News from Heritage Lottery Fund

5 July 2012

HLF will now fund digital heritage projects.  Bids of over £2m will need carbon footprinting.  Plus a new strategic framework 2013-18 has been announced.

HLF will now fund digital projects. 

Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has changed its funding policy so that it can now fund stand-alone digital projects that focus on heritage. 

Previous funding rules stated that it would not fund the creation of digital materials (such as websites or DVDs) when they were the only focus of a project.

Projects that are successful in applying for funding will be asked to "make their digital content widely available at no charge and to use a Creative Commons licence so anyone can access and reuse content for non-commercial purposes."  Find out more.

Bids of over £2m will need carbon footprinting. 

Heritage Lottery Fund has announced that it is to become "the first major UK funding body to require all large projects to undertake carbon footprinting as part of their application".

All applicants requesting funding above £2 million will need to measure the carbon footprint of their projects.  The environmental impact of projects will then be considered as part of the grant assessment process.   Find out more.

Plus a new strategic framework 2013-18 has been announced.

The new strategic framework for 2013-2018 includes new funding policies and initiatives. 

Heritage Lottery Fund plans to:

  • "offer support for building organisational resilience in the heritage sector, through supporting the development of skills, including running a further round of the Skills for the Future programme; offering development funding and professional mentoring to develop robust projects and introducing start-up grants and transition funding for organisations needing to cope with new challenges;
  • "kick start philanthropy through providing endowments and smaller grants for capacity building and support for fundraising training;
  • "stimulate local economic growth with a new Heritage Enterprise scheme designed to fund partnerships – including social and private enterprises – to develop sustainable new uses for the most challenging historic sites;  
  • "continue to make applying to HLF more straightforward, with the introduction of Sharing Heritage – a new very simple grant programme for smaller projects needing £3,000-£10,000;
  • "create online communities to showcase good practice and encourage the exchange of ideas and innovations;

Other changes to grant programmes include:

  • "a UK-wide programme which continues to support urgent repairs plus additional facilities which open up of places of worship for greater community use;
  • a further Collecting Cultures initiative in late 2013 to encourage a strategic approach to collection development and acquisition in museums, archives and libraries."

Find out more.

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