The Museums Association - Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund

Details

The Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund supports museums to improve their inclusive collections and participatory practice 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.

They offer:

• Partnership project grants to museums and community organisations that work equitably together and share aims for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). They look for ambitious and compelling ideas for inclusive project work with collections, with a focus on how the work contributes to local community agendas and needs.
• Core grants to museums that have established strategic aims for DEI, and that are ready to use their collections and our funding to support social and climate justice in ways that are relevant to local contexts and relationships. They look for work that addresses organisational or systemic change with potential for strong legacy and future community partnership. Applicants should move away from a project output approach and focus more on the organisational or systemic change that they wish to influence through their work.

The fund has a twin focus on communities and collections. They anticipate this will result in work that explores and influences key themes in social and climate justice, such as social cohesion, decolonisation, climate crisis, anti-racism and others. Importantly, they will look for local relevance, for example asking how people or communities are centred in the work and how you have decided who to work with.

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Geographical areas funded: UK

Fund type

Type of funding:

Grant

Type of cost:

Revenue, Core costs

Fund award sizes

Minimum:

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Maximum:

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Notes on award amounts:

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Who can apply

The Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund is open to all museums and galleries in the United Kingdom. Applicants from within the museum sector must be members of the Museums Association. They expect to fund smaller and medium sized organisations where funding of this size can make the most difference in the long term, for example as a higher proportion of turnover.

When to apply

Now open. There are 2 rounds in 2027:

• 20 January 2027: deadline for submission of the expression of interest form for June 2027 funding (decisions w/b 8 February)

Next deadline: 20 Jan 2027

How to apply

There will be a two-stage application process. The first stage is to submit an expression of interest using the form available to download from the Fund website.

Contact information

Exclusions

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Activites funded: Arts and culture Heritage and building preservation

Beneficiaries funded: General public

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Last reviewed 15 days ago