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Culture Recovery Fund – second round

On Friday 11 December 2020 Government announced a further round of Culture Recovery Fund investment as part of its £1.57 billion support package for arts, culture and heritage in the UK.

Applications are now open for Round 2 of Repayable Finance which will help organisations move back to a viable and sustainable operating model during 2021/2022.

Read the guidance here.

Application deadline: 12noon, 7 January 2021

Sign up to ACE newsletter to be the first to know when they publish more information about Culture Recovery Fund Grants.

Thriving Communities Fund

The Thriving Communities Fund is open for applications.  Developed in partnership with the National Academy for Social Prescribing, the fund will help create local partnerships who can offer activity to help improve or maintain health and wellbeing, particularly for groups that experience healthcare inequalities made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Find out more and how to apply here.

Application Deadline: 12pm (midday), 8 January 2021

Decision date: 15 March 2021

 

Impact of Covid-19 on Freelancers

Museum Freelance ran a poll from 12-30 November, to identify the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on freelancers working with museums, galleries, heritage sites, libraries and archives.

Headline findings based on 305 responses include:

Read the full report here.

Hallmarks at Home

The first Hallmarks at Home online events of 2021 are open for bookings for AIM members:

5 January, 11am-12.30pm – Tackling inequalities
12 January, 10am-11.30pm – Practical governance for museum trustees
13 January, 11am-12.30pm – Managing people through change
19 January, 11am-12.30pm – Diversifying your income
20 January, 11am-12.30pm – Applying to trusts
26 January, 11am-12.30pm – Business planning: Adapting as a result of Covid-19
27 January, 11am-12.30pm – Introductions to collections care

For more details and to book click here.

Collections Trust Award

The theme for this year’s Collections Trust Award is celebrating recent collections-based work achieved in challenging circumstances.  The winning museum will receive £1000 to spend on an agreed collections management activity.  Entries could focus on work that went on behind the scenes during lockdown, an initiative to engage with volunteers remotely or an audience-facing online collections project.

Entry is open to all UK museums that are Accredited or working towards Accreditation. Trustees, members of staff or volunteers can enter on behalf of their museum and entries will be judged by three members of the Collections Trust board.  There will be an online event to showcase and celebrate the winning museum in March.  To enter, please read the full terms and conditions, and complete the form which you’ll find on the Collections Trust website.

The deadline is midnight on Friday 22 January 2021.

Funding Opportunities through Museums Association

Digital Innovation and Engagement funding call

The MA is delighted to be working with two new partners UK Research and Innovation and Arts and Humanities Research Council  to share funding with the sector.   They expect to award eight grants and look forward to talking to museums about their ideas. For more information click here.

Crowdfunding for institutional members

The MA has teamed up with Crowdfunder to launch #SupportOurMuseums, a new UK-wide campaign to support our fantastic museums as they face the huge challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.  MA institutional members can take part by launching a free crowdfunding campaign.  Crowdfunder has waived all their fees, so there’ll be and every penny donated will go straight to the museum.  Find out more.

Rebuilding Heritage

The Rebuilding Heritage programme is providing free 1-2-1 and group support for individuals and organisations in the heritage sector in leadership, business planning, fundraising, communications, and wellbeing.

Applications for the next round of dedicated 1-2-1 and group support is now open until 16 December.  For more details including how to apply click here.

Applications close: 11pm, 16 December

Successful applicants will be contacted within a week of the application deadline, support sessions will take place remotely (via video call or phone call) in January and February 2021.

New Project Funding and Loans to Support Resilience

National Lottery Heritage Fund

New project funding and loans to support sector resilience.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund has resumed accepting small and medium project funding applications and launched an interest free loans pilot.  This National Lottery funding is part of its ongoing commitment to support the UK’s heritage sector respond to the impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19), to adapt and thrive again.

National Lottery Grants for Heritage
The reopening of project funding – for grants between £3,000 to £100,000 is the first phase of a two-stage resumption of the  National Lottery Grants for Heritage.

It represents a return to its core business, but it is not a return to business as usual.

The primary focus is on resilience and supporting heritage not-for-profit and public sector organisations and local authorities through the continuing COVID-19 crisis.

It is also accepting applications from organisations or partnerships with projects that are led by and/or which engage diverse groups.

The first decision meeting will take place in mid-January.

Decision makers will prioritise applications from those who have not received funding through the Heritage Emergency Fund or government recovery funds for heritage and culture.

Explore the application guidance to find out if this funding is suitable for you.

Heritage Recovery and Resilience Loans
The new interest free loans – available for sums between from £50,000 to £250,000 – are aimed at organisations looking to restart and develop their income generating potential.

Repayable finance not only maximises the NLHF  impact through recycling some of its income, but social investment and loans such as this helps the heritage sector to diversify income, strengthen business models and become more resilient.

NLHF has a budget of £1.2m for the loans pilot. Funds are offered on a 0% interest basis, with no arrangement fee, and a 12-month payment holiday. Recipients will then have up to five years to repay the loan.

Applicants must be:

Find out more in the loans application guidance. The deadline for applications is 14 February 2021.

UK Museum Exhibitions Survey 

A PhD student at the University of Warwick and Oxford University Museum of Natural History seeks to explore the insights and perspectives of sector professionals and experts concerning the exhibition development processes in museums across the UK.  She is looking to gain insight into practices of exhibition design, your opinions on what makes an exhibition, and what museum visitors gain from them.

The current stage of the research takes the form of a survey, which will take approximately 10 minutes to complete.  It can be accessed here and is open until Friday 30 October.

TWA Digitisation Grant

This year TownsWeb Archiving (TWA) will be offering three grants of £3,000 in order to provide as many organisations an opportunity to digitise their valuable collections.

There has been an addition to the marking criteria this year which TWA would like to focus on.  This includes a section focusing on accessibility to the digitised collection so that as many users far and wide can benefit from from the digitisation projects TWA fund.

The grant can be used to fund the digitisation of bound books, manuscripts, oversized maps and plans, 35mm slides, microfilm/fiche, glass plate negatives, and other two-dimensional cultural heritage media.

The deadline for applications is 20 November with successful applications announced on 9 December.

All shortlisted applicants to receive an optional £500 of match funding.

For more information, including eligibility, and to apply click here.