Organisational sustainability in Australia’s volunteer-managed community heritage organisations: A preliminary strengths-based framework with baseline indicators

Zelmarie Cantillon & Sarah Baker

This article reviews scholarly and grey literature to identify aspects of organisational sustainability relevant to community heritage organisations (CHOs), organised into four key dimensions: governance, resources, volunteer experience and community engagement.

To contextualise these dimensions, we draw on written submissions pertaining to sustainability challenges by CHOs to Australian federal, state and territory parliamentary inquiries.

The article presents a preliminary framework with baseline indicators for organisational sustainability in the community heritage sector that takes a strengths-based approach. We argue that the preliminary framework can be used as a basis to develop a co-designed, strengths-based framework that has utility as both a practical tool for CHOs and a policy intervention that highlights the need for greater recognition and support for the community heritage sector within Australia’s national cultural policy.

Reference: Cantillon, Z & Baker, S 2025, ‘Organisational sustainability in Australia’s volunteer-managed community heritage organisations: A preliminary strengths-based framework with baseline indicators’, International Journal of Cultural Policy, https://doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2025.2564746