Expertise and assistance from the Heritage Fund, alongside relationship building and best practice sharing among applicants, is raising the profile of heritage in places traditionally under-served by our funding.

The Year 4 evaluation of our Areas of Focus initiative shows continuing positive outcomes and provides key learnings and recommendations that can be incorporated into this and other initiatives.

What we’ve found

• The availability and support of our engagement teams has helped improve confidence among organisations in the 13 areas.
• Pre-application support and tailored guidance from our consultants has been beneficial to new applicants.
• Our dedicated community grants scheme has helped first-time applicants build confidence in a less competitive environment and build relationships with delivery partners.
• Sharing best practice and examples of successful projects has helped first-time applicants understand how projects operate in practice, boosting their own understanding of what success looks like.
• Peer-to-peer support and sharing of ideas has built confidence among organisations.
• Collaboration with other funders has raised the profile of heritage and the Heritage Fund, both with other organisations and with communities in the 13 areas.

Explore more

Read the full evaluation report in the PDF attached to this page, and find out more about some of the inspiring projects we've funded in these 13 areas across the UK.

Legacy of learning

We’re building on what we’ve learned through Areas of Focus to continue our targeted support.

In October we launched Heritage Places, our £200million strategic initiative to forge long-term partnerships with towns and cities across the UK to tackle longstanding heritage issues at scale. By unlocking the potential of, and connecting people and communities to, heritage, we can boost pride in place.

We will use our findings from Areas of Focus, and what we learn throughout the delivery of Heritage Places, to improve how we work, and we’ll share that learning widely.

Our research and evaluation

We regularly conduct research to discover what is happening in the heritage sector, and we evaluate our work to better understand the change we are making. Read more of our insight.