National Lottery Heritage Fund: Dynamic Collections

Overview

Their Dynamic Collections campaign will support collecting organisations by bringing together project funding through their open programmes, digital resources and knowledge sharing.

It is designed to address long-term challenges in the sector, many of which have been made worse by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. It will also help organisations build on innovative ideas and trends developed over the past few years, particularly in digital engagement.

The campaign also acts on the demand for collections to evolve to meet the changing needs of the communities around them, and to reflect more people's history and experiences.

Inclusive, resilient, evolving

A dynamic collection:

• is used by, and meaningful to, a wider range of people
• enables different perspectives to be heard and a variety of stories to be told
• is actively managed and reviewed

What are they looking for?

As the sector continues to recover from the impact of the pandemic, they are keen to support projects that plan for longer-term change and benefits for visitors, audiences and organisations.

They want to support projects that:

• make collections relevant to a wider range of people 
• actively involve the public in collections management, use and development  
• take a creative, strategic and sustainable approach to collections  

They have three funding priorities for collections – engagement, re-interpretation and better collections management.

Engagement

They want to fund projects that transform the way people engage with collections, and make the long-term changes needed to build a diverse audience.

They will fund projects that:

• focus on audiences to understand how best to connect people with collections – whether through digital activities, bringing collections to people and/or encouraging on-site visits
• collaborate with audiences to create content and activities, and involve people in decision making around collections
• build capacity in organisations to strengthen engagement now and in the future, for example by supporting leaders, staff and volunteers to gain skills and confidence

Re-interpretation

They want to fund projects that will help people whose experiences have previously been excluded to feel represented and heard. We want to fund projects that reflect the richness and complexity of UK heritage through collections.

They will fund projects that:

• bring new perspectives and contexts to collections on display and/or in storage
• create new interpretation or refresh tired displays to reflect more people's stories and experiences
• explore the history and role of the organisation with audiences and how collections have been built and explained over time

Collections management

They want to fund projects that will bring new solutions to long-term issues in collections care and use, and lead to more efficient collections management and development.

For example, they will fund:

• collections reviews leading to strategic development and/or rationalisation
• new partnerships and/or management arrangements between organisations to share infrastructure, expertise or other resources
• loans programmes to enable greater public access to collections
• projects using digital technology to better manage collections and stores

Projects involving disposal must abide with either the Museums Association (MA) Disposal Toolkit or the Archives & Records Association’s Code of Ethics

They can fund some digitisation and cataloguing work as part of a wider project, where it supports engagement and re-interpretation.

Outcomes

• Dynamic Collections projects must achieve their inclusion outcome: a wider range of people will be involved in heritage.
• Dynamic Collections projects will also be expected to achieve their resilience outcome: the funded organisation will be more resilient.
• Your project might also meet their other outcomes too.

Who can apply

Dynamic Collections is primarily aimed at collecting organisations, including:

• museums (accredited and non-accredited)
• archives
• historic libraries
• community and other organisations that hold collections, or are working in partnership to develop a collection-based project