Second round of Culture Recovery Fund is open

A second round of the Culture Recovery Fund, which offers grants of between £10,000 and £3m to help the heritage sector with the costs they will face as they prepare to welcome back visitors, is now open.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund is distributing £36m of government funding to organisations in England, in partnership with Historic England, based on criteria set by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

This second round of funding will offer grants to assist organisations to transition from the challenging months of Covid-19 lockdowns and social distancing to resume business activity and welcome visitors back to the country’s diverse heritage sites.

Culture Recovery Fund eligibility

The funding will support these organisations to build up operations and begin a programme of heritage activity in April-June 2021. It aims to ensure that organisations will be operating on a viable and sustainable basis by June 2021.

The Heritage Fund is accepting applications from organisations and businesses that own, manage or work with heritage sites in England.

Applications will be accepted from private owners of nationally significant heritage sites, venues or attractions that are normally open to the public at least 28 days a year or which host public events.

There is an extensive list of further acceptable organisations and businesses on the Heritage Fund website that could receive the funding. It is important to ensure before making an application that applicants are properly constituted as an organisation.

Through the programme, organisations can apply to cover costs associated with shortfalls in income during the April to June 2021 period, whilst working towards starting normal operations.

This shortfall may be costs organisations incur as part of operations and business, including: staffing, overheads, marketing, heritage activities, maintenance of buildings and land, equipment and services.

Costs covered by the existing government grant schemes will be ineligible along with any costs outside the April-June 2021 period or anything that contravenes the government Covid-19 guidance.

Short deadline for heritage sites

The fund opened for applications on 7 January 2021. Applicants can apply until 2pm on 26 January 2021. The application form and guidance can be found on the Heritage Fund website. The Heritage Fund will be hosting two free webinars on the 13 and 14 January to discuss the fund’s criteria and answer any queries.