Museums, libraries and archives
Through objects, collections, film, documents and oral histories they help to give us a sense of place and identity.
Thanks to National Lottery players, since 1994 we have awarded £2.4billion to 5,900 museum, library, archive and collection-based projects across the UK. See stories from projects we've funded below.
We provide grants for heritage projects from £10,000–£10million to ensure that heritage is valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future.
What do we support?
Our funding supports institutions large and small, including:
- national and local authority museums, libraries and archives
- historic libraries
- community archives
- institutions with heritage collections
Project ideas
Our funding could help people:
- create exciting new exhibition and learning spaces
- attract more diverse audiences
- interpret and open up acquisitions
- develop collections
For more inspiration, see the stories below or browse projects we've funded.
How to get funding
Our National Lottery Heritage Grants programme is open for applications.
Projects
Write into the Future - Steps to Sustainability for The Pen Museum
At a time of financial uncertainty, the Birmingham Pen Trade Heritage Association received a grant to help plan for a sustainable future.
Projects
Creating a pictorial historical record of South East Essex
Volunteers explored and shared nine decades of history through Hadleigh and Thundersley Community Archive’s All Our Stories project.
Projects
Ceredigion Museum - New Approaches
Ceredigion Museum has reopened, following a project to transform its operations, resilience and sustainability.
Projects
Comic Creators
The Comic Creators project helped the London-based charity to diversify its audience by expanding its collections and events programme.
Projects
Creative Wiltshire and Swindon
A partnership of heritage organisations used a Collecting Cultures grant to collect the work of local people.
Projects
Saving Treasures, Telling Stories
This project, supported by our Collecting Cultures fund, brought together museums across Wales with local treasure-hunters, improving long-term relationships and collections.
Projects
Exploring Childhoods
This project allowed the museum to be more adventurous, deepen relationships with community partners and seek out new audiences for more contemporary collections.
Projects
Collecting the Troubles and Beyond
This three-year project aimed to strategically develop the collection of material related to the Troubles in National Museums of Northern Ireland (NMNI).
Projects
Life and death in the Washburn Valley
The history of Fewston Churchyard will be researched to reveal the roots of the local community.
Projects
British views of an antique land: Imaging Egypt and Palestine in the First World War
This project focuses on collecting and making accessible images of Egypt and Palestine as they would have been seen by people during the First World War.
Projects
Exploring the legacy of the First World War in Northern Ireland
Communities explored the impact and legacy of the First World War, the Battle of the Somme and the Easter Rising by creating two exhibitions.