Museums Change Lives (MCL) is the Museums Association’s flagship campaign, supporting museums to enhance health and wellbeing, create better places in which to live and work, and provide space for engagement and debate.
Since we introduced the campaign in 2014, we have seen a rise in the number of museums working with their communities to make a positive difference to people’s lives. We have produced versions of MCL with relevant case studies in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, and have used it as an advocacy document across the UK to demonstrate museums’ value to key stakeholders.
The MCL awards, which we launched in 2018 – this year’s call for nominations is currently open – celebrate the life-changing work that museums of any size can deliver. If you need help creating and evaluating impactful work, we have guidance including the Measuring Socially Engaged Practice Toolkit and the Power to the People framework for participatory practice.
We have updated the MCL campaign to make the language more inclusive, and will relaunch it in May with an emphasis on working with communities. The same month will see us open applications for our new Health and Wellbeing in Museums Fund for grants to develop and deliver this work.