Volunteers for Cultural Heritage was a European project, funded by the European Commission in Brussels as part of the Grundtvig Lifelong Learning Programme. The project started out by acknowledging the increasing importance of the voluntary sector for preserving cultural heritage and running cultural institutions, such as museums.

It has explored this phenomenon at European level, identifying different types of voluntary work and the areas of activity in which cultural volunteers are engaged, with the objective of designing training addressed both to volunteers themselves and to the people responsible for volunteer programmes within cultural organisations. The project took place from November 2007 until October 2009.

Seminars and meetings:

- Seminar "Volunteers en cultural heritage and museums: promoting active citizenship", organized by European Museum Forum in Bertinoro, 17-21 October 2007:

•download the final report.

- III National conference of museums, Verona 4-12-2007, "Professionals and volunteers for a new management of cultural heritage in Italy", organized by ICOM Italy:

•download the conference programme;

•download the contribution of C. Da Milano and V. Galloni, AEDON, issue 3/2007;

- Meeting "Volunteers in museums. Experiences in Italy and Europe", Prato, Textile Museum, 18-01-2008:

•download the programme.

Final publication:

Volunteers in Museums and Cultural Heritage - A European Handbook
Edited by: Cristina Da Milano, Kirsten Gibbs and Margherita Sani

English (PDF); Italian (PDF); German (PDF); Slovene (PDF) i file scaricabili si trova già in un'altra parte del sito (documenti)

Responsible of the project for Eccom: Cristina Da Milano. Members of the working group: Martina De Luca, Maria Francesca Guida, Benedetta Nervi, Maria Laura Vergelli.

Project partners:

•Slovenian Museums Association, Lubljana, Slovenia (project leader)

•Istituto Beni Culturali della Regione Emilia-Romagna, Bologna, Italia

•Museo del Tessuto di Prato, Italia

•Amitié, Bologna, Italia

•MUSIS, Association for supporting museums and private collections in Styria, Graz, Austria

•Manchester Museum, Manchester, UK

•EMF European Museum Forum Trust, Bristol, UK