The National Heritage Lottery Fund has multiple active projects, and plans to approve more. We will tell you about the active projects you can contribute to and share some of the completed projects. At the end of the article, you can find out the application steps and how the Heritage Fund can help you further with the preservation of your heritage.
What is the National Lottery Heritage Fund?
The National Lottery Heritage Fund is a child of the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF). The Heritage Fund’s main goal is to allocate the National Lottery’s funds to different projects. The Heritage Lottery Fund grants awarded organisations and private citizens and assists them in reviving and preserving all national heritage forms. All decisions about individual applications, funding projects, and policies are entirely independent of the government.
National Lottery Funding
Even the keenest lotto players, who know the new National Lottery rules like the back of their hand, sometimes forget the charitable part of the lotto. Every purchased ticket adds to the money distributed for good causes. The entire amount is entrusted and separated between 12 distributors and the National Lottery Heritage Fund is one of them.
The National Lottery raises money since 1994, and so far, there are more than £39 billion spent for good causes. The Heritage Fund has distributed over £8 billion of the donations across the UK. So far, more than 44,000 heritage projects are funded, and many more are yet to come. In this article, we will tell you about the Heritage Lottery Fund application process, and who is eligible for funding.
Who Works at the Heritage Fund?
On the highest level is the Board, consisting of a chair and up to 14 trustees. The Prime Minister appoints the members of the Board. The Heritage Fund is a non-departmental public body accountable to the UK Parliament via the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Since April 2019, the Board sets the fund’s strategic and policy framework, determines the corporate strategy, annual business plan, and decisions on NHMF funding.
The lower level is the committees all around the United Kingdom. There are Heritage Fund committees for the North, Midland & East, London & South England regions. The Heritage Lottery Fund Wales, in Northern Ireland, and the one in Scotland are responsible for those countries. Those structures can make decisions on grants starting from £100,000 and up to £5 million.
Having so much to do, the Lottery Heritage Fund needs a lot of employees. Anyone can join the ranks because the organisation is an equal opportunities employer and a disability confident employer. Usually, there are three kinds of volunteers with a variety of skills, talents, and experience:
- Cash contributors – those people donate cash and funds to add up the National Lottery contribution.
- Non-cash contributors – those people help by providing space, living quarters, food, comfort, and assistance of any kind to the fund employees or project operators.
- Time (employment) Volunteers – those people give their time and skilful labour for a certain payment. For example, the professional volunteer can get up to £50 per hour, the skilled volunteer about £20 per hour, while every other volunteer £10 per hour.
Besides the opportunity to develop and learn new skills, the Heritage Fund offers great benefits to its employees. There is a pension, 35 hours full-time work week, annual leave of up to 30 days, salary advance, gym membership, Benenden Healthcare, tax-free childcare, and more. As you can see, the fund cares for the community and its own personnel.
Lottery Heritage Fund News and Contacts
The one place, where you can learn all the latest news about the funds distribution is the National Lottery Heritage Fund website. The site greets you with the latest news. Here, you can read what were the latest projects and find out what is yet to come. The press office and news on the website show titles like:
- £6 million for Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Cultural Festival
- Bringing Heritage to Your Doorstep
- £8.75 Million Boost for Newport Transporter Bridge
- £1.9 Million to Help Highlands heritage
- Disability History Month: Recognising Access in Its Many Forms
- Last Surviving D-Day Landing Craft Ppens in Portsmouth
The fund has a modern and easy to navigate website. There, you can find complete information about the projects, and contact the Heritage Lottery Fund representatives and customer service. If you need help with the Heritage Lottery Fund grants awarded to you, you can use the contact phones, e-mail, and the website forms. You can also find information about the fund on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.
Heritage Lottery Fund Projects
In the history of lottery we see that ever since the first lottery game was created, the funds from it were used for community improvements and large constructions. Today, many countries continue this tradition, and the UK National Lottery is just one example.
Regardless of the achievements so far, the Heritage Lottery Fund has the ambitions to continue its work and invest £1.2 billion in the next five years. Anyone can apply for funding under the condition that the project will preserve a valuable historical and heritage location.
There is no precise definition or requirements for the heritage. It can be anything from the past that someone considers valuable and wants to preserve for future generations. If you see the Heritage Fund logo, then you are at the right place. You may see it on many kinds of locations like:
- Community heritage, archives, artisan craft
- Culture, memories, places of worship
- Nature, landscapes, parks
- Buildings, monuments
- Industrial, maritime, and transport vehicles
As you can see, anything from a photo to an entire village could be considered heritage worthy of preservation. At the end of this article, we will inform you how to apply for your project. Now, you can learn more about some of the current projects.
National Lottery Grants for Heritage
A Heritage Lottery Fund application can grant funding to adapt and respond to the changing environment. This help goes to organisations of all sizes in the amounts of £3,000 to £10,000 or £10,000 to £100,000. Currently, the funds go to adapt and recover after COVID-19 and to include the engagement of diverse groups under-represented in heritage.
Heritage Recovery and Resilience Loans
The National Heritage Lottery Fund loans between £50,000 to £250,000 help fund activities and cover costs that can develop and restart an organisation’s income-generating potential. This funding is for organisations who already work on resilience, or currently operate with a mixed-income model (enterprise and grant funding).
The last groups are organisations and people, who need it to meet their operating costs or adjust their operating model because of the COVID-19 crisis. There is a fixed 0% interest rate and there are no fees for the arrangement or the early repayment. The organisations can repay in the next five years, and there is an optional 12-month repayment holiday. This application will be open until 14 February 2021.
Funding for Organisations in Wales
Heritage Lottery Fund Wales is busy with preserving, restoring, and enhancing local nature. So far, the Welsh Government has received £2.3 million funds and grants amount in the range of £10,000 to £50,000. A community woodlands project restores, creates, connects, and manages woodlands in Wales. The funds are £2.1 million, spread in portions between £10,000 to £250,000 for the different applications.
Closed Programmes
The hard work had already given results, and there are already many successfully completed projects. The Heritage Lottery Fund Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and England report success in multiple areas like the Heritage Emergency Fund, Culture Recovery Fund for Heritage (second round), National Lottery Grants for Heritage (2019-2020), Green Recovery Capacity Building Scheme, Shared History Fund, Community Heritage Fund Northern Ireland, and more.
Heritage Lottery Fund Application for Funds
Many lotto millionaire stories tell us how the winners intend to spend their prize and donate to charity. What is not said is that the moment the players bought a ticket, they already helped. If you a re one of the people who need extra funding to your project, one of the Heritage Lottery Fund grants awarded may be given to you.
Who Can Apply for National Lottery’s Heritage Funding?
The new season for projects applications will open at the beginning of February 2021. This time, the size of the grants is from £100,000 to £250,000 and from £250,000 to £5 million. The application process is extremely simple. You can find the form and the requirements on the Heritage Lottery Fund website, but we will give it to you in short. First, the applicants must meet a few requirements:
- The applicants must be not-for-profit organisations
- Local authorities
- Public sector organisations
- Private owners of heritage
- Partnerships led by any private, public, or local organisations and owners
- The current or previous recipients of £10,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund or National Heritage Memorial Fund can’t take part
- Organisations (partnerships) with inclusion focused projects, which are led by or engaging diverse groups
- Organisations with enterprising business models that don’t rely on just grants and donations
Those are the base requirements in the loans application guidance. If you need more information about the special programs, Heritage Lottery Fund Scotland, other regions, or the documents, then check the information on the website. Don’t forget to check the deadline for the applications.
The National Heritage Lottery Fund requires the applicants to fill in Application Questions and Help Notes for projects with funding between £3,000 and £100,000. Some of the project’s requirements are directed towards the specific needs of this funding, the right timing for the start of the project, size of the budget, having a clear work plan with schedule, and more.
Heritage Fund Can Help You Run the Project
The Heritage Lottery Fund does not just throw money and run. The applicants are advised, encouraged, and assisted for the duration of the project. Once approved for funding, you get the Heritage Fund logo right after your approval. Place this logo on every significant place where it can be seen. This way, it will work as an informative guide that your project runs with the National Lottery Heritage fund’s help. Below, we will tell you what the steps of the project are:
- Approval: Once you have sent the application, all you have to do is wait. When your project is approved, you will receive a letter with conditions and explanations of what the funds expect of you. The letter will be accompanied by a Grant guidance document that explains what you need to do next to complete the project successfully.
- Permission to Start: This is a match-funding evidence (a letter) from organisations that provide financial support to your project. It also contains information about your organisation’s bank account, copy of a bank statement, a cheque, or a paying-in slip.
- A reporting schedule: The schedule is created in person or over the phone. There will be a timetable for reporting the progress of the project and grant payment requests. The table is individually created for the project, and every change in it has to be agreed upon by all sides.
- Assistance: Staying in touch and having regular reports can help you stay on track with the project. Besides all this, you can get assistance from the fund and advises.
- After the funded project ends: The first step is to deliver a complete report and an evaluation report to the Heritage Fund. After that, the last 10% of the funding can be released into your account.
Now that you know how importance of the job the Heritage Fund does, you may feel inspired to help. The easiest way is to buy a National Lottery ticket, but if you wish, you can donate to the cause. Don’t forget that the Heritage Lottery Fund always needs volunteers and helpers of all kinds. As a last resort, you can come up with your own heritage preservation project.
Heritage Lottery Fund FAQ
Our article on the Heritage Lottery Fund aims to give you the most valuable information about this organisation. We will now answer the most frequently asked questions regarding the National Lottery Heritage Fund.