CHG activities involving consultants

The Community Heritage Grants program supports community organisations to care for collections by providing funding to employ heritage practitioners to undertake:

Before recruiting an assessor, organisations should consider whether they are ready to undertake an effective, productive assessment. 

Go to the Trove Partner Learning Hub (select the 'Login as a Guest' option at the bottom left corner) to complete our handy questionnaire Are You Ready for a Significance Assessment or Preservation Needs Assessment?

Recruiting an appropriate assessor, conservator or training provider

Once your organisation is ready for one of these activities, you will need to recruit an appropriate consultant. 

Professional associations and government agencies maintain consultancy registers that list experienced consultants, along with their area of expertise. 

Links to these organisations and to other heritage bodies who can provide general advice, can be found below. 

Completed project summaries from previous CHG rounds also provide details of consultants who have undertaken CHG projects. Contact the individual project contacts for advice on how they managed these consultancies.

Questions for the assessor

When selecting an assessor or conservator, you can request a copy of their resume and ask for references and examples of previous work with similar collections. They should have an indepth knowledge of Significance 2.0 and experience in preparing these reports. You should also check they have appropriate insurance. 

Questions for your organisation

Your organisation should brief consultants on the collection (eg collection types, size, access, existing documentation), what part of the collection will be the focus of the activity, who will be the primary contact and other staff or community members who will be involved. If the consultant has to travel to your organisation, you can provide travel and accommodation recommendations. 

Organisations with Indigenous cultural material, can apply for consultation fees for Cultural Consultants (Elders) to work with assessors or other consultants.

Once the group has selected a consultant, they must provide a quote (noting that the standard CHG fee is $5,500). The consultant is encouraged to include their resume and details of any specific arrangements during the activity.

More information on available funding for these activities and travel costs is available in the Guidelines.

Consultancy registers

CHG thanks the organisations listed for generously sharing their resources and acknowledges their important role in supporting community groups to participate in the program.

Conservation and collection management activities

If your group has completed a preservation needs assessment, you may apply for funding to undertake the projects recommended in your report, such as conservation treatment, collection rehousing or storage, improved environmental controls, digitisation or establishing an online collection management system.

If you're applying for digitisation funding, organisations are encouraged to upload images to online collection management platforms and websites and, where possible, contribute their digitised collections to Trove. 

Please read the CHG Guidelines for details of eligible activities and what supporting information is required in the application.

Further information on conservation, digitisation, climate control, lighting, copyright and disaster planning from are provided below.

A list of national cultural institutions and professional associations is also provided on the Other Resources page.

Collections with Indigenous cultural material

The CHG Program supports the application of Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) protocols in managing Indigenous cultural material within collections.

If your collection includes sensitive, sacred, or culturally significant Indigenous materials, or involves specific cultural considerations, please contact the CHG Program to discuss. 

In some cases, certain details requested in the CHG application may need to be omitted or modified due to cultural sensitivities. The CHG Program can assist in finding alternative ways to present information about your collection or project, ensuring fair assessment while respecting cultural protocols.

Organisations with collections that contain Indigenous cultural material, can apply for consultations fees for Cultural Consultants (Elders) to work with assessors or other consultants. Please see the Guidelines (PDF, 405.74KB) for more information. For more information on Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property protocols: 

• National Library of Australia: Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property 
• Australian Museums and Galleries Association (AMaGA): First Peoples Roadmap.