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

Expression of Interest: £250,000 to £10million Application questions: £250,000 to £10million Application deadlines: National Lottery Heritage Grants over £250,000 Receiving your grant: £250,000 to £10million Standard Terms of Grant: £250,000 to £10million On this page Overview What we fund Who can apply? Application process 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.

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 £250,000 to £10m.

You must first submit an Expression of Interest and, if you are successful, we will invite you to apply.

Your application will usually go through two phases: a development phase of up to two years, enabling you work on your project proposal, and a delivery phase of no more than five years. If you think a two phase application is not right for your project, please contact your local office to discuss.

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 (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 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. You must first submit an Expression of Interest to tell us about your idea, and we will let you know if you are invited to apply. Deadlines for development and delivery applications are quarterly Once we receive your application and all the correct supporting documents, we will assess your application within 12 weeks and, following assessment, it will be assigned to the next scheduled decision meeting. For grants under £1m, you must contribute at least 5% of your project costs. For grants over £1m, you must contribute at least 10% of your project costs. Payments for development grants under £250,000 are made in three stages: 50% in advance, 30% in advance, and then 20% in arrears. Payments for development grants over £250,000, and all delivery grants, are made in arrears. We provide lots of good practice guidance. We recommend that you read the guidance that is relevant to you to help you develop and manage your project. We may consider applications for over £10m for truly exceptional heritage projects. If this applies to your project, you should contact your local office to discuss this. 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.

Heritage Enterprise

Some projects seek to achieve economic growth by investing in heritage. We call these Heritage Enterprise projects. The maximum you can apply for under heritage enterprise is £5m.

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 application project costs section of the application. We recommend you base these costs on quotes from potential suppliers.

If your grant is for more than £1m towards a new exhibition space, visitor centre, community garden or other public facility, we would also like to discuss how The National Lottery might best be incorporated into the name of the space or site.

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, for both development and delivery phases.

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.

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