How should heritage be funded? What are the opportunities and challenges around public, private and philanthropic funding models? These are some of the key questions underpinning the 2024 Heritage Debate. This year the The Historic Environment Forum worked in partnership with The Heritage Alliance to produce a series of case studies which will contribute to the debate – sharing different models of funding heritage, as well as a diversity of views on the subject.
Celia Gibb, Churchwarden of St John’s Doddington
What type of funding has been effective in supporting your work?
Seven years ago we were told that the condition of the windows in our church could soon lead to it being added to the At Risk register, so we began to look at raising funds. Over the first year we were successful in attracting grants/pledges of up to £15,000 from several bodies, but it soon became apparent that to meet the gap between that total and the total cost of repair was impossible – some funders required 30-50% funding in place and would then provide a proportion of remaining funding. Only one would complete the funding – National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF). This required us to add much more than repairs to the project to meet outcomes. However, we would then end up as a more resilient organisation; that made sense, so that is the route we took. The Levelling Up fund came at the right moment for us, granting a significant amount.
What setbacks have you experienced related to funding?
Only one person (me!) in our small congregation had the capacity and energy to take this on – I have spent the last seven years continuously applying for grants – even now, when we have full funding for our project, we have been encouraged by NLHF to continue applying for more. This has taken over my life. I am grateful for the help I received initially to find funders and write applications from employees of Hereford Diocese; but those posts disappeared in 2022. My second attempt at NLHF funding having failed and the third cancelled due to Covid, I was advised that funding for places of worship (POW) was unlikely to be available, and to apply for a smaller grant to employ a heritage industry project development adviser to help us write future bids. Luckily, we found the right person and NLHF decided to look kindlier on POW projects.
What solutions are required to address funding challenges in heritage?
I write in regard to churches with heritage value: there needs to be a recognition that churches are part of our national heritage; without them at the centre of every village, with towers and spires visible across towns and cities, Britain would not be the place that locals love, and tourists choose to visit.
We are having to work hard to raise funds and run community projects while adding heritage gateways (our project), creating community space etc plus doing repairs; these are not bad things to use church buildings for, but to force people who could actually worship anywhere (“the church is the people”) to shoulder the burden of years of work to gain funding, seems the wrong way round. New thinking is needed to give advice and make it easier to achieve the funding, leaving energy to run new initiatives and maintain newly-repaired buildings for future generations.
