Applications for final funding from Culture Recovery to open soon

The government has said it will “shortly” start to accept applications for the final part of its £2bn Culture Recovery Fund emergency funding package, which amounts to about £300m.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport said the fund had provided £1.2bn to more than 5,000 organisations in England, with further support going to help organisations in Scotlad, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It said this had helped protect an estimated 75,000 jobs and supported almost 100,000 freelancers in the arts and culture sector.

It said the third and final round of funding would go towards protecting more “culturally significant organisations in need” and provide additional funding to some existing recipients of the fund.

The DCMS said it hoped that thousands of arts, heritage, cultural and creative organisations would receive support from the fund to secure their futures and help them move towards reopening at full capacity.

It said that of the more than £300m that would be made available, £218.5m would go to organisations “at imminent risk of failure” that had not yet received any funding from the scheme, plus existing recipients.

The DCMS said a further £35m would be put in the Heritage Stimulus Fund, taking the total allocated to £80m, to support major programmes of work and repair grants for heritage at risk.

The government said £20m would go in a Cultural Asset Fund, which would support the £20m National Heritage Memorial Fund’s Covid-19 Response Fund, designed to save heritage assets at risk of loss.

A further £35m is available for “contingencies”.

The government said guidance for each funding stream would be published shortly.

“Funding will be available to boost those who have received support already while ensuring more culturally significant organisations do not fail as a result of the pandemic, protecting theatres, museums, galleries, independent cinemas and organisations around the country for future generations and safeguarding hundreds of thousands of creative jobs in the supply chain,” the DCMS said.

Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, said: “This round of funding will provide a further boost to help organisations build back better and ensure we can support more of those in need – safeguarding our precious culture and heritage, and the jobs this supports.”

Sourced from Third Sector.