ARA Archive Volunteering Award for 2025
The 2025 award is another opportunity to thank our volunteers for all their continued support and to acknowledge and celebrate best practice around volunteering in the recordkeeping sector.
The award welcomes projects which demonstrate how archives have supported volunteers through the past year and have adapted projects to suit their circumstances whether remotely or in new ways of working together.
Winners have a national platform to celebrate their volunteers’ contribution to the service and gain publicity for their archive’s role in supporting individuals and community through volunteering programmes.
Eligibility
The award recognises work involving volunteers within an institutional archive service in the UK or Ireland
Work must have taken place in 2023/24 (but can be part of an ongoing programme of activity)
Evaluation must include some feedback from the volunteers involved in the project (i.e. not just view of the organisation)
The 2024 Award was awarded to the Alberta Research project at Mapperton House
The Archives and Records Association seeks to celebrate the role of volunteers in supporting archive services, and to collect good practice case studies to inform the wider sector. This award is a key strand of the work of ARA’s Volunteering in Archives, Action Plan, bringing to life the recommendations the ARA report Volunteering in Archives. The award is also supported by The National Archives, the Welsh Government’s Museums, Arts, Archives and Libraries Division, and the Scottish Council on Archives.
This award which is made in June each year is open to archives across the United Kingdom and Ireland. Awards will be publicised widely throughout and beyond the sector.
Organisations may nominate projects, or ongoing volunteer programmes, that ran during (and across) the 12 months up to the nomination date.
If you have any queries about the award please contact Deborah Mason, Volunteering Awards Administrator, (01823 327077) or via volunteeringaward@archives.org.uk
Information on the award is available in Welsh here.
Nominations are now closed. The winner of the 2025 award will be announced on 3rd June 2025.
Case Studies
Case studies from 2025
Winners from recent years
Case studies from previous years
2020
Case Study: Winner - Anne Lister Diaries Digitisation Project - WYAS
2019
Case Study: Winner - Bigger, Better, Stronger - Gloucestershire Archives
Previous winners:
2024 Mapperton House
2023 RHS Digital Dig
2022 Archives Wigan & Leigh
2021: Pride in Suffolk's Past project and Warwickshire County Record Office’s Warwickshire Online Volunteer Network’s (WOVeN) Mining the Seams project. (Joint winners)
2020: Anne Lister Diaries Digitisation Project – WYAS
2019: Bigger, Better, Stronger – Gloucestershire Archives
2018: Lancashire Archives
2017: London Metropolitan Archives
2016: National Library of Wales
2015: GM1914, Greater Manchester
2014: St Mark and St John, Plymouth
2013: Hull History Centre
2012: Wolverhampton City Archives
2011: Manchester Chinese Archive
2010: Suffolk Record Office