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Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund

The Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund, run by the Museums Association, focuses on time-limited collections work outside the scope of an organisation’s core resources. Please go to The Museums Association website for further information and application guidance.

Through this fund the MA will award approximately £800,000 per year to museums, galleries and heritage organisations with two grant rounds per year. Organisations can apply for sums between £20,000 and £100,000.

This fund has been developed from the Esmée Fairbairn Museum and Heritage Collections strand and the MA's Effective Collections programme. Like the Museum and Heritage Collections strand we are keen to fund projects at an early stage of development where it may be difficult to guarantee tangible outcomes, but like Effective Collections we want organisations that are funded to become part of a network to develop ideas, share knowledge and build a legacy.

Projects that are eligible to apply to the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund include research into collections, conservation, collections review and initiatives to develop the use of collections.

Our intention is that successful projects will include work that:

• is developmental
• builds a legacy that has an impact after the duration of the project, even if this is hard to define at the start of the project
• is in some cases innovative
  
• is in some cases sector-changing in scale.

Our aim is that projects result in:

• better understanding of collections
• better appreciation of the potential of collections
• better use of collections.

Please visit the Museums Association website for full details and application guidance.

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