We fund projects that connect people and communities to the national, regional and local heritage of the UK.
Page last updated: 21 August 2024.
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.
If you answered yes to these questions, then National Lottery Heritage Grants could be for you.
Four investment principles guide all our grant decision making under our 10-year strategy, Heritage 2033:
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.
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:
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 cost 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.
You must contribute towards the costs of your project at this grant level. This is known as partnership funding and it can be made up of cash, non-cash contributions, volunteer time or a combination of all of these.
We use a standard rate of £20 per hour to calculate volunteer time.
If your project involves capital works, you can include the increased future costs of managing and maintaining the heritage for up to five years after practical completion as partnership funding.
For grant requests between £250,000 and £1m:
For grant requests between £1m and £10m:
If your project is receiving funding from other National Lottery distributors (for example, the Community Fund) this can count as partnership funding, but it cannot count towards your minimum contribution of 5% or 10%.
If you are providing the minimum required partnership funding, or you are unable to provide any partnership funding, you will need to explain why in your application. We will then consider your case for the amount of grant requested as part of our assessment.
Expand All accordionsUnder this programme, we accept applications from not-for-profit organisations and partnerships led by not-for-profit organisations.
Here are some examples of the types of organisations we can fund:
Organisations need to have a bank account, a governing document, and two or more members that are not related or living at the same address.
If you are unsure whether you are eligible to apply, get in touch with your local team by submitting an Expression of Interest.
We encourage you to work with other people to develop and carry out your project.
A partner is another organisation or third-party body that is integral to the delivery of your project.
Partners are not subcontractors. They will take on an active role in the project and will be involved in the project. They will help to report on progress, attend regular partnership meetings and support project evaluation.
If you plan to work with any other organisations to carry out a significant proportion of your project you must formalise your relationship with a partnership agreement.
If you are making a joint application, you will need to decide which organisation will be the lead applicant. The lead applicant will complete the application, and if successful, receive the grant and provide project updates. We usually expect the owner of the heritage to be the lead applicant. If the lead applicant is not the owner of the heritage, we usually ask them to sign up to the terms of grant.
Expand All accordionsYou must first submit an Expression of Interest and, if you are successful, we will invite you to apply. You will have 12 months in which to submit an application.
If we are not inviting you to apply, we will explain our reason. You must wait three months before you submit a new Expression of Interest.
Your application will be in competition with other projects in both the development and delivery phases. A development grant award does not guarantee that you will receive a delivery grant award.
Your application should usually include a development phase to help you work on your project proposal. You should include detailed information about this phase and outline proposals for your delivery phase. The development phase allows you to gain a better understanding of the costs, resources, timeline and the needs of your audiences. You should use this information to create detailed proposals for your delivery phase application.
You may take up to two years to complete this phase.
The development phase is likely to include:
We will review your project during this phase to see how you are progressing with your delivery phase application.
For projects involving capital works, we will look at your plans when they are in line with RIBA work stage 2.
The main purpose of the review is to confirm that:
The review also provides the opportunity to review any significant changes and highlight any areas where further work is needed. If there are serious concerns, your project may fail the review and we will recommend that you do not submit a delivery phase application.
We will discuss your delivery phase application with you during your development phase. You should provide detailed information about your delivery phase proposals in your application.
If you are awarded a delivery grant, you will have up to five years to complete your project unless we have agreed a longer project duration with you.
There are quarterly deadlines for development and delivery phase applications.
In exceptional circumstances, we may consider a fast-track application process, if there is a compelling need for a faster decision (for example, if you have an opportunity to buy a heritage item at an auction but need to move quickly). If you think this applies to your project, you should contact your local office to discuss this.
Expand All accordionsUse this checklist to make sure you are ready to apply:
We aim to respond to your Expression of Interest within 20 working days.
If you are successful, we will invite you to make a full application.
Please note: an invitation to apply does not guarantee a grant from us in the future, but it does show that we see potential in your initial proposal.
Step two (if my Expression of Interest is successful, and I am invited to apply):
You will need to provide relevant supporting documents, outlined in this section, as part of the application process.
Some documents are required during the development phase of your project, while others are required during the delivery phase. You will also need to provide updated versions of some of the documents provided with your development phase application as part of your delivery phase application.
Not all of the other documents listed below will apply to your project. The additional information and the application questions guidance will help you decide if they are relevant. Please do not submit any extra documents, as we will not use them in assessment.
Additional supporting documents are required for applications that refer to Heritage Enterprise projects.
Additional supporting documents may be required for applications that involve acquisitions. See further information in the Acquiring buildings, land or heritage items section.
You must provide the following mandatory documents:
You must provide a copy of your organisation’s governing document.
You must have at least two people on your board or management committee who are not related by blood or marriage, or living at the same address.
Your governing document should include the following:
We are unable to fund your organisation if your constitution does not include the above. The Charity Commission provides guidance on creating a governing document.
We do not need to see your governing document if you are:
You must provide your most recently audited or accountant verified accounts for the last three year and your management accounts for the current year.
If your organisation’s accounts are older than 18 months, or your organisation was set up less than 14 months ago and does not have a set of audited accounts, you must provide your last three bank statements or a signed letter from your bank.
You must submit a risk register for both the development and delivery phases.
A risk register is a document, usually set out as a table, that lists all the risks identified by an organisation and prioritised in order of importance.
We know all projects face challenges and risks. We will want to see what risks you have considered, the impact the risk would have on your project and how you would plan to manage each risk.
For each risk, outline:
You must provide a spreadsheet detailing the costs you outlined when completing your application.
We require a detailed spreadsheet of project expenditure and income, with reference to the budget headings used in your application, itemising each aspect.
For example, you may have included repair and conservation work in your initial budget, with a headline summary of 'roof repairs, £100,000'. You should elaborate on this in your detailed cost breakdown, providing a spreadsheet that contains an itemised list of the materials and labour involved with a separate row for each cost.
You must submit your organisation’s current business plan.
If you do not have a business plan please submit the document you work with to manage your heritage. If you are an organisation that manages multiple sites or are, for example, a Local Authority, please submit the documents most relevant to the heritage in your application.
A business plan sets out the financial and organisational aspects of your business. It shows:
A business plan is not the same as a project plan. It focuses on the overall organisation and not specific project activities, but should convey how your proposed project aligns with your ambitions as an organisation. For further information see our business plan guidance.
You must provide a timetable for both the development and delivery phases.
This should include detailed information about the development phase and outline information for the delivery phase. This should also include references to the milestones you expect your project to pass, providing a comprehensive overview of how you expect your project to evolve over time.
If you plan to recruit new staff or apprentices to help deliver your project, you need to provide a job description for each new post. Each job description should include the proposed salary and working hours.
Briefs describe any work you plan to buy in during your project.
If you are commissioning work, for example, from an artist or architect, then you should provide a brief. The brief should describe the works, how long they will take, how much they will cost and the skills required.
If you have included full cost recovery as a cost heading in your project costs, you must provide a document that shows how you have calculated this based on recent published accounts.
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.
We cannot accept applications that include full cost recovery from public sector organisations (for example, government-funded museums, local authorities or universities).
If relevant, please provide up to six images that help illustrate your project.
Please make sure you have all the permissions required, such as copyright ownership and participant consent forms, to share these images with us, as we may use them to tell people about your project, including our decision makers.
Provide up to six pieces of evidence of support, for example letters, emails or feedback forms, from other organisations or individuals who are supporting or taking part in your project.
Providing evidence of support is a good way of showing us that you have spoken to other people and that they are interested and committed to your project.
If you plan to work with any other organisations to carry out your project, you will need to provide a partnership agreement. This document should outline all partner’s roles and responsibilities and should be signed by all parties. This document should reflect the needs of your project and you may need to seek independent advice on how to best write an agreement.
If your project involves the conservation of heritage, you must provide a condition survey or another appropriate document to tell us the current condition of the heritage and the works that are needed to return the heritage to a good condition.
The survey or report should also indicate the relative priority of the proposed works so you know which are the most critical and need to be tackled most urgently.
There are other types of survey which may be relevant to include as part of a condition survey, such as a building performance and energy efficiency survey.
If you are planning any capital works, or intending to purchase buildings, land or heritage items, you will need to provide copies of any documents relevant to your ownership. This could be Land Registry ownership documents, or a lease or heads of terms.
When completing a delivery phase application, you must provide updated versions of the following documents to reflect the new understanding of the costs, resources, timeline and the needs of your audiences you have gained during the development phase of your project:
You must also provide the following documents as applicable.
You must provide an activity plan or area action plan as applicable. If your project relates to activities and people, you must produce an activity plan. If you are working on an area-based project, you must produce an area action plan.
An activity plan sets out everything you will do as part of your National Lottery-supported project to achieve positive outcomes for the people involved. These might be participants, visitors, volunteers or trainees but might also include new and existing staff and your trustees or steering group.
You will need to decide which specific groups of people you want to reach with your funding. Then set out all of the activity – in detail and properly costed – you will do to meet their needs and achieve our investment principles within your project.
Your activity plan is specific to the heritage project you are asking us to fund. It is not the same as your plans for everyday work or a general development plan for you organisation’s activity.
Read more information in our activity plan guidance.
If applicable, your area action plan should include:
Your area action plan should be uploaded in a document such as a PDF. Include an executive summary no longer than a single A4 page and a contents page.
You must provide a complete overview of the cash flow of your organisation throughout the duration of your project. This should include a monthly report of your bank balance, alongside any monthly cash surplus or deficit.
If you have a trading subsidiary, please prepare a consolidated cash flow for the parent organisation and the subsidiary.
Explain the assumptions you are making regarding any reasonably anticipated income from any other funding sources.
You must provide a general financial assessment of your organisation as it relates to your project, representative of your day-to-day operation and your financial model including your main sources of funding, as you intend to operate for the five years following project completion.
This should include a forecast income and expenditure account, a cashflow forecast showing the expected monthly cashflow and statements of assumptions underlying the forecasts.
Include detail of assumptions made in your calculations. An assumption is anything that you are relying on to make forecasts. For example, the average number of visitors you are expecting based on the previous year, or any unknown costs of materials.
Make sure you also include details of any reserves that may impact your report.
You must provide a document to explain the management structure of your project, with reference to decision-making processes and lines of communication and reporting. It may be relevant to provide a simple organogram/network diagram to show your organisation’s governance, management and staffing structures as they pertain to the project.
If your project involves capital works, the creation of new material, or the purchase of a historic building, structure, transport heritage or land, we will ask you to prepare a management and maintenance plan as part of your delivery phase application.
The management and maintenance plan tells us how you will look after your heritage once the project is complete, including how you expect to maintain the benefits of your project in the future. We will expect you to make sure that the work we have funded is kept in good condition.
We will expect your organisation to adopt your management and maintenance plan, to integrate it into your existing policies for management and care, and to provide financial resources to implement that plan for the duration of your grant contract.
Your management and maintenance plan should detail how your project's results will be maintained, who will do it, what skills they will need, when things need to be done and what cost the cost of this work will be.
Your plan should represent works completed during the development phase, for example referring to ways in which you intend to maintain the quality of newly restored features. This may include the origin and specification of materials or the palette of colours used to paint features/furniture among other decisions that have been made during your project so far.
See a complete guide to creating a management and maintenance plan.
It may be relevant to include a design specification or interpretation plan that explains the way your project intends to display or share heritage.
Interpretation is the way we communicate stories and ideas about heritage to different audiences. It involves turning information into something accessible, relevant and engaging.
Include specific reference to the ways your project will deepen people’s understanding of heritage, explore and make sense of historic sites and landscapes, objects, traditions or events.
You may include your plans for the wider experience that will help visitors engage with heritage. This may involve architectural plans and designs for tangible objects or buildings, a renovation or an exhibition.
Interpretation can take many different forms, from trails, audio descriptions and films to workshops, interactives and online displays.
If your project involves capital works, the creation of new material, or the purchase of a historic building, structure, transport heritage or land, you should submit a conservation plan that details the understanding of your heritage and the opportunities to share your heritage with others that you identified in your development phase. You may address any risks and threats that you have identified.
Expand All accordionsPlease choose when to make your application carefully. Do not rush to submit an application before you are ready, and make sure you have thought through the best way to shape your activity and how you are going to manage it.
We receive a higher number of applications than we can fund and need to prioritise where our investment can make a significant difference.
You should answer all of the questions in the application.
Once you submit your online application, we will check everything is in place and will be in touch to let you know when you can expect a decision. We will not be able to start the assessment of your application until we have the relevant information and supporting documents.
If your application is for a development grant award, it is unlikely that you will hear from us again until we notify you of the decision.
As an organisation that gives out public funds, we carry out some checks on the information you provide to us when you apply (for example, we may check your history with us or carry out identity or fraud checks).
When we assess your application, we will consider a range of factors including:
We may also consider issues such as achieving a geographical spread of our funding.
If your application does not clearly relate to UK heritage or does not take into account all four investment principles, then it may be rejected earlier during the assessment process and we will let you know.
When assessing your application, we will make a measured judgement on the potential risks to your project and current organisational risks – and we will look to see if you have identified these and told us how you will mitigate against them.
All projects will face threats and opportunities that you need to identify and manage. We want you to be realistic about the risks your project and organisation may face so that you are in a good position to manage and deliver the project successfully.
You should also carefully consider inflation and contingency costs within your application.
Inflation for capital projects is likely to remain high for the foreseeable future. You should account for inflation based on the project timescale, plus other factors such as materials used, labour demands and location.
You can access analysis and projections for inflation costs from sources such as the Building Cost Information Service and consultancies including Gardiner & Theobold Market Intelligence, Turner & Townsend and Rider Levett Bucknall.
The types of risk and problems you should consider are:
Once we have everything we need, we aim to assess applications in 12 weeks and, following assessment, your application will be assigned to the next scheduled decision meeting. (Please note: we cannot start assessing your application until all the required checks are completed and we receive all the required supporting information.)
Decisions are made on a quarterly basis by the committee of your nation or area or by our Board of Trustees.
You must wait to receive permission from us before beginning your project. You will need to submit a form online and provide us with:
Your organisation will need a bank account. The name on this bank account must exactly match the name of the organisation making the application.
You will need to sign up to our terms of grant. The duration of the grant terms depends on the type of project:
The Project Completion Date is the date we let you know that we have recorded the Project as complete.
We will contact you to arrange a start up meeting. At this meeting you may be introduced to a consultant from our Register of Support Services (RoSS), who will support you in developing or delivering aspects of your project or help review risks.
For development grants up to £250,000, we will pay your grant in three instalments:
For development grants over £250,000 and for all delivery grants we will make payments in arrears. We will also hold the last 10% of your grant until we are satisfied that the project is complete, that the grant has been spent appropriately, and you have sent us your evaluation report and proof of your acknowledgement of the funding.
We will pay your grant as a percentage of your project costs. We describe this as the payment percentage.
For example, if your total project costs are £1m and your cash contributions are £250,000, your grant will be £750,000 and your payment percentage will be 75%.
If your project involves the acquisition of heritage, we will pay the full grant amount needed for the purchase is a single payment.
We are really keen to hear about how your project is progressing and the achievements you have made with the funding. As part of your formal reporting on your grant, you must provide us with project updates during the lifetime of your project. We will expect a project update usually every three months, and at least each time you request a payment.
The assessment process is competitive and we cannot fund all of the good quality applications that we receive. If your application is unsuccessful, we will tell you why and may suggest that you make another application, but you must talk to us about this before reapplying.
Expand All accordionsYou may have plans to use our grant to fund the acquisition of a building, land or heritage items.
We can fund projects that involve the purchase of land and/or buildings that are important to our heritage and are for sale at or below market value. The principal reasons for your proposed purchase must be a benefit to the long-term management of heritage and for public access.
Private individuals or for-profit organisations cannot use our funding to acquire building, land or heritage items.
It is important that purchases align with our strategy and investment principles as a funder. If your project involves buying land or buildings, you must buy them freehold or with a lease with at least 99 years left to run.
We will only help to buy buildings, land or heritage items if you demonstrate in your application that:
Your application should include:
We will not support purchases that we think are above market value. An independent valuation of the item(s) you wish to purchase will take place as part of the assessment process. We will normally be prepared to support a purchase at a figure up to 10% above the top of any range in an accepted valuation.
The eligible costs associated with a purchase include:
Please make sure these are reflected in your cost table.
Ineligible costs include:
You should also include the costs of all the other activities you will do in your project once you have bought the buildings, land or heritage items.
If you already manage the heritage asset(s) that you want to buy, you will need to show us what extra benefits the purchase will bring. You will need to show that all options for entering into an appropriate management agreement with the existing owner have been explored before seeking a grant for purchase.
We will fund buying works of art, archives, objects and other collections that are important to the heritage and which were created more than 10 years ago. We will also fund buying more recent items of heritage importance, but only if they are part of a larger collection, which is more than 10 years old.
We will not give priority to a purchase simply because of an export stop. An export stop gives organisations a chance to raise money needed to buy an item or collection that is intended for export. The export stop defers the export licence for a specified period in order that an offer may be made from within the UK. If you intend to apply to us you should contact your local office as soon as possible, and within the first deferral period.
If your project includes buying buildings, land or heritage items, the terms of the grant will last indefinitely. We may require a charge on the item(s), land or buildings. If you wish to dispose of what you have bought in future, you must ask for our permission, and we may claim back our grant. If you already have the item(s) on loan to your organisation, you will need to show us what extra benefits buying them will bring.
There is unlikely to be sufficient public benefit in the acquisition of a heritage item by one publicly funded collection from another for us to consider funding the purchase. This may not be the case, however, if the acquisition directly relates to saving heritage at risk, and a grant may be approved if the object, land, building or collection is at risk of loss from the public domain due to the organisational failure of the current owner.
If you need an urgent decision from us, you must contact your local office to discuss this before you apply. You may use your application or Expression of Interest to indicate the reasons you require a fast-track application. We can only consider offering fast-track decisions for buying heritage items or collections if the deadline means we cannot assess your application within our usual timetable.
Our staff will discuss with you the implications of our fast-track procedure for your application. If you have a short amount of time to buy the item(s), we ask you to provide us with details of how this object will be integrated into your existing learning activities and public programmes. We will expect activities and programmes to be appropriate for the object you are acquiring.
Expand All accordionsCommunity and third-party grants schemes are pots of money that you can use to fund other groups or organisations to deliver small projects that help you achieve your overall aims for heritage. They can help you enhance engagement and widen the impact of your project.
Community grants can be used to fund activities or capital works to heritage assets. They can be awarded to not-for-profit community groups or private owners of heritage to undertake capital works to conserve that heritage. Community grants cannot be given to acquire land, buildings or heritage items.
If you are the lead applicant, you will manage the community grant process and funding pot. You will be responsible for:
In your application you should explain what the aims of your community grant scheme are, how it contributes to the wider project and how it will be managed.
We recommend that the community grants pot should not exceed £200,000. Individual grants should be limited to £10,000 for activities and £25,000 for capital works. If your project needs a larger community grants pot or to make bigger awards for conservation of historic buildings, you will need to justify this in your application.
You will need to formalise the grant award in a third-party agreement between you and the community grant recipient which defines the activities to be delivered and sets out the terms of the grant. Community grant recipients must sign up to our standard terms of grant, with particular reference to the following (where relevant):
You will need to reflect these areas in your agreements with the community grant recipients, as you will be responsible for ensuring they understand and agree to the terms of grant.
Agreements with third-party landowners, including private owners, must secure the management and maintenance of capital works from the start of the work on the project until 10 years after the project’s completion.
You may include costs for managing the grant scheme, including the costs of adapting and setting up any third-party agreements and taking legal advice, as part of the costs in your application.
You will need to develop a fair and transparent application process with clear guidelines. You must submit your application and monitoring process to us for approval before the community grant scheme is launched.
You should have clear criteria for applications and make these criteria publicly available along with a list of your awards.
You must undertake due diligence before awarding community grants. As a minimum you will need to request the following from an applicant:
Decisions to award or reject applications must be made by a grants panel. Members of the panel should not all be from the same organisation, and it should not include organisations or individuals who may wish to apply for grants from the community pot. This is a conflict of interest.
You will need to ensure that the community grant recipients have complied with the terms of your community grant scheme and the grant has been used appropriately. To do this you will need to gather evidence from the community grant recipient. The level of detail you request should be proportionate to the grant amount.
You will need to resolve any issues with the community grant recipient including the arrangements for repayment or clawback of the grant.
You will have overall responsibility for reporting to us on the progress of the community grants and will need to produce an evaluation report at the end of your project. You must make sure that you allocate sufficient budget to undertake this evaluation work.