Museums, libraries and archives

Through preservation, exhibition and community engagement, they can bring collections, places and ideas to life. They help us to understand culture, science and history, and give us a sense of place, identity and community.
Thanks to National Lottery players, since 1994 we have awarded £2.5billion to 6,000 museum, library, archive and collection-based projects across the UK. See stories from projects we've funded below.
What do we support?
We provide grants for heritage projects from £10,000–£10million for projects led by or featuring museums, libraries and archives.
Our funding supports institutions large and small, including:
- national, local authority and independent museums, libraries and archives
- historic libraries
- community archives and oral history collections
- institutions with heritage collections
Project ideas
Our funding could help people:
- create exciting new exhibition and learning spaces
- attract new and more diverse audiences
- acquire new items and develop collections
- improve organisational resilience
For more inspiration, see the stories below, browse projects we've funded, or explore our recent Dynamic Collections campaign.
How to get funding
Our National Lottery Heritage Grants programme is open for applications.

Projects
Cardiff Remembers/Caerdydd yn Cofio
The Firing Line Museum, located in Cardiff Castle are running a project focusing on collections connected to the First World War held by project partners, Cardiff Story Museum, Glamorgan Archives, Western Front Association and Cardiff University.

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.