Community heritage
Act for Action CIC, recipients of a community heritage grant from One Knowsley. Photo: Act for Action CIC.
Celebrating community heritage can help people come together, feel pride in where they live and save stories and traditions.
Since 1994 we have awarded £460million to more than 24,100 community and cultural heritage projects across the UK.
What do we support?
We fund projects that are researching, conserving and celebrating the heritage of a community or place.
These projects could include lots of types of heritage, such as people celebrating living customs or improving a historic green space. What's most important is that the project involves and benefits the community.
Project ideas
Our funding could help people:
- research the impact of a historical event on their town, and share their findings through displays, talks and online
- investigate the names on a war memorial
- crowdsource documents and photographs linked to the LGBTQ+ community, creating an online archive and exhibition
- set up an audio trail around a range of buildings, parks and monuments in a town
- enable a youth group to research their local history and create an animated film about their learnings
For more inspiration, see the stories below or browse projects we've funded.
How to get funding
If you have an idea for a project, we would love to hear from you.
Stories
Heritage Emergency Fund lifeline for Insole Court
A grant of £103,600 is helping the much-loved Victorian mansion in Cardiff stay open and serve the local community.
Stories
Keeping Eastern and Central European community stories alive
Birmingham-based Polish Expats Association receive a £30,000 emergency grant to protect heritage in their community space and online.
Stories
Liverpool’s black history kept alive thanks to emergency funding
A vital Liverpool organisation has avoided closure and is continuing to share the diverse stories of the city's past.
Alistair McNaught
Blogs
Making heritage websites accessible to all
When producing our new guide to online accessibility, Alistair McNaught’s research identified how heritage organisations can make their online content open to all. He tells us more.
Blogs
Partners and pioneers – building back after the pandemic
Town centres are struggling – after the pandemic, innovative partnerships and investment in heritage can help them flourish again.
Cara McCann. Credit: Pacemaker Press
Stories
Hope for Northern Ireland’s LGBT+ community, thanks to emergency funding
Northern Ireland's only organisation for lesbian and bisexual women keeps its doors open after National Lottery grant.
News
Digital "lifeline" for Belfast's Clifton House
Despite its doors being closed, Clifton House in North Belfast can now welcome more visitors than ever before, thanks to a Heritage Emergency Fund grant.
Blogs
From "unsettlement" to a new future
There have been few more global events disruptive of the pattern of life than the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown. Yet the impacts of the pandemic – which are only just beginning to be understood – only amplify an already unsettled outlook. "Unsettledness" is becoming a way of life." People are on
Experimental photography at Llannon Cottage, Ceredigion
Blogs
Engaging young people in heritage from home
I often hear it said that it is difficult to get young people involved in heritage. I do not believe this to be true, and we have had no difficulty in attracting young people to be part of the Royal Commission’s youth engagement project, Unloved Heritage?. This has been running for three years now
The landscape of Binevenagh
News
"Huge" investment for Northern Ireland's heritage
Northern Ireland’s beautiful landscapes are to receive a boost as 11 heritage projects across the country are set to benefit from £5million National Lottery investment.
News
Public help solve mystery of 2000-year-old warrior
An Iron Age warrior found buried on a housing estate has gone on public display in Chichester thanks to National Lottery players.
Programme
Culture Recovery Fund for Heritage – Emergency Resource Support
Part of the rescue package announced by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to safeguard cultural and heritage organisations across England from the economic impact of coronavirus (COVID-19).