Charity Archives Development Plan

In September 2022 The National Archives Sector Development Team published the Charity Archives Development Plan, a three to five year action plan for charity archives in the UK. Project Director Georgina Brewis and PhD student Paul Beard are both members of the steering group and have been involved in a series of meetings to set out the scope and aims of the plan.

As the plan notes, the vulnerability of charity archives has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, ‘which has brought about immediate and long-term losses of income, and the impact of this may result in restructures, mergers and insolvency’. This is something that we are very aware of at the ARP, and have been working with several charities in this position over the past couple of years. The Charity Archives Development plan issues an important call to action, ‘At a time in which charities are facing greater challenges, experiencing change and are the focus of increased public attention, it is essential that charities and the public are aware of the value of archives and recordkeeping.’

Our AHRC-funded UCL-TNA Collaborative Doctoral Award on ‘Charity Archives at Risk’, which you can read more about here, is one of the key deliverables for the plan. We are looking forward to working with Kathryn Preston at TNA to support the work of the plan over the next few years.