Heritage Crafts: Maker Relief Fund

Overview

Many craftspeople are facing significant challenges in sustaining their practice, due to a combination of financial pressures and systemic marginalising factors.

Heritage Crafts’ Maker Relief Fund is targeted at people facing financial hardship while striving to make their living as a professional craftsperson.

It is based on the principles that:

• the best way to safeguard the UK’s intangible craft heritage is to support the individuals within whom that knowledge and skill resides; and
• such individuals are the best arbiters of their own need, deserve to be treated with dignity, and rarely benefit from being subjected to undue bureaucratic demands or the judgement of strangers.

The fund will award 50 grants of £1,000 over a 12 month period to practising professional craftspeople who are based in the UK, are over the age of 18, and who consider themselves to be in one or more of the following categories:

• people on low incomes;
• working class people;
• Black and ethnically diverse people, including Gypsy, Roma and Travellers;
• people with disabilities, who identify as neuro-divergent, and/or have chronic physical or mental health issues;
• members of the LGBTQIA+ community; or
• people with caring responsibilities.

Grant details:

• Recipients will be identified from all the eligible entries received by midnight on the 15th day of each month, between November 2024 and October 2025 inclusive.
• The following number of grants will be allocated in each month:

• Grants do not have to be used for business costs; they can be used for general living costs or other purposes according to the needs of the recipient. Heritage Crafts will not require evidence of expenditure.
• All eligible submissions received by midnight on the 15th day of each month (between November 2024 and October 2025 inclusive) will be in with a chance of being awarded a grant be the end of that month.
• All applicants will be informed if they have been successful or unsuccessful.
• Successful candidates will not be named or publicised, but be encouraged to keep in touch with Heritage Crafts in case it can offer further support and to hear whether the grant made a difference.
• Unsuccessful candidates will automatically remain available for selection in all subsequent months in which the grants are offered, unless they request to be removed from consideration.
• The selection will be made each month by a panel of staff/Trustees and an independent observer, and recorded for compliance purposes, though the recording will not be made public or shared, other than by request to the Charity Commission or relevant law-enforcement agencies, as required by law.