National Lottery Heritage Grants £10,000 to £250,000

Project Enquiry: £10,000 to £250,000 Application questions: £10,000 to £250,000 Watch: how to apply for £10,000–£250,000 funding for a heritage project Project plan and risk register template Receiving your grant: £10,000 to £250,000 Terms and conditions of your grant: £10,000 to £250,000 On this page Overview What we fund Who can apply? How to apply Supporting documents How we assess your application Acquiring buildings, land or heritage items Community grants Legal and policy requirements Get in touch Guidance updates See all updates We fund projects that connect people and communities to the national, regional and local heritage of the UK.

Page last updated: 31 October 2025

National Lottery Heritage Grants is our funding programme for all types of heritage projects in the UK.

Use this guidance to apply for grants from £10,000 to £250,000.

Overview Is this the right programme for you? 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 our four investment principles?

If you answered yes to these questions, then National Lottery Heritage Grants could be for you.

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AcceptWatch on YouTube Our investment principles

Four investment principles guide all our grant decision making under our 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.

The investment principles, and our strategic initiatives, will help us achieve our ambitions for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone’s future.

Things you need to know Your project must not start before we make a decision. There is no deadline so you can apply whenever you are ready. You can get advice on your project before you apply by submitting an optional Project Enquiry. Once we receive your application and all the correct supporting documents, we will assess your application and aim to give you a decision in eight weeks. Payments for this grant level are usually made in three stages: 50% in advance, 30% in advance, and then 20% in arrears. We provide lots of good practice guidance. You can read the guidance that is relevant to you to help you develop and manage your project. Explore our position and advice on using artificial intelligence (AI) tools in your grant application. What we fund

We fund projects that value, care for and sustain heritage for everyone across the UK, now and in the future.

Heritage can mean different things to different people. It can be anything from the past that you value and want to pass on to future generations.

This could include nature and habitats, historic buildings and environments, or cultures, traditions and people’s memories. Explore a wide range of the types of heritage that your project could include.

We fund projects that:

clearly focus on heritage – this can be national, regional or local heritage of the UK take into account all four investment principles have a clear plan with a defined start, middle and end have not already started can demonstrate the need for National Lottery investment

It is important to plan your project carefully, including costs, timescales and getting support for your project before you start to fill out an application. The guidance below will help you think about what you should include in your project and the costs we can cover.

Our heritage grants can support a broad range of activities and direct project costs, such as:

volunteer expenses, new staff posts and training costs capital works, repair, maintenance and conservation professional fees, event costs and activities to strengthen your organisation acquisition of heritage and costs associated with the purchase costs to join Fit for the Future, a UK-wide environmental sustainability network

We cannot cover existing costs or any activity that has taken place before the grant is awarded, or anything that promotes the cause or beliefs of political or faith organisations.

We will not support projects that include installing artificial grass or plants, however specialist play safety surfacing and professional sports surfaces are allowed.

Welsh Language

If your project will take place in Wales, you must include the Welsh language in all aspects of your work. Tell us how you will promote and support the Welsh language and reflect the bilingual nature of Wales.

Make sure that translations are included in your project plan and project budget under the ‘Other’ costs category within the project costs section of the application.

For further information see our Welsh bilingual project guidance.

Promotion and acknowledgment of funding

Acknowledging your grant from the Heritage Fund is an important part of your project. It is your opportunity to show how National Lottery funding is being used to support heritage in the UK, and to publicly thank National Lottery players for making your project possible.

Planning early, and allocating appropriate budget, will help you to meet our requirements and acknowledge your grant in ways that are creative and suited to your project.

We encourage you to develop innovative offers or promotions for National Lottery players, for example, you might sign up for National Lottery Open Week to run special offers.

Please include budget for acknowledgement in the ‘Publicity and promotions’ costs category within the project costs section of the application. We recommend you base these costs on quotes from potential suppliers.

Use our acknowledgement guidance to plan your activities proportionate to the size of your grant.

Evaluation and reporting

Good quality evaluation helps you understand your impact and provides the opportunity for others to learn from your experience. In turn, this information helps us identify the difference we are making through our grants.

We recommend you build in evaluation from the beginning of your project. Our evidence shows that the more carefully projects budget for their evaluation, the higher the quality of the final report.

You will need to include budget for evaluation and reporting in the ‘Evaluation’ costs category within the project costs section of your application.

Skills development

We encourage you to consider opportunities for people to develop skills as part of your project. This could include young people, those not in training or employment, and people not currently working in the heritage sector.

For example:

heritage skills, where there are gaps, shortages or skills at risk of being lost, such as traditional crafts, building skills or digitisation organisational skills, including project management, business development, leadership or governance skills for climate adaptation and supporting net zero

You may also consider developing a skills programme, which aims to diversify the heritage workforce and support a wider range of volunteers.

You can include budget for skills development using the ‘training for staff’ and ‘training for volunteers’ cost categories within the project costs section of the application.

Full cost recovery

If you are an organisation in the voluntary sector (for example, you might have a board of trustees and be funded by grants and donations), we can cover a proportion of your organisation’s overheads through full cost recovery.

Full cost recovery means securing funding for all the costs involved in running a project. This means that you can request funding for direct project costs as well as a proportionate share of your organisation’s fixed costs.

This may include costs that partly support the project, but also support other projects or activities that your organisation provides, such as salaries of staff working across projects in administration, management, HR, or fundraising, office costs such as rent or utilities and legal or audit fees.

Funding that covers some of your running costs can be important for your sustainability, so we encourage you to consider including this in your budget in the ‘Full costs recovery’ costs category if you are eligible.

Recognised guidance on calculating the full cost recovery amount that applies to your project is available from organisations such as The National Lottery Community Fund.

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