What is the Community Heritage Grants?
The Community Heritage Grants is a grant opportunity to support community-based organisations to identify and care for Australian cultural heritage collections which are publicly accessible, locally held and nationally significant.
Background
Since 1994, this long running program has provided over $8 million in funding to over 1,550 collection management projects across Australia.
The Community Heritage Grants is an Australian Government partnership between the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications (Office for the Arts); and four national collecting institutions – the National Archives of Australia; the National Film and Sound Archive; the National Museum of Australia and the National Library of Australia (who administers the program on behalf of the program partners).
Funding
Cash grants of up to $15,000 (including GST) are available for eligible projects in each annual round. Organisations are welcome to contribute their own funding or seek/contribute funding from other grant programs to support activities.
Consultancy costs for significance assessments and preservation needs assessments will be funded at the standard rate of $5,500 (excluding GST). Please note that this is based on costs for an assessment of a small to medium sized collection (approximately 600 documents and/or artefacts) and entailing a site visit (2 days) and the preparation of a written report (4-5 days).
Eligible Projects
There are two categories of eligible projects.
Collection Preservation Projects
In order to apply for collection preservation projects, collections need to be documented and accessible. Funding is available for Cataloguing and Collection Management Software purchases at any stage.
All other funding projects are structured in a three-stage process, where organisations apply for funding in this order (for more details on each stage please see Attachment A):
- Significance Assessment
- Preservation Needs Assessment
- Conservation and Collection Management Activities.
Training Projects
Organisations may apply for training projects funding at any time. Training topics might include, but are not limited to:
- collection care and handling
- cataloguing
- disaster preparedness
- collection management
- assessing significance.
Organisations are encouraged to work in partnership with other groups to extend the outreach and outcomes of training projects.
Professional organisations are eligible to apply for training projects. It is not necessary for these organisations to have a collection to apply for funding for training. However, applications should include information about the people and the collections that will benefit from the training.
Eligible Applicants
The Community Heritage Grants program is open to not-for-profit, incorporated organisations that:
- Own or manage a collection of nationally significant material, which is;
- accessible to the general public.
Funded organisations must make their collections accessible (either by appointment, via online platforms, or on temporary or permanent exhibition. An organisation that wishes to apply for funding but which manages, rather than owns, the collection, must provide written permission from the legal owner of the collection with their application.
Examples of not-for-profit, incorporated organisations which are encouraged to apply are:
- Archives
- Art galleries
- Community groups that have collection items (including but not limited to sporting clubs, craft and visual arts guilds, design groups, performing arts and literary groups, disability groups, health organisations, ex-service organisations, progress and professional associations, agricultural societies, and environmental groups)
- Historical societies
- Indigenous groups
- Libraries
- Multicultural groups
- Museums
- Religious groups
- Cultural heritage professional associations (for training projects)
The program particularly welcome applications from:
- Community-based organisations with limited or no paid staff and/or limited funding resources
- Indigenous and multicultural organisations.
Timing
Applications close 6 May 2022.
