National Lottery Project Grants

Arts Council England (ACE) have launched their new Arts Council National Lottery: Project Grants open-access programme offering grants of between £1,000 – £100,000 for arts, museums and libraries projects, replacing Grants for the Arts.

The programme sets out to achieve ACE’s mission, ‘great art and culture for everyone’. Project Grants supports a broad range of not-for-profit projects that create new work and sustain quality to help new audiences across England to engage with arts and culture.

This programme supports projects focused on the following artforms and disciplines:

-Music

-Theatre

-Dance

-Visual arts

-Literature

-Combined arts

-Museum practice (Accredited museums only)

-Libraries (arts-focused projects only)

Any supported projects must have outcomes that focus on one or more of these artforms and disciplines. Projects may work with these artforms in other contexts. Examples might include:

-creative media and the wider creative industries (for example, lm or audio, design, gaming);

• technology, including digital technology (for example, virtual reality or live-streaming);

• other non-arts organisations or settings (for example, residential care providers, or a science organisation); and

• other non-arts cultural forms or sectors (for example, health and wellbeing, social inclusion, heritage or sport).

Applications must include at least 10% partnership funding from sources other than the Arts Council.

Deadline: Continuous rolling programme. Decisions on applications for £15,000 or less take six weeks. Decisions on applications for over £15,000 take 12 weeks.

Before you decide to apply, we can help you to find and use our information and services.

Our support can include: • help with reading our guidance or making an application online • notes to be taken if you need this help in one-to-one meetings with us • a BSL interpreter to support you in one-to-one meetings with us • translating applications made in BSL into written English • a support worker if you are involved in the mental health system • a support worker if you have a learning disability or are neurodivergent

We will consider cost and practicality, as well as your preference when finding the best way to help. Everyone should be able to get information on our grant programmes and decide whether or not to apply. If we do pay for any access support, you do not have to make an application if you feel your project is not yet ready, or if Project Grants is not right for you.

What we cannot pay for before you apply:

• support for developing your project, such as the cost of an arts worker or development consultant, or for meetings with your partners artscouncil.org.uk INFORMATION SHEET Project Grants information sheet: Access Support 6 • translation from other spoken languages into English • costs already covered by the Access to Work scheme or any other sources