Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund in UK

Deadline: 16-Jul-2025

The Museums Association is now inviting applications for its Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund to improve inclusion and equitable working with community partners.

The fund will place more emphasis on equitable working, supporting wellbeing and legacy planning. They now offer core grants to single museum organisations for strategic development of their inclusive collections work; and partnership project grants for museums and community organisations working equitably with collections to achieve shared aims for inclusion.

Purpose

• The Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund supports work with museum collections to improve inclusion and equitable working with community partners. They offer:
  • Core grants to museums that have established strategic aims for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI); and that are ready to use their collections and their funding to support social and climate justice, in ways that are relevant to local contexts and relationships.
  • Partnership project grants to museums and community organisations that work equitably together and share aims for DEI; with ambitious and compelling ideas for inclusive project work with collections.

Funding Information

• Grants of up to £100k over a maximum of three years are available and they expect to award around 12 grants per year in two funding rounds.
• Grants of £40,000-£100,000 over a period of up to three years.

Eligibility Criteria

• Essential Requirements:
  • To be considered for a core grant, applications from single organisations must:
    • Be for work that accelerates progress towards the established strategic aims of the applicant in relation to diversity, equity and inclusion. Applicants will describe their local context and existing relationships with community and stakeholder groups and provide evidence of strategies and plans for inclusion.
    • Work with existing collections to engage community groups, partners and/or stakeholders in prominent, democratised and/or community-led roles.
  • To be considered for a partnership project grant, applications must:
    • Come from an equitable partnership between museum(s) and community organisation(s) that have developed the application together and that have an existing relationship on which to build.
    • Be for a time-limited project working with existing collections towards shared aims for diversity, equity and inclusion.
• The Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund is open to all MA institutional member museums and galleries in the United Kingdom for core or partnership grants. MA membership is required to demonstrate commitment to sharing learning, to the social and climate justice agenda of Museums Change Lives, and to the museum sector’s Code of Ethics.
• Partnership applications must include at least one MA institutional member museum partner. It is expected that the museum partner(s) will hold collections that will be used during the partnership project and that a museum partner is typically well positioned to receive and coordinate funding on behalf of the group.
• They normally expect museum applicants, or one applicant in a partnership, to be Accredited (or formally working towards this). Occasional exceptions may be made where the applicant’s activities are based on the care and interpretation of collections of historical, artistic or scientific interest, provided that they are in the public sector or have charitable status. The selection committee’s decision on eligibility is final.
• For core grants, they expect to fund smaller and medium sized museums where funding of this size can make the most long-term difference, for example as a higher proportion of turnover. National and larger museums may apply, but they expect applications to reflect their capacity to influence the sector more widely and to develop museum practice. National and larger museums are strongly advised to speak to staff at the MA prior to applying.
• Applicants must have an up-to-date safeguarding policy to protect people with whom they work.

Exclusions

• The Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund will not support:
  • Capital costs, including building work, renovations, and equipment.
  • Grants to individuals or to causes that will benefit only one person, including student grants or bursaries.
  • Work that does not have a direct benefit in the UK.
  • They will not normally replace or subsidise statutory income although they will make rare exceptions where the level of performance has been exceptional and where the potential impact of the work is substantial.
  • The promotion of religion.
  • Retrospective funding, meaning support for work that has already taken place.
  • General appeals or circulars.

Assessment Criteria

• All applications are assessed for:
  • A strong link between the people you wish to work with, the collections you expect to use and the topics or themes that you will explore.
  • Progress towards leading participatory practice and/or equitable working.
  • The beneficial impact on your organisation(s) and individuals within it, and, where appropriate, the wider museums sector, or partners from other sectors.
  • The ambition, innovation, creativity and/or approach to risk of the work, in the context of your museum/partnership.
  • Feasibility within the headline budget and timescale; and value for money.
  • How you will manage the end of the funding period and sustain or build on the benefits of funding.

For more information, visit Museums Association.