more individual giving. Part of this could be ‘crowdfunding’, which is not a new concept, but the mechanisms that allow many individuals to give small amounts of money have changed. Technology has led to a boom in online giving platforms and associated opportunities for giving via mobile phones.Footnote62 So far, few archives engage with online crowdfunding to any great extent. Further work is needed to explain to archives services how they might best use this technology and to articulate the benefits and weaknesses of this approach.

As well as using general giving platforms via the Internet, it is possible to create a collaborative platform specific to archive giving. This might be modelled on the Big Arts Give, an initiative in 2010 which aimed to encourage individual giving via matching donations to existing pledges using The Big Give website.Footnote63 Another model might be a national funding scheme under development that aims to develop a mobile giving infrastructure for the cultural sector.Footnote64 This proposes to allow individuals to give via QR codes whilst visiting cultural venues. Quick response (QR) codes are added to wall texts for works of art, the aim being to respond to an immediate and targeted motivation to give, that is to support the conservation of a particular painting. The nature of archival access to individual records might make it possible to replicate this experience in an archive service. It is important for the sector as a whole to stay abreast of developments in this area, to learn lessons from new initiatives, and identify where it might be appropriate for archive services to get involved in wider giving initiatives.

There are, however, significant challenges for archive services in attempting to attract donations from high net worth individuals. There is a perception that major donors focus their attention on national London-based institutions and this accounts for the London figures outlined in the Arts & Business Private Investment survey. Major donations to support archives services do seem to follow this model, for example the £2.2 million donation from Hyman Kreitman to support the library and archive of the Tate.Footnote65 When considering the elements necessary to attract major individual gifts, there are challenges for archive services. Some major gifts are motivated by a culture of peer-to-peer giving or giving as a social activity. Large cultural institutions are well placed to provide the environment for this type of giving through the individuals that constitute their boards, development committees or other high-profile advocates, and through opportunities to give at special ‘cultivation’ events. The high profile of the national museums and performing arts companies gives the donors a social kudos through association. As focus group attendees highlighted, the level and nature of investment that might be needed by an individual service to cultivate relationships with major donors would be unlikely to be forthcoming for both financial and political reasons and most archive services will need to accept that they cannot compete with these national cultural institutions. However, there is still the potential for archives to attract major gifts, perhaps focused on major capital campaigns or acquisitions. If the profession was able to develop a wider pool of national advocates for the sector, then there could be a natural progression to identifying likely major donors and brokering relationships with individual services.