Art Fund: Respond and reimagine grants

Archived Adult Education/Learning Archives and artefacts Arts, culture and heritage Built heritage Communities COVID-19/Coronavirus Craft and design Cultural heritage Cultural, events and festivals Education and learning Information Technology Performing arts School, College and University Verbal arts Visual arts and media Antrim & Newtownabbey Ards & North Down Armagh City, Banbridge & Craigavon Belfast City Causeway Coast and Glens Derry City and Strabane England Fermanagh and Omagh Great Britain Lisburn and Castlereagh Mid and East Antrim Mid Ulster Newry, Mourne and Down Northern Ireland Scotland Wales Medium (up to £60,000) Micro (up to £1,000) Small (up to £10,000)

Track grant Notes

Overview

Responding to now

These grants can provide practical support to fund what you need now. This could relate to costs connected to re-opening, such as staffing, equipment or training, or planning for future activities. They want you to tell them what will be most helpful to you. If your organisation is experiencing an immediate crisis with no alternative sources of funding, they can consider offering emergency support to help you manage during this difficult period.

Reimagining the next

They realise the situation is tough, but where they can, they want our funding to provide opportunities for organisations to get creative with an idea that might help them adapt for the future. If they fund you and it doesn’t work out the way you planned, that’s ok – daring to try something which might not work out quite as planned can provide valuable learning or help identify an alternative solution. As the landscape continues to change, they want their support to provide the flexibility you need to navigate the period ahead beyond reopening.

Are you eligible?

They are happy to receive applications from UK public museums, galleries, historic houses, libraries and archives that:

ordinarily have spaces for the public to visit and experience the visual arts or other object-based collections. This could include natural history, maritime and transport, archaeology and social history.
can demonstrate that you usually operate to best practice standards or have a good track record in delivering high quality public activity.

If you are an organisation that is a visual arts agency or festival, they'd be happy to hear from you providing you can meet the above and have a strong visual arts focus. They can’t support theatre, music, dance or other art forms.

They will consider funding projects that meet the overall aim and connect to at least one of the four priority areas for support. Their priority areas for support are:

Audiences:

They want you to connect with audiences now (including online) and be supported to encourage visitors to return as they reopen, including helping manage the practical and financial challenges of changes to access and operations.

Collections:

They want to support the future of your collections through exhibition programming, touring and research; safeguarding collections at risk and helping you adapt and improve how collections are managed and cared for.

Digital:

They want to support you to develop adaptable digital skills and the infrastructure needed to open-up collections and reach new and existing audiences online, now and in the future.

Workforce:

They want to support you and your colleagues, as an expert and passionate workforce, through a period of uncertainty and change, and encourage collaboration and the sharing of resources and expertise.

Emergency support:

If your organisation is at imminent risk and you have not received support from other emergency funds, they may be able to consider requests for emergency support where need is clearly demonstrated. Please contact programmes@artfund.org and they’ll arrange a time for a member of the team to discuss an application with you.