Museums, libraries and archives

Through preservation, exhibition and community engagement, they can bring collections, places and ideas to life. They help us to understand culture, science and history, and give us a sense of place, identity and community.
Thanks to National Lottery players, since 1994 we have awarded £2.5billion to 6,000 museum, library, archive and collection-based projects across the UK. See stories from projects we've funded below.
What do we support?
We provide grants for heritage projects from £10,000–£10million for projects led by or featuring museums, libraries and archives.
Our funding supports institutions large and small, including:
- national, local authority and independent museums, libraries and archives
- historic libraries
- community archives and oral history collections
- institutions with heritage collections
Project ideas
Our funding could help people:
- create exciting new exhibition and learning spaces
- attract new and more diverse audiences
- acquire new items and develop collections
- improve organisational resilience
For more inspiration, see the stories below, browse projects we've funded, or explore our recent Dynamic Collections campaign.
How to get funding
Our National Lottery Heritage Grants programme is open for applications.

Projects
VAD indexes online: personnel records of First World War volunteers
This project created an online database of records held by the British Red Cross on volunteers during the First World War.

Projects
Unseen Sandwell - The Jubilee Community Archive 1974-1994
A rich social archive was preserved for future generations thanks to a community history project across the Borough of Sandwell, West Midlands.

Projects
Iranian Heritage Project
Northern Cultural Projects CIC spent a year investigating and documenting the Iranian Heritage of the North East.

Projects
Unlocking the Anthony Burgess archive
The International Anthony Burgess Foundation (IABF) celebrated the life and work of Anthony Burgess, the novelist, poet, playwright, critic and composer born in Manchester in 1917.

Projects
A Different Spirit
Young people worked with creative practitioners, historians, curators and local residents to uncover the history of Ancoats Art Museum.

Projects
Mass Observation Archive: Exploring life in Britain from 1930s to 1950s
The University of Sussex’s Mass Education project inspired a range of people from local schools and communities to engage with a unique social history resource.

Projects
Armagh Public Library Conservation Project
Armagh Public Library is a Grade A listed building and one of the city’s key tourist attractions. It houses regionally and nationally important collections of books, manuscripts, prints and coins.

Projects
Refurbishing the British Galleries at the Victoria & Albert Museum
This exciting project at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) saw the major refurbishment of its British Galleries.

Projects
Ashmolean Museum Early 20th Century Gallery
The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is one of the world’s leading museums. In 2009, it benefitted from a multi-million pound redevelopment project, which saw its display space completely transformed.

Projects
Pontypool Townscape Community Project
This two-year project was designed to involve and engage the local community of Pontypool with their local area.

Projects
April Ashley exhibition and heritage education project
‘April Ashley: Portrait of a Lady’ shared the hidden history of the trans community – those whose gender identity and/or expression differs from the sex they were assigned at birth – with 1.2million visitors.

Projects
Barley Hall - Learning & Leisure
Give children a history book and they might struggle to understand the full picture, give them a mop cap to wear or a stick and hoop to play with and they will immerse themselves in their own medieval world.