The Catalyst: Capacity building initiatives formed part of a broader partnership between HLF, DCMS and Arts Council England. They aimed to encourage more private giving to culture and heritage, and to build the capacity and skills of cultural and heritage organisations to fundraise from private donors, corporate sources, trusts and foundations.

Catalyst: Umbrella grants and Catalyst: Small grants were developed to support organisations to undertake a range of capacity building activities in order to improve their ability to fundraise and diversify their income.

Commissioned in July 2014, the programme evaluation seeks to develop a greater understanding of the impact of Catalyst funding, as well as support HLF’s discussions with policy makers and stakeholders and also to contribute to the wider body of knowledge relating to private giving to heritage.

• The baseline report, produced in March 2015, details the first phase of evaluation work undertaken between August 2014 and February 2015. The report gives an overview of the Umbrella programme including the aims of the projects, delivery arrangements and lessons learned to date. It also assesses what has been achieved so far by the organisations that have received a Catalyst: Small grant, reporting on current levels of organisational capacity in terms of diversifying income streams and accessing more funding from private sources
• The interim report, produced in June 2016, reports on the findings to date, focusing on activity delivered during 2015. It gives an update on the extent to which funded projects under the Umbrella and Small grant programmes have met the programme outcomes and aims
• The second interim report, produced in July 2017, reports on the findings to date, focusing on activity delivered during November 2016 through to March 2017. It gives an update on the extent to which funded projects under Catalyst Umbrella have met the programme outcomes and aims and contains nine case studies of Catalyst small grant projec