Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund

The fund supports museums to improve their inclusive collections and participatory practice with community partners. It will place more emphasis on equitable working, supporting wellbeing and legacy planning.

Core grants are available to single museum organisations for strategic development of their inclusive collections work.
Partnership project grants are awarded to museums and community organisations working equitably with collections to achieve shared aims for inclusion.

Key Criteria

For core grants, 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.

For partnership project grants, 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.

It is an essential requirement of the fund that applicants use collections to further their aims for inclusion; and that community groups, partners and/or stakeholders have prominent roles in your work.

Expressions of interest are now open for June 2026 grants.