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Funding

At The National Lottery Heritage Fund, we will do everything we can to help the UK’s outstanding heritage sector adapt through this most difficult of times and thrive again.

We are the largest dedicated grant funder of the UK's heritage. Since 1994, we've awarded over £8bn to more than 44,000 projects across the UK.

Together we can demonstrate the critical role that heritage can play to help people, communities and places through this crisis.

Our programmes

National Lottery Grants for Heritage

Grants of £3,000 to £10,000 and £10,000 to £100,000

Resilience and inclusion project funding to support organisations working with heritage to adapt and respond to the changing environment they are now operating in.

Open to projects that:

  • Support organisations working with heritage to adapt and recover in the continuing coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. 

or

  • Are focused on inclusion, led by and/or engaging diverse groups typically under-represented in heritage.
Find out more and apply for National Lottery Grants for Heritage

This is the first phase of a two-stage reopening of our project funding. Find out more.

Heritage Recovery and Resilience Loans

Loans of £50,000 to £250,000

Heritage Recovery and Resilience Loans are designed to help fund activities and costs that will develop and restart your organisation’s income generating potential.

This funding is well suited to organisations who have already been working on resilience, and are currently operating with a mixed income model of enterprise and grant funding, who require support to meet operating costs or adjust their operating model as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.  

  • fixed 0% interest rate
  • no fees for arrangement or early repayment
  • optional 12-month repayment holiday
  • repayment period is up to 5 years
  • applications open until 14 February 2021
Find out more and apply for Heritage Recovery and Resilience Loans

Funding for organisations, businesses and private owners in England

Grants of £10,000 to £3m

Culture Recovery Fund for Heritage: Second Round

Supporting organisations struggling under the pressures of coronavirus (COVID-19) to make the transition towards full reopening. We are distributing this fund with Historic England on behalf of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

  • for organisations and businesses that own, work with or manage heritage in England
  • £36m fund
  • grants of £10,000 to £3m
  • supporting you to build up your operations and begin a programme of heritage activity in April-June 2021
  • open for applications 7-26 January 2021
  • repayable finance also available with a lower limit of £1m and no upper limit
Find out more and apply for the Culture Recovery Fund for Heritage: Second Round

Funding for organisations in Wales

Grants of £10,000 to £250,000

Local Places for Nature

A capital grant scheme to enable communities in Wales to acquire, restore and enhance nature. We are distributing this fund in partnership with Welsh Government.

  • £2.3m fund
  • grants of £10,000 to £50,000
  • applications are open until further notice or until all the grant monies have been allocated#
Find out more and apply for Local Places for Nature

 

Community Woodlands

A capital grant scheme for projects to restore, create, connect and manage community woodlands in Wales. We are distributing this fund in partnership with Welsh Government.

  • £2.1m fund
  • grants of £10,000 to £250,000
  • open for applications until 21 October 2021 
  • projects must be delivered by March 2022 
Find out more and apply for Community Woodlands

 

Business Support Funding Wales

Funding is available for organisations or partnerships to support those working with heritage in Wales to build their skills in organisational leadership and management.

  • £250,000 fund
  • project enquiries open until noon on 24 November 2020
  • those invited to submit a full application will have until 13 January 2021 to do so
Find out more and apply for Business Support Funding Wales

Digital Skills and Business Support funding

Building capacity and resilience in the heritage sector

This funding is part of the commitment we made in our Strategic Funding Framework to support heritage organisations to be more robust, enterprising and forward looking. The funded training and development programmes will promote skills adoption through a range of complementary approaches.

Digital Skills for Heritage

Funding is available to innovative organisations that can help us support digital development in the heritage sector.

  • £1.4m total fund
  • applications open until 15 January 2021

The fund is divided into three tranches:

 

Business Support Funding Wales

Funding is available for organisations or partnerships to support those working with heritage in Wales to build their skills in organisational leadership and management.

  • £250,000 fund
  • project enquiries open until noon on 24 November
  • those invited to submit a full application will have until 13 January 2021 to do so
Find out more and apply for Business Support Funding Wales

 

Shared History Fund

Grants for £3,000 to £100,000

Supporting organisations across the UK seeking to mark the Centenary of Northern Ireland in 2021 in a spirit of mutual respect, inclusiveness and reconciliation, in line with the Principles for Remembering. 

We are distributing this funding on behalf of the Northern Ireland Office.

  • £1m fund
  • open for applications until noon on 15 January 2021
  • funding must be spent by 31 March 2022
Find out more and apply for the Shared History Fund

Closed programmes

These programmes are currently closed for applications.

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