Art Fund invests £1m amidst “growing local authority funding crisis”

This article was first published by Museums + Heritage.

The Museum of Making in Derby, Birmingham Museum Trust and The People’s Palace in Glasgow are among the recipients of grants from Art Fund designed to support museums reliant on local authority funding, following Art Fund’s Museum Directors Survey 2024 revealing that two thirds of museums are worried about their future and other sector research.

Over £800,000 has been awarded to 20 museums and galleries through Art Fund’s Reimagine grants programme, developed in consultation with museums, with an additional £200,000 distributed through Museum Development UK (MDUK) to support museums and projects.

Projects include sensory exhibitions for disabled and neurodivergent adults at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes; behind-the-scenes tours for rurally isolated groups at Fermanagh County Museum in Northern Ireland, and Manchester Art Gallery loaning artworks to local schools.