Capital Grant Programme for Museums and Libraries in Wales Opens New Round

Funding available to transform service delivery to offer sustainable, modern, attractive facilities and services in local museums, archives and libraries across Wales.

The Welsh Government’s Culture and Sport Division manages the Transformation Capital Grant Programme, to enable museums, archives, and libraries to transform services to develop a more sustainable model of service delivery and enhance services to people and their communities.

Two bands of capital grants are available:

  • Band A: grants of up to £150,000 – grants are to encourage organisations to improve the internal and external appearance and environment, quality of collections care, visitor experience and improve long term sustainability.
  • Band B: grants of up to £300,000 – grants are for larger, strategic projects such as the realignment of service provision (e.g. a major building refurbishment, developing partnerships and shared facilities) or the development of inter-authority or ‘regional’ services.

The following are eligible to apply:

Libraries

Local authority public library services or trusts / not for profit companies delivering an authority-wide library service on behalf of the local authority, and community run libraries which are constituted under a regulatory framework (e.g. registered charity or community interest company.)

Community libraries that are supported by the local authority and are part of the statutory service can apply but must inform their local authority that they are doing so before applying.

Museums

Local authority or independently run museums which are fully or provisionally accredited as part of the UK wide Museum Accreditation scheme.

Archives

Local authority archive services or trusts / not for profit companies delivering archive services on behalf of the local authority. Archive services must be fully or provisionally accredited as part of the UK wide Archive Service Accreditation scheme, or committed to achieving accreditation within an agreed timeframe.

Applications from partnerships delivering regional or all-Wales services are also eligible.

The deadline for the submission of Expression of Interest (EoI) forms is 22 September 2023.

(This report was the subject of a GRANTfinder Newsflash.)