NEL Heritage Toolbox: Running Impactful Projects (Workshop 5)

Learn how to design, deliver, and evaluate heritage and cultural projects that create lasting impact.

The final workshop in the Heritage Toolbox: North East Lincolnshire programme is all about ensuring the impact of your heritage and cultural projects. As heritage and community practitioners, we all need to measure and demonstrate how our work is making a difference, whether that’s to help us secure funding or enable us to strategically decide where to focus our efforts next.

Location for Workshop 5 will be in Cleethorpes and the exact venue will be confirmed soon

In this session, we’ll explore impact-driven project planning: how to set meaningful goals from the outset, monitor progress throughout, and evaluate your work effectively. We’ll cover the essentials of tracking both outputs (e.g., the number of visitors or events) and outcomes (e.g., the difference your work makes to people and place). We’ll also focus on how to gather feedback, assess your audience’s response, and use this data to improve and refine your projects.

Commissioned by Create North East Lincolnshire and delivered by Heritage Lincolnshire and the Heritage Network, this workshop will provide both practical tools and expert insight into creating impactful, measurable outcomes. Over three hours, we’ll guide you through mini-masterclasses, breakout discussions, and case studies from across the UK heritage sector, and help you think about your next steps following the end of this programme.

By the end of the workshop you will:

• Have a clear understanding of how to plan for impact from the beginning of your projects, including setting meaningful goals and outcomes.

• Be more confident in using evaluation tools to measure your project's effectiveness and track key metrics, in simple ways appropriate to your project, organisation, and skillset.

• Be better at demonstrating and communicating your impact (or potential impact) to funders, stakeholders, decision-makers, and your communities, enabling you to do more work, better.

• Be inspired by case studies and expert guidance on how to create and report on creative, sustainable projects that have lasting impact.

• Know how to take the next steps following the final workshop, and have a range of resources and support from Heritage Network and Heritage Lincolnshire to keep you delivering and growing through 2026 and beyond.

Who Is The Heritage Toolbox Programme For:

Whether you’re managing a heritage site, driving forward a community project, or simply passionate about the region’s history, this is a valuable opportunity to learn, share, and collaborate. This programme has been designed especially for:

• Not-for-profit heritage organisations and community groups

• Cultural, creative, or community organisations who have found themselves working from historic buildings or spaces - where heritage might not have been part of your work, mission, or objectives so far

• Staff teams, trustees, and volunteers

• Heritage professionals and practitioners

• People involved in caring for, managing or advocating for heritage in North East Lincolnshire

Build Skills, Connections and Confidence Across Five Free Workshops

To get the most out of the Heritage Toolbox programme, we encourage you to attend all five sessions. It’s fine if this means different colleagues attend different sessions, but we’ll aim to build a cohort of supportive practitioners who complete the programme together.

Our workshop programme is:

• Workshop 1 – Setting Up for Success, Centre 4, Grimsby, 26th March

• Workshop 2 – Building Inclusive Creative Communities, Grimsby, 15th April, venue to be confirmed

• Workshop 3 – Fundraising for Organisational Sustainability, Cleethorpes Coastal Light Railway, Cleethorpes, 15th May

• Workshop 4 – Digital Skills for Creative Working, Grimsby, 4th June, venue to be confirmed

• Workshop 5 – Running Impactful Projects, Cleethorpes, 8th July, venue to be confirmed

We aim for all of our events to be inclusive, safe spaces where everyone's views and experiences are respected. Please read our code of conduct for more information.

About Heritage Network

The Heritage Network is the UK membership body for community organisations, charities and social enterprises that are saving, restoring and managing historic buildings, parks, gardens, structures and landscapes. The Heritage Network brings together more than 1000 members across the UK, empowering people to rescue and reuse historic buildings and spaces through peer-to-peer support, expert advice, and learning and networking events.

About Heritage Lincolnshire:

Heritage Lincolnshire is a local charity dedicated to preserving the history and heritage of the county for the benefit of all who live and work in the area. We have over 30 years experience planning and delivering heritage projects, our work includes historic building regeneration, research, volunteering, community archaeology and the management of historic sites and monuments.