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 £2.6billion to more than 6,100 museum, library, archive and collection-based projects across the UK.

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

Strategic support for archives

Archives Revealed is the only grant programme in the UK dedicated to cataloguing archival collections. We've invested £5m in the programme as one of our strategic initiatives. 

We're working with The National Archives, The Pilgrim Trust and The Wolfson Foundation to address the significant need to catalogue and open up archive collections across the UK. Read more about what's being achieved with the funding below.

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 or browse projects we've funded.

How to get funding

Our National Lottery Heritage Grants programme is open for applications.