£2 Million Community Arts, Culture and Heritage Fund

2 Nov 2020

The Community Foundation is delighted to launch a new £2 million supporting community-based arts, culture and heritage projects, in partnership with the Communities Minister, Carál Ní Chuilín.

The new Covid-19 Culture, Languages, Arts and Heritage Support Programme will focus on community-led responses that will enhance existing community services and activities that support engagement in arts, culture and heritage. Supporting innovation and creativity for those community organisations who support vulnerable and those marginalised in society. Through this fund, communities are encouraged to strengthen their collaborative responses encouraging adaptation, innovation and agility of the arts, culture and heritage sector, and ensuring preparedness for the future. Communities can apply for up to £20,000 of funding.

The £2 million fund for community-based culture, arts and heritage projects in response to Covid-19. The Community Arts, Culture and Heritage fund, distributed by the Community Foundation will prioritise projects which support people with disabilities and those who are vulnerable.

This funding forms part of the overall £29m Covid-19 Culture, Languages, Arts and Heritage Support Programme. It means more than £20m has been issued by the department to delivery partners after the Arts Council and National Lottery Heritage Fund recently opened emergency funds to help stabilise those sectors and prevent job losses.

This new £2m fund is open to all community organisations which can deliver new projects as part of the Programme’s renewal strand. Any constituted organisation can apply and their primary purpose need not be related to arts or heritage. So for example, a local community group or a PTA in a school can apply to deliver a creative project and have that project fully funded with no requirement for match funding.

Groups can apply for awards from £2,000 to £20,000 for expenditure up to 31 March 2021 for a wide range of projects related to culture, arts, creativity and heritage.

The Minister said: “I am delighted to be able to release a further £2m funding today to support the culture, arts and heritage and sectors. I know how creative our communities are and I know that they will come up with innovative ideas to harness the power of the arts and heritage to improve peoples’ lives for the better.

The Minister added: “This fund is designed to support new ideas and projects. Projects might include creating and performing music, commissioning artists to create public art, starting up a new local drama project, hosting activities to build skills, purchasing small items of equipment, reanimating our spaces or using local heritage assets to engage people and tackle isolation, and many other ideas.

Andrew McCracken, CEO of the Community Foundation said: “We are delighted to be working with the Department to deliver this exciting new fund which builds on our previous support in response to Covid19. We look forward to receiving applications which we will start assessing straight away to get money out to groups as quickly as possible and enable them to plan for the months ahead. We will be prioritising projects which can make a difference to vulnerable and
disabled people.”

Apply here.