Help for arts, heritage and cultural organisations

Arts, heritage and cultural organisations across the UK are being hit with financial crises as the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic take hold. We recognise that these are incredibly worrying times for many in this sector, and although the majority of you will have picked this up already, we wanted to share the latest news from Arts Council England.

On 16th March, Arts Council England declared its number one priority over the coming months to be supporting people who work in the arts, museums and libraries, through its emergency planning programme. Key elements include:

• Refocusing grant programmes to help compensate individual artists and freelancers for lost earnings.
• Offering advance grant payments to National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs) and Creative People and Places Projects (CPPs) to assist with cashflow.
• Relaxing grant conditions on live National Lottery Project Grants.
• Working with the Department for Education with regards to Music Education.

More details can be found here: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/covid19

Arts Council has advised that more concrete guidance will be issued in a week to ten days, but we are heartened to see these steps being taken by one of the Sector’s biggest and most influential funders.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund has also published a statement on their website advising they are reviewing funding priorities and recommend that organisations with concerns contact their regional office for advice. Details can be found here: https://www.heritagefund.org.uk/news/coronavirus-update

We hope this information is useful, but if you’d like some pro-bono advice from one of our Directors on your organisation’s specific situation, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.