Four investment principles guide all grant decision making under The National Lottery Heritage Fund’s 10-year strategy, Heritage 2033:
- saving heritage
- protecting the environment
- inclusion, access and participation
- organisational sustainability
You must take all four principles into account in your application. The strength of focus, and emphasis on each principle, is for you to decide and demonstrate.
- Is your organisation looking to care for and sustain heritage in the UK?
- Will your heritage project run for no more than five years?
- Do you require a grant of between £10,000 and £250,000?
- Are you a not-for-profit organisation, a private owner of a heritage asset or a partnership?
- Does your project take into account the four investment principles?
Submit a Project Enquiry to get feedback on your project idea before making a full application. You will receive a reply within 10 working days.
- Is your organisation looking to care for and sustain heritage in the UK?
- Will your heritage project run for no more than five years (excluding the development phase)?
- Do you require a grant of between £250,000 and £10m?
- Are you a not-for-profit organisation or a partnership led by a not-for-profit organisation?
- Does your project take into account the four investment principles?
Your heritage project could include:
- Nature – works to improve habitats or conserve species, as well as helping people to connect to nature in their daily lives.
- Designed landscapes – improving and conserving historic landscapes such as public parks, historic gardens and botanical gardens.
- Large-scale rural projects that help improve landscapes for people and nature by, for example, restoring habitats and celebrating the cultural traditions of the land.
- Oral history recordings of people’s stories, memories and songs, as a way of communicating and revealing the past.
- Cultural traditions exploring the history of different cultures through storytelling, or things that you do as part of your community. This could be anything from dance and theatre to food or clothing. It could also include the heritage of languages and dialects.
- Commemorations and celebrations – telling the stories and histories of people, communities, places or events related to specific times and dates.
- Historic buildings, monuments and the historic environment – from houses and mills to caves and gardens. Areas that are connected to history and heritage.
- Community archaeology involves the active participation of volunteers in archaeological activities, everything from investigating, photographing, surveying, excavation and finds processing. Sometimes it is called public archaeology.
- Museums, libraries and archives – making the collections that museums, libraries and archives hold more accessible through new displays, improving public buildings and galleries, or engaging people with interpreting new and existing collections.
- Acquiring new objects – help towards the cost of acquiring one-off objects or collections as part of a collections development policy.
- Industrial, maritime and transport – places and objects linked to our industrial, maritime and transport history.
Online application advice is available, see website for details, and includes regular webinars.
