Our Strategy
What we do
This strategy is about resilience, reinvention and making sure Birmingham’s cultural treasures remain accessible and relevant to all. It is an unapologetically ambitious plan to invest in the city’s greatest cultural asset, to create a world class museum service, which can be at the forefront of making Birmingham a great place to live, work, play and visit. We are committed to fostering a more democratic, inclusive approach to heritage, ensuring that every community sees themselves reflected in our spaces and stories.
Sara Wajid and Zak Mensah, Joint CEOs of Birmingham Museums Trust
Our bold ambitions for Birmingham
Our mission
Bring Birmingham out by shining new light on people’s stories, collections and creativity.
Our vision
A radical reinvention of the museum as a catalyst of cultural and social change.
Our impact on Birmingham
Birmingham is a vibrant, interconnected city where cultural richness thrives, citizens are empowered, communities find joy and belonging, trust is nurtured, inequalities are diminished, and sustainability and equity are central to our society.
Strategy and Business Plan 2025-30: Laying the Foundations
Birmingham Museums Trust Strategy and Business Plan 2025-30: Laying the Foundations is our new ambitious five-year strategy and business plan to reshape the city’s museum landscape, ensure long-term sustainability and greater community engagement.
We are delivering this in the face a challenging environment: across our sites, the city and culture sector.
Through our Laying the Foundations programme, we’ve engaged Birmingham’s citizens, our employees, sector experts and researched our audiences to shape a new strategic plan and Theory of Change for Birmingham Museums Trust.
Alongside and to inform this 5 Year Plan, the Laying the Foundations programme has delivered:
- The development of a Theory of Change.
- Research into existing and new audiences.
- The development of a Citizens’ Jury which will inform and shape Birmingham Museums Trust.
- Internal insights and input from across our teams.
You can find out more about the Strategy and Business Plan 2025-30 in two ways:
- Explore the five-year strategic plan online (see the section below).
- Download the plan as a PDF (directly below).
Our five-year strategic plan
Experience
Aim: By 2030 audiences will see Birmingham Museums Trust...
creating fun, meaningful, involving experiences for the full diversity of our communities and their uses of our collection and services.
Initiatives:
- Deliver a programme driven by our mission and vision; representative of Birmingham, creating spaces for discourse on social-political issues relevant to our audiences, and partnering with our communities and stakeholders.
- Develop the foundations for a Cultural Citizenship Research Centre that integrates collections, audience and participatory research.
- Become a trusted destination in the region and online for culture and heritage, and a keystone partner in the City.
Infrastructure
Aim: By 2030 audiences will see Birmingham Museums Trust...
at the heart of Birmingham’s communities, providing inclusive access to the peoples’ sites and collections, including digital access.
Initiatives:
- Develop and deliver, in partnership with Birmingham City Council, a roadmap to the security, accessibility and operation of the sites we’re entrusted with.
- Respond to the Climate Emergency by transitioning to net zero and reducing CO₂ emissions.
- Engage our communities in the development and use of our collections.
- Connect our people, audiences and activities through digitally enabled processes.
People
Aim: By 2030 audiences will see Birmingham Museums Trust...
as a boldly progressive organisation, increasingly rooted in and porous to Birmingham’s communities, with the skills and culture to engage with our target audiences and the things that matter to them.
Initiatives:
- Grow participation, including by skilled, supported volunteers who can advocate for Birmingham Museums Trust and our vision.
- Engage employees and citizens in our decision making.
- Build the culture and people Birmingham Museums Trust needs through a cohesive People plan that supports a skilled and diverse workforce.
- Implement an Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) plan which enables the success by creating cultural change for Birmingham Museums Trust as a radical museum.
Financial
Aim: By 2030 Birmingham Museums Trust will...
be a sustainable, more independent organisation that provides affordable, surplus-generating paid services and experiences that add social and economic value to Birmingham, and will have secured funding to support its priority capital projects.
Initiatives:
- Grow each of our major earned revenue streams (sales, admissions and revenue fundraising).
- Secure continued financial backing from our existing partners.
- Capitalise on increased relevance and engagement (as a result of experience, infrastructure and people initiatives) to increase and diversify our audiences, positively impacting revenue.
The next five years will be transformative for Birmingham’s museums. If we get this right, they will feel like home to all our communities – and will be well placed to thrive beyond 2030.
Achieving all of this is ambitious, but it will be game-changing – for the future of our museums and for Birmingham’s citizens’ experience of their city. This is the foundation we need, to start realising our vision of what Birmingham’s civic museums can and should be to the city.
We look forward to working with Birmingham City Council, Arts Council England and all our present and future supporters to make Birmingham a vibrant, interconnected city where cultural richness thrives.