Audiences - who will read this and why :-)

Karen Culver – 5001.  Thesis Update

Aim of the MA Thesis

The MA thesis is to look at effective government policies and institutional policies and management practices that will promote volunteering in the cultural heritage sector.    Based on research of different volunteering practice in general, and several case studies, I aim to develop solid and specific advice on how different institutions can recruit, manage and retain the active involvement of volunteers in a variety of tasks and over a reasonable time frame.    Case studies of good management practice with volunteers will be taken from Hungary and UK and compared with case studies of less successful volunteer management practice. 

Target Audiences

The main audience for the thesis will be the academic staff of the CEU as the work is aimed towards an academic qualification.

The non-academic target audience is primarily Hungarian cultural institutions as there is strong implication that volunteering for them is not as wide spread or successful as they would wish.   However, the thesis report will also be offered to the UK institutions that were directly involved.  This will be done out of respect and aiming to be transparent with my results.  

The target audience is divided into several groups of institutions. 

• 1.      The initial audience will be those institutions that have supported the research and are known to have an interest in working with volunteers.   These will be from UK and Hungary – see above.
• 2.      A second layer of audience will be other cultural institutions that are part of the network of the original research group.  These are equally important but I will only have contact with them through the institutions that have been involved in the research.   Currently I assume these will be only Hungarian institutions, but may include some in the UK.   I will send the report directly to this group, but only on recommendation of the institutions in first group.
• 3.      A third group is all other institutions that I have been in direct contact with for various activities over the two year study period, for example, those that supported my work for various term papers.

I consider it highly unlikely that there will be any possible direct influence on the policies of the Hungarian government and so they are not a target audience.  I expect there will be notes within the thesis of what good government policy would be and how this could be implemented.  If the Hungarian cultural institutions wished to take this further, they could collectively approach the government with policy suggestions.

Communication & Presentation Method

As part of the thesis, I expect to produce several clear recommendations for recruiting, managing and retaining good volunteers engaged in different activities within a variety of cultural heritage environments.  All recommendations will be based on the research and case studies and should be clearly referenced into the stated challenges and /or solutions of working with volunteers.   I anticipate that following the academic process in presenting and defending the thesis, I would personally take the final report to the institutions and individuals mentioned in 1) above.  This would be to thank them for their support and to present and discuss the results.

It is possible that as part of the final thesis report, I will produce an outline training workshop which could be delivered to the management staff of interested heritage institutions. 

As the thesis is an academic document, I assume it will written in an academic manner with full references of primary and secondary sources of researched information.  However, as it is also a report for cultural institutions and their management teams, the writing style will be non-academic and more aligned to management reporting as I hope this would be easier to read and more accessible to the cultural institution managers.  As a non-academic, I will also find it easier to write.