Upcoming Funding Deadlines – September Round Up
We have updated our list of funding sources from different funders on our website, but we have also pulled out the ones with deadlines coming up in the next few weeks.
Museum Development North
· Open Grants – grants of up to £5,000 for a single museum or up to £7,500 for a museum service with multiple Accredited sites, a partnership or consortium for work to help your museum progress and develop by implementing advice, testing new ways of working and making good things happen. Projects should be developed either in line with existing forward plans or other key policy and planning documents, including Accreditation Development Areas or through your consideration of how ACE’s Let’s Create strategy and the Investment Principles impact on what your museum does and how it works. If you’re planning on submitting an application and haven’t yet discussed it with your Museum Development Adviser please get in touch with them. Deadline 6pm 13 September
· Strategic Grants – Grants of up to £1,500 for a single museum and up to £2,000 for multisite organisations, partnerships and consortiums to support organisations to deliver on actions arising from participation in current and past Museum Development programmes which will align with specific ACE Investment Principles. If you have received advice from MDNE, MDNW, MDY or MD North in the past two years and need funding to implement the recommendations, this fund is appropriate for your museum. Advice could have been given either through your participation in a Museum Development programme or directly from a Museum Development Adviser. Deadline 30 September
· CPD (Continuing Professional Development) Bursaries – Supported by ACE and Art Fund, bursaries of up to £500 for individuals and up to £2,000 for organisations and networks are available to support the museum sector to retain and train its workforce under the following themes:
- Develop the use of collections in new ways
- Support audience development and increase engagement with under-represented audiences
- Volunteer and workforce development
Additional consideration will be given to applications from:
- museums with fewer than 50,000 visitors per year seeking to reconnect with visitors or reimagine their future as vital community spaces
- museums in areas of low cultural community engagement, where the museum is the main cultural offer in a locality
- museums in urban areas that have niche collections and specific cultural offers outside the larger city institutions
Open now for applications, apply any time until 6 December or earlier if funds have been allocated
Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund (administered by the Museums Association) supports a range of projects that bring collections closer to people. Grants of up to £100,000 for projects over two years are available. The Fund supports museums to improve their inclusive collections and participatory practice with, and sometimes led by, community partners. It is looking for museums that have established strategic aims for diversity, equity and inclusion; and that are ready to use their collections and its funding to support social and climate justice, in ways that are relevant to local contexts and relationships. In a change to previous years, it will support core costs for the funding period. Next deadline for applications 16 September.
Arts Fundraising & Philanthropy
England’s national arts and cultural fundraising programme, dedicated to transforming the sector’s knowledge, skills and success in fundraising.
· Brave Futures – a programme to support arts, culture and heritage organisations to review their business models, build dynamic future plans and make difficult decisions. Deadline for applications 25 September
· 2024-25 training programme:
- Online charged-for courses (£50-£75) covering fundraising and leadership are starting from September 2024
- Concessions are available for freelancers, members of the Arts Marketing Association, members of the National Museum Directors’ Council and charities and arts organisations with an annual turnover of £500,000 or less
- Training bursaries available for all courses through £10 bursary tickets
Association of Independent Museums (AIM)
AIM Pilgrim Trust Collections Care and Conservation Grants – funded by the Pilgrim Trust to support small to medium-sized museums (50,000 visitors or less per year) to care for their collections more effectively and efficiently and to meet the standards required for Accreditation. Next deadline 27 September
- Collections Care Audits – run in partnership with ICON to enable small museums to undertake a professional collections care audit. Grants of £1,200 plus travel and VAT (if applicable) are available to cover the cost of a fully accredited conservator undertaking a three-day audit
- Collections Care Scheme – grants help small to medium AIM member museums develop a more sustainable approach to the conservation and management of collections through improvements to collections care. Grants of up to £10,000 are available to enable museums to receive tailored, specialist advice, purchase equipment, implement advice and train staff and volunteers
- Remedial Conservation Scheme – grants of up to £10,000 are available to conserve objects that are part of a museum’s permanent collection
Tru Vue Conservation and Exhibition Grant – small heritage institutions can apply for grant funding up to £3,000 to support the delivery of conservation projects that enable the safe display of an object in their collection. Projects will either conserve and protect an object or objects already on display or enable an object that is not currently on display to be conserved and made accessible to visitors in a safe way. Deadline 30 September.
Open funds are available through the Postcode Neighbourhood Trust which supports smaller charities and good causes in the north of England to make a difference to their community for the benefit of people and planet. Grants are between £500 and £25,000. The funding offered is unrestricted and therefore flexible. It can be used however it is most needed. Applications are considered three times per year. The next deadline is 1 October. Priority will be given to charities and good causes which meet some or all of the following criteria:
· Annual income of £250,000 and below
· For communities that rank as being within the top 15% on the English Indices of Deprivation
· Funding for groups that are set up to support people from the following minority/marginalised groups
- Communities experiencing racial inequity
- Disabled people
- LGBT+ people
This year’s themes are:
· Enabling participation in physical activity
· Enabling participation in the arts
· Preventing or reducing the impact of poverty
· Supporting marginalised groups and tackling inequality
· Improving biodiversity and responding to the climate emergency
· Improving green spaces and increasing access to the outdoors
· Providing support to improve mental health
Everyday Heritage Grants: Celebrating Working Class Histories – funding projects that celebrate working class histories and the historic places that make up everyday life. Grants up to £25,000, particularly looking for smaller projects up to £10,000. Willing to fund proposals with links to established heritage institutions but are especially interested in funding community-led projects. Grants are not designed to fund reinterpretation of museum collections, but rather are to fund projects to uncover people’s stories in relation to buildings or places. Deadline for applications 7 October.
Art Fund Teacher Fellowships – open to museums with existing Clore Learning Spaces, offers grants to strengthen engagement between secondary schools and museums through fully funded teacher secondments. Supported by Clore Duffield Foundation. Deadline for applications 18 October.
TransPennine Route Upgrade Community Fund
Grant programme to improve local spaces and services along the 70-mile TransPennine Route between Manchester, Huddersfield, Leeds and York. Community projects within 5 miles of the core TRU route and its key diversionary routes are eligible to receive funding.
· Small Grants – £1,000-£5,000 grants, deadline for applications 16 September
· Medium Grants – £5,000-£10,000, deadline for applications 30 September
Funds organisations in the North West. Provides grants to encourage the study, practice and appreciation of science and the arts. Looks for imaginative proposals from organisations which will in some way make the North West a richer and more attractive place in which to live and work. Grants from £500-£10,000 but the Foundation will not be the sole funder of a project. The average grant is £2,000. Next deadline 18 October.
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