We're proud to support Make Your Mark in Volunteering

We’re delighted to announce we’ll be supporting a new campaign to help people facing complex barriers to employment to build skills, take part in structured learning and access supported volunteering experiences with organisations across Scotland’s heritage sector. 

Make Your Mark in Volunteering is a cross-sector partnership, hosted by the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland, which has recently received more than £500,000 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Historic Environment Scotland and NatureScot to help increase the number and diversity of volunteers involved in history, nature and culture organisations.  

Part of this partnership will see Keep Scotland Beautiful launch a heritage skills development programme in partnership with Access to Industry, providing training in a range of heritage skills such as creating exhibitions, methods of researching and sharing heritage stories, and preparing for heritage volunteering.

We’re delighted that our new Make Your Mark Skills Development Officer, Marta Innes, will be leading on the development and delivery of this new programme. 

This investment comes at a time when volunteering in Scotland is increasing overall, but participation is uneven across the population. According to recent data, participation gaps are growing between volunteers who are disabled and non-disabled, as well as those from lower and higher income households.  

The new funding will support work of the Make Your Mark in Volunteering campaign to improve access to volunteering as well as the quality of volunteer experiences. 

Katie O’Donnell, our Communities Manager, commented: “Over the coming three years, working alongside Access to Industry and Make Your Mark, we will provide a programme of accredited learning to support people facing barriers to employment to build skills that will lead to new volunteering, training and employment opportunities across Scotland’s heritage sector. 

“Through our wider heritage engagement at Keep Scotland Beautiful we have been working with groups and organisations across the country who are playing their part to care for Scotland’s heritage. 

“Thanks to this partnership we’ll be able to support a group that may have had previous negative experiences of learning, offering the opportunity to explore what heritage means to them while gaining valuable experience and developing their skills at the same time.”  

Volunteering with history, culture and nature organisations offers opportunities to meet people, develop skills, connect with local communities and enjoy new experiences. In turn, volunteers help care for and share the places, collections and stories that matter to communities.  

Alongside supporting volunteer skills development, Make Your Mark will continue to support heritage organisations through inclusive volunteering guidance, training and peer support. This includes sharing good practice, improving approaches to volunteer recruitment and support and carrying out research to better understand who is volunteering, and why or why not. 

​Make Your Mark is a cross-sector partnership project hosted by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Click here to find out more about Make Your Mark.

Make Your Mark is looking for organisations working with Scotland's history, culture and nature that can offer a welcoming and inclusive volunteering experience for people who face barriers to employment. Click here for more information. 

If your community is interested in developing heritage skills or taking positive action for local heritage, you can find out about our Our Heritage, Our Future programme here.