DTAS Resilience Fund — Proposal
For board discussion · March 2026
The Opportunity
The DTAS Recovery & Resilience Fund offers grants of £10k–£100k to member organisations for capacity building. CDT is eligible as a provisional DTAS member. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in the governance, communications, and community engagement infrastructure that an organisation managing a Category A listed heritage site with £1.3M in assets genuinely needs.
Why CDT, Why Now
We’ve done the honest self-assessment
CDT completed the Scottish Governance Code self-assessment and found significant gaps: no Code of Conduct, no risk register, no safeguarding or complaints policies, no strategic plan. These are foundational requirements that funders and OSCR increasingly expect. We know what needs fixing — we need the resources to fix it properly.
We’re already helping ourselves
CDT isn’t waiting for funding to start. DTAS governance support is being accessed, a new admin team is in place, email modernisation is complete, and the basic website consolidation is already underway. This application is about the work that can’t be done internally — the specialist expertise needed to build governance frameworks, tell our story professionally, and engage our community at the level this site deserves.
The camp’s story is untold
Cultybraggan is one of the best-preserved WW2 POW camps in Europe, community-owned since 2007, home to 11 community groups and a growing creative economy. This is an internationally significant story that barely exists online. The resilience fund can pay for the professional storytelling, PR, and community engagement that turns CDT from a well-kept secret into a recognised exemplar.
Three Workstreams
1. Governance
Build the policies, frameworks, and strategic plan that funders and OSCR expect.
- Code of Conduct & safeguarding
- Risk register & complaints process
- Strategic plan & mission statement
- Trustee induction & training
2. Communications & Profile
Tell CDT’s story professionally and build a digital presence that matches our significance.
- Heritage storytelling & PR
- Interactive camp map
- Social media campaigns
- Press kit & media relations
3. Membership & Community
Strengthen CDT’s relationship with its 441 members, community groups, and the wider village.
- Member engagement platform
- Community group self-service
- Events programme & outreach
- Support for wider Comrie initiatives
Proposed Budget
| Cost Type | Governance | Comms & Profile | Membership | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Specialist consultants & agencies | £8,000 | £28,000 | £8,000 | £44,000 |
| Platforms, tools & subscriptions | £1,000 | £3,000 | £2,000 | £6,000 |
| Training & skills transfer | £3,000 | £3,000 | £2,000 | £8,000 |
| Website elevation (beyond basic consolidation) | — | £12,000 | — | £12,000 |
| Community outreach & village initiatives | — | — | £10,000 | £10,000 |
| Stream total | £12,000 | £46,000 | £22,000 | £80,000 |
All specialist work delivered by external consultants and agencies to ensure speed, quality, and skills transfer to the CDT team.
What We’re Doing Ourselves
Already done / in progress (no funding needed)
- Email modernisation — complete
- Basic website consolidation — contract awarded
- New admin team operational (Seona, Bravo, Christine)
- DTAS governance support being accessed
- Board skills audit completed
- Conflicts of interest policy — already in practice
- Funder relationship building (PKC, Visit Scotland)
Needs specialist help (resilience funding)
- Governance framework — consultant to draft & embed
- Strategic plan — professional facilitation
- Heritage storytelling — expert to find our voice
- PR & media — firm to get our story in the news
- Social media — specialist to build & train
- Website elevation — interactive map, heritage archive
- Community engagement programme
Next Steps
- Confirm fund status and application timeline with DTAS.
- Board to agree the three-stream approach and £80k target.
- Discuss community outreach scope with Comrie community organisations.
What We’re Building
CDT manages a Category A listed heritage site with 100+ structures, £1.3M in assets, 441 members, and 11 community groups. The governance infrastructure needs to match that responsibility. This stream puts the foundations in place — so the board can focus on strategy rather than firefighting, and so CDT can approach funders with confidence.
What We Can Do Ourselves vs What Needs Funding
Free / self-help (already happening)
- ✓ DTAS governance advisor support (included in membership)
- ✓ OSCR guidance documents on all policy areas
- ✓ DTAS policy templates (Code of Conduct, risk register, conflicts)
- ✓ Board skills audit — already completed
- ✓ Declaration of interests — already a standing agenda item
- ✓ Andrea Loudon joined board with governance focus
- ✓ DTAS conference attendance (bursary available)
Needs specialist expertise (resilience funding)
- → Professional facilitation for strategic planning sessions
- → Governance consultant to draft, review, and embed policies
- → Legal review of safeguarding and complaints frameworks
- → Impact measurement framework design
- → External trustee training programme
- → Board effectiveness review by independent assessor
Templates exist — but adapting them to a heritage site with CDT’s complexity, getting them adopted by the board, and embedding them into working practice requires professional support.
What Needs to Happen
Five essential items that address the most significant gaps identified in our self-assessment.
Code of Conduct
A signed agreement setting out what’s expected of every trustee: attendance, confidentiality, collective responsibility, and how breaches are handled. DTAS provides a template — a consultant would adapt it for CDT and facilitate board adoption.
Risk Register
CDT manages real risks — structural condition of listed buildings, health & safety for visitors and tenants, financial sustainability, insurance adequacy. A living risk register is a governance essential and often a requirement for heritage and capital funding applications.
Safeguarding Policy
The camp hosts school groups, DofE participants, community events, and vulnerable adults. Food hygiene certificates are required for cafe volunteers, but there’s no overarching safeguarding framework. This needs professional drafting with legal review.
Complaints Process
CDT has no published complaints procedure. When issues arise — as they did at the 2024 AGM — there’s no formal process to follow. A published, accessible process protects both the organisation and the people it serves.
Strategic Plan & Mission Statement
CDT’s new chair has articulated a vision around heritage, environment, economy, and community. But there’s no written plan with measurable objectives. A professional facilitator can run the sessions and capture the output — the vision comes from the board and community, not from a consultant.
Building on the Foundations
Important items that follow once the essentials are in place.
Trustee induction pack & mentor scheme
New trustees currently learn by sitting in on meetings — no formal handover of duties, responsibilities, or camp operations.
Scheme of delegation & terms of reference
Finance Group and Estates Group operate without written mandates — unclear where their authority starts and the board's ends.
Fundraising strategy
CDT applies for grants reactively. A strategy aligned with the Code of Fundraising Practice would strengthen every application.
EDI statement & diversity policy
Board recruitment is informal and limited to existing networks. A statement of intent demonstrates commitment to inclusion.
Expenses & hospitality policy
Basic good practice for any charity managing public funds. Protects trustees and builds public confidence.
Board performance review
No mechanism to assess whether the board itself is working effectively — annual self-assessment is standard practice.
Governance Stream — £12,000
| Specialist | Delivers | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Governance consultant (6–8 days) | Policies, risk register, complaints process, scheme of delegation | £4,000 |
| Strategic planning facilitator | 3–4 sessions with board and stakeholders, written plan, impact framework | £3,000 |
| Trustee training programme | Induction, Scottish Governance Code, legal duties, EDI | £3,000 |
| Templates, tools & governance calendar | Risk register platform, document templates, board portal | £2,000 |
| Governance stream total | £12,000 | |
Beyond the Basics
The basic website consolidation — replacing four fragmented sites with one team-editable site — is already underway. That contract is awarded and will bring CDT up to par. But par isn’t good enough for an organisation managing one of Europe’s best-preserved WW2 POW camps.
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to go beyond house-cleaning. The resilience fund can pay for the professional storytelling, PR, and digital tools that transform CDT from a well-kept secret into a recognised heritage destination — the kind of organisation that Eigg, Knoydart, and Coin Street have become.
What’s Already Happening vs What This Fund Enables
Baseline (already funded & underway)
- ✓ 4 websites consolidated into 1
- ✓ Team-editable CMS — staff can update content
- ✓ Self-catering booking integration
- ✓ Community group pages with logins
- ✓ Events calendar and contact forms
- ✓ Mobile-friendly, CDT-owned, no lock-in
This gets CDT to where most small trusts already are.
Elevation (resilience funding)
- + Interactive camp map — click any hut for its story
- + Heritage archive — 1,000+ photos, 31 videos, oral histories
- + Professional storytelling — CDT’s unique voice found and told
- + PR and media relations — stories in national press
- + Social media campaigns — professional setup, staff trained
- + Project dashboards — solar, conservation, funding visible to all
This puts CDT alongside the best community trusts in Scotland.
Finding Our Voice — Three Stories to Tell
CDT isn’t one story — it’s three, each compelling in its own right. A storytelling expert can help us find the right voice for each.
The Camp
A WW2 POW camp where German and Ukrainian prisoners were held, with a surviving execution room and 100+ Nissen huts. Now home to artists, craftspeople, social enterprises, and community groups. This is an internationally significant heritage story that hasn’t been told online.
The Museum
A volunteer-run museum preserving the camp’s military history, oral testimonies, and artefacts. Education visits from schools and universities. The museum needs its own digital identity — a mini-site within the main site that speaks to heritage tourists, researchers, and educators.
The Trust
A community development trust that bought a derelict military site and turned it into a living, working community asset. Solar energy, woodland, allotments, business units, a changing places toilet, affordable workspace. This is the story funders and policymakers need to hear.
What the Resilience Fund Pays For
Storytelling Expert
Works with the community to find CDT’s authentic voice. Interviews long-standing members, volunteers, tenants, and visitors. Creates the core narrative for each of the three stories above. Produces the written content, photography direction, and tone of voice guide that makes every future communication consistent and compelling.
This person gives CDT the raw material that everything else is built on.
PR & Media Agency
A short-term engagement (3–6 months) with a Scottish PR firm to place CDT’s story in national and heritage media. Coordinates with the PKC funders’ visit on 21 April. Builds a press pack and media contacts list that the admin team can use independently after the engagement ends.
Objective: sustained media coverage, not a one-off press release.
Social Media Specialist
Creates CDT’s social media presence from scratch. Sets up accounts, creates branded templates, develops a content calendar, and runs initial campaigns while simultaneously training the admin team (Seona, Bravo, Christine) to take over. Handover in 3–4 months.
Builds the system and skills — CDT runs it from day one of handover.
Website Elevation (interactive map & heritage archive)
Adds the features that the basic consolidation doesn’t cover: an interactive map of all 100+ structures (powered by the existing heritage assessment data), a curated photo and video archive, project dashboards, and the heritage storytelling content produced by the storytelling expert.
Built on top of the new website — not a separate project.
Communications Stream — £46,000
| Specialist | Delivers | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Storytelling expert | Core narratives, photography direction, tone of voice guide, content for all three stories | £8,000 |
| PR & media agency (3–6 months) | National media placements, press pack, media contacts, coordinated with funders’ visit | £12,000 |
| Social media specialist (3–4 months) | Account setup, campaigns, templates, content calendar, staff training and handover | £8,000 |
| Website elevation | Interactive camp map, heritage archive, project dashboards, storytelling content | £12,000 |
| Platforms & tools | Newsletter service, social scheduling, analytics, mapping platform | £3,000 |
| Skills transfer & training | Admin team trained on all systems; written guides for ongoing maintenance | £3,000 |
| Communications stream total | £46,000 | |
Repairing and Growing Our Relationships
CDT has 441 members, 11 community groups on site, and sits at the heart of Comrie — but the relationship with the village has frayed. Communications have been inconsistent, community engagement has been reactive rather than proactive, and CDT’s achievements aren’t well known even among its own members.
This stream is about more than newsletters and databases. It’s about rebuilding trust, creating genuine two-way engagement, and demonstrating that CDT exists to serve the whole community — not just the camp. That includes actively supporting other Comrie initiatives, even when they’re not directly aligned with CDT’s own projects.
Three Dimensions of Community Engagement
1. Members — 441 people who’ve invested in CDT
CDT’s members vote on trustees, receive annual reports, and attend the AGM. But between AGMs, engagement is minimal. Members don’t receive regular updates, can’t easily access governance documents, and have no structured way to contribute ideas or feedback.
What this programme delivers
- Regular newsletter — quarterly at minimum, with news, decisions, and opportunities
- Member portal — access to minutes, reports, governance documents, and event booking
- Annual member survey — structured feedback mechanism beyond the AGM
- Clear membership benefits and pathways to deeper involvement
2. Community Groups — 11 organisations calling the camp home
Men’s Shed, Cancer Club, Heritage Group, DofE, Woodland Group, Orchards, Allotments, and more. These groups are CDT’s most visible evidence of community impact — but they have no digital presence, no shared events calendar, and limited connection to each other.
What this programme delivers
- Each group gets a managed section on the website (already in the baseline build)
- Shared events calendar showing everything happening at the camp
- Annual community groups gathering — facilitated cross-group collaboration
- Scheme of delegation clarifying CDT/group responsibilities (links to governance stream)
3. The Village — Comrie and the wider community
CDT doesn’t exist in isolation. Comrie has other community organisations, local businesses, and residents who may not be CDT members but are affected by what happens at the camp. Rebuilding trust with the wider village means being a good neighbour — which includes actively supporting community initiatives beyond CDT’s own projects.
What this programme delivers
- Community outreach fund — small grants or in-kind support for Comrie initiatives
- Open days and public events that invite the village in, not just CDT members
- Collaboration with Comrie Community Council, local businesses, and Strathearn organisations
- Visible CDT contribution to village life beyond the camp boundary
Community Outreach — Supporting Comrie Beyond the Camp
A portion of the resilience funding could be allocated to support wider Comrie community initiatives that aren’t directly aligned with CDT. This signals that CDT sees itself as part of the village, not apart from it — and it creates goodwill that pays dividends in membership, volunteer recruitment, and community support for CDT’s own projects.
Examples of what this could fund
- Small grants (£500–£2,000) for Comrie community projects and events
- Free or subsidised use of camp facilities for village organisations
- Shared digital infrastructure (e.g. events calendar covering all Comrie, not just CDT)
- Joint projects with Comrie Community Council or local schools
- Hosting community events that bring villagers onto the camp site
This needs to be discussed with Comrie community organisations before finalising the application — the scope should be shaped by what the village actually needs, not assumed by CDT.
Membership & Community Stream — £22,000
| Item | Delivers | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Community engagement consultant | Member engagement strategy, survey design, community outreach framework | £5,000 |
| Membership platform & newsletter | CRM/database, newsletter system, member portal, analytics | £2,000 |
| Facilitated community events | Community groups gathering, open days, village engagement events | £3,000 |
| Training & skills transfer | Admin team trained on membership management, newsletter, engagement | £2,000 |
| Community outreach fund | Small grants and in-kind support for wider Comrie initiatives | £10,000 |
| Membership & community stream total | £22,000 | |
Why External Specialists, Not Employees?
Resilience funding is about building capacity quickly and well. Hiring an employee takes months to recruit, requires management, and creates dependency. A portfolio of external specialists delivers faster, brings proven expertise, and transfers skills to the existing team — so CDT can sustain the work independently after the funding ends.
This approach also means CDT gets multiple experts instead of one generalist. A PR firm gets stories in the news. A storytelling expert finds CDT’s unique voice. A social media specialist builds and trains the team on campaigns. Each brings depth that no single hire could match.
Governance Stream Specialists
Governance Consultant
£4,000A specialist in Scottish charity governance — someone who knows OSCR requirements, understands the Scottish Governance Code, and has worked with community trusts before. They draft, adapt, and help the board adopt the essential policies: Code of Conduct, safeguarding, complaints process, risk register, and scheme of delegation.
What CDT gets
- Policies drafted and tailored to CDT’s heritage context (not generic templates)
- Risk register populated with actual camp risks, not placeholder categories
- Board facilitation sessions to adopt each policy
- Admin team trained to maintain and update governance documents
Profile: DTAS associate, retired charity CEO, or specialist governance consultant. 6–8 days over 3–4 months. Can work largely remotely with periodic site visits.
Strategic Planning Facilitator
£3,000CDT’s new chair has a clear vision — heritage, environment, economy, community — but there’s no written plan with measurable objectives. A professional facilitator runs the sessions and captures the output. The vision comes from the board and community, not from the consultant.
What CDT gets
- 3–4 facilitated sessions with trustees, staff, and community stakeholders
- Written 3–5 year strategic plan with measurable objectives
- Impact measurement framework that funders can assess against
- Mission statement that captures CDT’s purpose clearly
Profile: Experienced third-sector facilitator. Ideally someone who has worked with community land trusts or heritage organisations in Scotland.
Trustee Training Programme
£3,000New trustees currently learn by sitting in on meetings — no formal induction, no structured training on legal duties. A training programme covers Scottish Governance Code, trustee legal responsibilities, EDI, and heritage-specific obligations.
What CDT gets
- Induction pack for new trustees covering camp operations, governance, and responsibilities
- Training sessions on legal duties, financial oversight, and heritage obligations
- Board effectiveness review by independent assessor
- Ongoing governance calendar with scheduled reviews
Communications & Profile Specialists
Heritage Storytelling Expert
£8,000Cultybraggan’s story — a WW2 POW camp where German and Ukrainian prisoners were held, now community-owned and home to artists, craftspeople, and social enterprises — is internationally compelling. But it hasn’t been told yet. A storytelling expert walks the camp, interviews long-standing community members, and crafts the narrative that makes Cultybraggan impossible to ignore.
What CDT gets
- CDT’s origin story and heritage narrative, professionally written
- Content for the website’s heritage and museum sections
- Interview archive with camp volunteers, tenants, and community members
- Brand voice guide so CDT communicates consistently going forward
Profile: Heritage writer, journalist, or creative agency with experience in cultural heritage storytelling. Must be willing to spend time on site.
PR & Media Agency
£8,000CDT’s achievements are barely known outside Comrie. A PR firm with heritage or third-sector experience gets CDT’s story into regional and national media — the Courier, the Herald, BBC Scotland, heritage publications. This isn’t vanity: media coverage drives visitor numbers, funder confidence, and community pride.
What CDT gets
- Press kit with professional photography, key facts, and ready-to-use stories
- Media outreach campaign targeting heritage, community, and Scottish press
- Journalist relationships that CDT can maintain independently
- Crisis communications template for when things go wrong
Profile: Scottish PR agency with heritage or third-sector client base. 3–6 month retainer.
Social Media Specialist
£6,000CDT has no social media presence. A specialist sets up channels, creates the initial content calendar, and — crucially — trains the admin team to maintain it. The goal is self-sufficiency: CDT running its own social media confidently within 3–4 months.
What CDT gets
- Social media accounts set up with consistent branding
- Content calendar with templates for recurring post types
- Initial 3-month campaign managed by the specialist
- Hands-on training for Seona, Christine, and Bravo to take over
Profile: Freelance social media manager or small agency. Heritage/community experience preferred. Can work remotely with site visits for content creation.
Website Elevation
£12,000The basic website is already being built. Resilience funding elevates it: an interactive camp map, heritage archive with the 1,148 conservation photos, museum-quality storytelling pages, and a community events calendar. This is the difference between a brochure site and a destination.
What CDT gets
- Interactive camp map — click any structure for its history, condition, and photos
- Heritage archive with searchable conservation assessment data
- Community groups section with self-service content management
- Events calendar, member portal, and accommodation booking integration
Membership & Community Specialists
Community Engagement Consultant
£5,000A specialist in community development who designs the engagement strategy: how CDT communicates with its 441 members, supports its 11 community groups, and rebuilds its relationship with the wider village. This person designs the systems — survey, newsletter, outreach framework — and trains the admin team to run them.
What CDT gets
- Member engagement strategy with clear pathways for involvement
- Annual survey design and analysis framework
- Community outreach framework for wider Comrie engagement
- Training for admin team on member communications and CRM
How This Works in Practice
Months 1–3: Intensive
Specialists are engaged, briefed, and working. The governance consultant drafts policies. The storytelling expert is on-site interviewing people and photographing the camp. The PR firm is identifying media angles. The social media specialist sets up channels.
Months 4–8: Delivery & training
Policies are adopted by the board. The website elevation goes live. The first newsletter reaches all 441 members. Media coverage starts appearing. The admin team is being trained on every system. Community outreach events bring the village onto the camp.
Months 9–12: Self-sufficient
CDT runs its own social media, sends its own newsletters, maintains its own governance calendar, and updates the website independently. The specialists have exited. The systems, skills, and content remain.
Specialist Portfolio — £80,000
| Specialist | Stream | Key deliverables | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Governance consultant | Governance | Policies, risk register, complaints process | £4,000 |
| Strategic planning facilitator | Governance | 3–5 year plan, impact framework | £3,000 |
| Trustee training programme | Governance | Induction, legal duties, governance calendar | £3,000 |
| Governance tools & templates | Governance | Risk register platform, document templates | £2,000 |
| Heritage storytelling expert | Communications | CDT narrative, website content, brand voice | £8,000 |
| PR & media agency | Communications | Press kit, media outreach, journalist contacts | £8,000 |
| Social media specialist | Communications | Channels, campaigns, team training | £6,000 |
| Website elevation | Communications | Interactive map, heritage archive, events calendar | £12,000 |
| Photography & video | Communications | Professional photography, promotional video | £6,000 |
| Comms training & handover | Communications | Staff trained on all platforms and systems | £6,000 |
| Community engagement consultant | Membership | Member strategy, survey design, outreach framework | £5,000 |
| Membership platform & newsletter | Membership | CRM, newsletter system, member portal | £2,000 |
| Community events & training | Membership | Facilitated events, skills transfer to admin team | £5,000 |
| Community outreach fund | Membership | Small grants for wider Comrie initiatives | £10,000 |
| Programme total | £80,000 | ||
All specialist work includes skills transfer to the CDT admin team. The goal is self-sufficiency — every system and capability remains after the specialists have exited.
Who Has Done This Well?
CDT isn’t inventing anything new. Community trusts across Scotland and the UK have already built the governance frameworks and communications platforms we’re proposing. The difference is that CDT manages one of the most significant heritage sites of any development trust in the country — and our infrastructure hasn’t caught up with our responsibilities. These are the organisations we can learn from and, ultimately, stand alongside.
Organisations Like CDT
Community-owned heritage sites that have built strong governance and communications.
Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust
isleofeigg.org →Community-owned island · Small Isles, Highland
The 1997 community buyout that started the Scottish community land movement. Eigg manages a whole island — housing, renewable energy, forestry, tourism — and communicates all of it through a clean, story-led website. The Scottish Land Commission holds them up as an exemplar of community engagement: information packs to every resident before major decisions, regular open meetings, consistent social media through every project phase.
What CDT can learn: Eigg proves that transparent, proactive communications build the community trust that makes everything else possible — from planning consent to funding applications to volunteer recruitment.
Knoydart Foundation
knoydart.org →17,500-acre community estate · West Coast, Highland
Knoydart’s “Our Assets” page is what CDT should aspire to: a clear, public map of every community-owned building, piece of land, and infrastructure asset. Click on any building and see what it is, who uses it, and what condition it’s in. This is accountability made visible — and it’s exactly what CDT could build for Cultybraggan’s 100+ structures using the heritage assessment data that already exists.
What CDT can learn: An interactive asset map isn’t just nice to have — it demonstrates stewardship to funders and gives the public a reason to engage with the site before they visit.
Fife Historic Buildings Trust
fifehistoricbuildings.org.uk →Heritage conservation trust · Fife
The closest match for CDT’s conservation work. Fife HBT has delivered over £40 million in historic environment regeneration and presents every project through an interactive map with clear storytelling: what the building was, what was wrong, what they did, and what it looks like now. Each project page is a case study that funders can point to.
What CDT can learn: Heritage conservation needs to be communicated as a narrative of rescue and renewal, not a spreadsheet of condition scores. Each hut at Cultybraggan has a story worth telling.
GalGael Trust
galgael.org →Heritage community trust · Govan, Glasgow
Arguably the best storyteller in the Scottish community sector. GalGael uses heritage boat-building as a vehicle for community recovery in Govan — and their website leads with the human story, not the organisational structure. Their 20-year narrative arc demonstrates what sustained, authentic storytelling does for a community organisation: national media coverage, strong funding relationships, and deep community engagement.
What CDT can learn: CDT’s story — a WW2 POW camp where German and Ukrainian prisoners were held, now owned by the community and home to artists, craftspeople, and social enterprises — is equally compelling. It just hasn’t been told yet.
Where CDT Could Be in 5 Years
What the best development trusts look like at maturity.
Coin Street Community Builders
coinstreet.org →Development trust · South Bank, London
The gold standard. In 1984, Coin Street was 13 acres of derelict land on the South Bank. Today it’s a thriving mixed-use neighbourhood: Oxo Tower Wharf, Gabriel’s Wharf, 200+ affordable housing units, restaurants, galleries, and community facilities — all community-owned. Their communications are professional-grade: clear project pages, impact data, governance transparency, and a website that makes the case for community ownership just by existing.
National Trust
nationaltrust.org.uk →National heritage charity · UK-wide
Rated the UK’s #1 charity website. The National Trust has the largest membership of any organisation in the country — and they attribute that partly to the quality of their digital presence. Every property has its own rich page with professional photography, history, visitor information, and conservation stories. Scale aside, the principle is the same: tell the story of the place, and people will come.
Right on CDT’s Doorstep
Strathearn Arts
Community arts organisation · Crieff, Perthshire
Just down the road in Crieff, Strathearn Arts was shortlisted for the SCVO Digital Difference Award in 2024 — the main Scottish recognition for charities using digital tools effectively. They’re a much smaller organisation than CDT, which makes the point: it’s not about scale or budget, it’s about using digital communications intentionally and well.
Tools & Platforms We’d Draw From
PastMap / trove.scot (Historic Environment Scotland)
Interactive heritage map with 330,000+ records. The model for CDT's interactive camp map — click a structure, see its history and condition.
Digital Heritage Hub (National Lottery Heritage Fund)
880+ free learning resources for small heritage organisations covering digital engagement, content, and planning. CDT can access this immediately.
Community Map Scotland (Parish Online)
Interactive mapping tools adapted for Scottish communities. Could power CDT's public-facing camp map without building from scratch.
The Case to DTAS
“Comrie Development Trust is a provisional DTAS member managing one of Scotland’s most significant community-owned heritage sites — a Category A listed WW2 POW camp with 100+ structures, 441 members, and 11 community groups. Our governance and communications infrastructure hasn’t kept pace with our responsibilities. This programme brings us up to the standard that Eigg, Knoydart, and Coin Street have set — and makes CDT a showcase for what DTAS membership enables.”
That last line matters. DTAS wants success stories to justify their £5M fund to Foundation Scotland. A provisional member becoming an exemplar is exactly the outcome they’re looking for.