Page last updated: 6 November 2023. See all updates.

We ask all applicants requesting a grant of more than £250,000 to complete an Expression of Interest (EOI).

This is because we recognise the amount of work that goes into applying for funding and planning a project. The EOI stage helps us to filter any projects which are unlikely to receive funding, and saves you time working on a full application unnecessarily.

The EOI word count is deliberately short (maximum 1,000 words) to minimise the time and effort for you to complete this stage.

We will use the information you provide to decide whether to invite you to submit a development phase application. If you are successful, you must apply within 12 months of receiving the invitation. If your EOI is unsuccessful, you cannot submit a project application. You will need to submit a new EOI first. You must wait three months before you do this. 

Before submitting

Please make sure you have read: 

• what we fund
• the four investment principles we expect heritage projects to take into account

Full information on what we fund can be found in the National Lottery Grants for Heritage: £250,000–£10million application guidance. 

Common reasons EOIs are unsuccessful

EOIs are not always successful. Some common reasons include:

• not taking into account all four investment principles
• repeating our list of investment principles rather than telling us how your project will respond to them
• telling us about capital work only 
• not explaining the need/demand for the project nor wider support for it

Expression of Interest questions

You can see the questions on the EOI below.

Have you spoken to anyone at the Heritage Fund about your idea?

If so, tell us their name.

Describe what you will do during the project.

Include any tasks you have to do to achieve the project goal. You have 200 words.

Do you have a title for the project?

This can be changed at any time. Don't worry if the project does not have a title yet, you can leave
this blank.

Please outline how your project will respond to our four investment principles.

You have 300 words.

Tell us about the heritage of the project.

Include who it is important to and why. You have 100 words.

What is the need for this project?

What work have you done that shows the potential benefits of the project? You have 200 words.

How long do you think the project will take?

Tell us an estimated start and end date if you have them. You have 50 words.

How much is the project likely to cost?

If you know, tell us about the most important costs. These costs can be estimated. You have 200
words.

How much funding are you planning to apply for from us?

Submit an amount.

When are you likely to submit a funding application, if asked to do so?

You have 50 words.

How to submit

When you are ready, please complete the EOI on our Get funding for a heritage project service. 

You will need to register an account for yourself and for the organisation you are applying for. 

Hearing back from us

We aim to respond to your EOI within 20 working days.  

We will let you know via email whether you are successful in being invited to submit a development phase application.

If we are not inviting you to apply at this time, we will give you feedback.  

Guidance updates

We will regularly review this guidance and respond to user feedback. We reserve the right to make changes as required. We will communicate any changes as quickly as possible via this webpage.

Changes

2 October 2023: we updated our EOI for grant applications over £250,000 under our new strategy, Heritage 2033. This guidance has been changed to support applicants using this updated application process.

The changes include:

• removing guidance relating to our outcomes
• adding guidance relating to our four investment principles

6 November 2023: we added the EOI questions to the web page and removed the PDF.