Historic England Covid-19 Emergency Response Fund

Grants are available to help organisations, voluntary groups and self-employed contractors survive the immediate challenges posed by the pandemic, and to prepare for recovery.

This is to support organisations that are severely affected by the impact of coronavirus and who require additional emergency financial support in addition to the support packages announced by the government and/or Lottery channels.

 It will prioritise support to organisations and projects that care for and/or work on the most significant heritage assets (Grade I and II* Listed Buildings, Scheduled Monuments etc) or organisations that play a vital and nationally important role in supporting heritage organisations in England.

Applications need to meet one of the two criteria:

1. Emergency Revenue Funding: grants of up to £25k available to cover salaries, rent, rates, insurances etc. Applicants will need to demonstrate that there are not sufficient reserves to cover operational costs for the next three months, demonstrate that the coronavirus crisis is the principal reason for the revenue problem, and provide evidence that they have investigated other possible routes for grant funding, including other grant givers.

2. Projects and Activities: grants of up to £50k for projects that respond to the current crisis and will contribute to the recovery of the heritage sector. These can be project or research-based covering a better understanding of heritage, its significance and vulnerabilities, and developing creative ways to look after it, understand, value, enjoy it both now, during the recovery phase and in the future.

For example:

• research contributing to new knowledge about caring for heritage
• advice for owners in caring for assets
• building capacity in communities and helping the heritage sector engage better with communities
• utilising digital platforms to enable sharing of heritage assets / environment.

Deadline for applications is 3 May. Further information is available on Historic England website.

If you are already in receipt of Historic England funding, you are advised to speak to your Historic England Project Officer to check eligibility before applying.