LONDON.- Art Fund, the UK’s independent charity for art, today announced a total of £1 million in funding to support local museums and galleries across the country in response to the growing local authority funding crisis. Recipients include the Museum of Making in Derby, Birmingham Museum Trust and The People’s Palace in Glasgow.

Over £800,000 has been awarded to 20 museums and galleries through Art Fund’s Reimagine grants programme, developed in consultation with museums in response to their most urgent needs, with an additional £200,000 distributed through Museum Development UK (MDUK) to support museums and projects. This investment has been made possible with the backing of Art Fund’s members and supporters, including The Headley Trust and over 850 donors through the charity’s recent fundraising campaign, Making Connections.

Projects include sensory exhibitions for disabled and neurodivergent adults at MK Gallery; behind-the-scenes tours for rurally isolated groups at Fermanagh County Museum; Manchester Art Gallery loaning artworks to local schools to improve visual literacy amongst children; and creative workshops for men accessing mental health support services at Hartlepool Art Gallery.

The grants have been designed to support museums to build resilience for the future by working in partnership with organisations, including those beyond the cultural sector such as education providers, mental health support services and community organisations. The new projects demonstrate the vital support civic museums offer communities and the major contribution they make to education, health and well-being, civic pride, economic growth and environmental sustainability.

Yet with local authority budgets stretched to breaking point, many museums are facing imminent threats to their operations. Art Fund’s Museum Directors Survey 2024 revealed that financial strain on civic museums has worsened following a decade of austerity, the pandemic and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, with two thirds of museum directors concerned about funding shortfalls, a rise from half in 2022.

The charity is therefore supporting the English Civic Museums Network (ECMN) in their urgent ask for the government to make £20million in emergency funding available to save the most at-risk civic museums from closure. Art Fund has also called for an enquiry into regional museum funding, and local authority settlements that enable sustained support for these vital institutions. Without additional Government funding, these vital civic museums are at serious risk.

Jenny Waldman, Director, Art Fund, said: “We’re extremely pleased to offer £1million in support to local authority-reliant museums and galleries across the UK – from Carmarthenshire to County Fermanagh – through this latest round of Reimagine grants. The projects showcase the incredible value local museums have for communities and demonstrate their remarkable ambition, resilience and entrepreneurial spirit in the face of growing challenges.

“While we’re pleased to see that the Government has committed to increase core Local Authority spending power by around 3.2% in the Autumn Budget, and promised some much-needed support for the National Museums and Galleries through increased grant-in-aid funding, and capital investment, the Budget falls short of addressing the urgent and long-term challenges facing the sector, particularly for civic museums.

“Three quarters of UK adults say having a local museum adds value to their area. Museums play a central role in rebuilding communities, bringing people together and inspiring audiences through their collections. We will continue to make the case for long-term investment in all UK museums to safeguard these vital spaces of inspiration for communities both now and in the future. “

Key projects funded in this round of Reimagine grants include:

• Birmingham Museums Trust has been awarded £49,728 for Collections in the Community – to advance Birmingham Museums Trust’s (BMT) 10-year Dynamic Collections programme, aimed at opening up access to the city’s nationally significant collections. The funding will help to strengthen existing relationships and create new partnerships, including the establishment of a Community Partner Panel. This will enable BMT to further embed a truly democratic approach at the heart of its organisation by actively involving underrepresented groups and giving them a meaningful role in the care and management of its collections.

• Derby Museums has been awarded £45,000 for a “wool takeover” at the Museum of Making – bringing together manufacturers, young people, industry experts and consumers to spark discussion on sustainable fashion. The collaboration will produce an on-gallery takeover and workshop programme at the Museum of Making, engaging young people, families and wider audiences – including Looked After Children (LAC) – in creative solutions to the climate emergency and inspiring careers in textiles and making.

• The Dylan Thomas Boat House in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, has been awarded £39,643 to reimagine it as a Creative Hub – Through activities and events, the Dylan Thomas Boat House, once home to Wales’s most famous poet, will become an inclusive Creative Hub for children, young people and families. This project – a partnership between CofGâr (the name for Carmarthenshire County Council’s Museums & Arts Service), Kids in Museums, and Carmarthenshire’s Education Service – will connect a younger audience with literary, creative, and expressive arts inspired by Dylan Thomas.

• Fermanagh County Museum in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland has been awarded £42,000 for Art In Our Hands – to reimagine how Fermanagh County Museum’s collections are enjoyed through a participatory programme of creative activities that empowers and uplifts the community. In partnership with the Oak Healthy Living Centre, the project will use art and artefacts to enhance wellbeing for rurally isolated groups, people with health conditions or have experienced trauma. Museum staff will lead workshops with museum artefacts, behind-the-scenes visits and tours, culminating in a co-curated exhibition at Enniskillen Castle.

• Hartlepool Art Gallery in Tees Valley has been awarded the £17,445 for Beneath The Surface – an innovative mental health initiative uniting council teams with mental health practitioners to address the low engagement of men with mental health support services. Central to the programme is the gallery's collection of works by postwar artist John Wilson McCracken, expelled from the Slade School in 1959 following a schizophrenia diagnosis. Men accessing mental health services will be invited to participate in creative workshops inspired by McCracken's art, leading to a collaborative exhibition which aims to promote future sessions while highlighting mental health resources available.

• Manchester Art Gallery has been awarded £45,000 to develop the Rutherston Loan Scheme for the 21st Century – to explore new ways to loaning artworks from the Rutherston Loan Collection, a 100-year-old collection of paintings, print and sculptures, to schools and colleges across Manchester. In collaboration with primary, secondary and further education providers, the project will remove barriers to accessing art and promote visual literacy for children and young people in Manchester’s most deprived areas.

• MK Gallery in Milton Keynes has been awarded £40,000 for Sensory Exhibition Engagement – building on MK Gallery’s innovative approach to tour programming, Sensory Exhibition Engagement will increase opportunities for disabled and neurodivergent adults, children, and young people to access and engage with exhibitions. The project will strengthen MK Gallery’s partnerships with community and educational organisations, while fostering new collaborations with local support and advocacy groups.

• The People's Palace in Glasgow, Scotland has been awarded £10,000 for Reimagining the People's Palace – Glasgow’s social history museum is home to a collection of visual art spanning over 200 years. The museum is currently closed for a major redevelopment and redisplay of the collection. The People’s Palace will hire an Assistant Visitor Studies Curator to work with communities during the closure, using co-curation to involve residents, visitors and local organisations in shaping the Palace’s future.

Art Fund is continuing its partnership with Museum Development UK into 2025. £200,000 of the total £1million has been awarded through MDUK to smaller museums and projects. In the first year of the partnership 2023-4, over £290,000 was distributed in small grants to 110 museums, with two programmes in Scotland and Wales reaching a further 36 museums. With funding from Art Fund and The Headley Trust, along with almost £100,000 of match funding from the Museum Development, MDUK is delivering a range of complementary accessible grant and training programmes to support museums and galleries.

Launched in 2020, the Reimagine programme is designed to inspire creativity and increase stability and resilience in museums, supporting organisations to develop or refresh their work in response to their current situation.