National Lottery Grants for Heritage Opens for Phase 1 Applications offering grants of between £3,000 and £100,000 to support the UK’s heritage sector respond to the impacts of coronavirus/COVID-19 and to adapt and thrive again.

After a two-month pause, the National Lottery Grants for Heritage programme has reopened for applications for small and medium project funding applications. This is the first of two phases. (Phase two will open in February 2021.)

There is a total of £10 million for phase one with grants of between £3,000 and £10,000 or £10,000 and £100,000.  No match funding is required by the applicant.

Phase one funding is designed to focus on organisational resilience or on projects that deliver inclusion in heritage – (all bids must include engaging a wider range of people  in heritage).

The funding can support two types of projects:

• Organisations and communities working with heritage to begin to recover and adapt in the continuing COVID-19 crisis.
• Focused on inclusion and led by and/or engaging diverse groups typically under-represented in heritage, such as young people, minority ethnic and LGBT+ communities, disabled people and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

The funding can cover any reasonable costs that help an organisation to recover and become viable. The majority of costs should relate to resilience of inclusion focused work.

Not-for-profit organisations, local authorities, public sector organisations or private owners of heritage can apply.

Applications will be assessed within eight weeks and proposals will then be discussed at the next decision meeting.

This is a rolling programme. There are no deadlines. Details at: https://www.heritagefund.org.uk/funding

National Lottery Heritage Fund