About Us
Children enjoying a Punch and Judy display at Hastings Museum. Photo Kois Miah

All our publications 

Our publications include guidance notes and documents to help you complete your application. More information on applying for a grant can be found in how to apply section.

Guidance publications

First steps

  • This guidance is a short introductory note designed to help you to understand our strategic aims and follow good practice in delivering your conservation project.
  • This guidance is a short introductory note designed to help you write your evaluation report when you claim your final grant payment.
  • This guidance is a short introductory note designed to help you to understand our strategic aim of learning and follow good practice in delivering your project.
  • This guidance is a short introductory note designed to help you to get people actively involved with your heritage.
  • This guidance is a short introductory note designed to help you if you are working with young people

Thinking about

  • This guidance will help applicants in which archaeology forms part of an HLF-funded project
  • We will help community groups develop archives of material that is important historically to their local area. This could include heritage material that is created in the normal course of the life of an individual, group or organisation.
  • This guidance outlines common barriers and incentives for audiences, and provides advice on setting targets, improving your offer and making people feel welcome.
  • We have produced this short guidance note to help you think about biodiversity in your heritage project.
  • This guidance is designed to help you if you want to buy works of art, archives, objects and other collections which are important to the heritage and which were created more than 10 years ago.
  • This is guidance is designed to help you if your project involves the purchase of land and/or buildings.
  • Community participation is about including local people in the decision-making and delivery of your project.
  • This guidance is designed to looking after heritage in a way that makes sure it remains, relevant, accessible and in good condition.
  • This guidance explains how you can use interpretation to communicate to the public the interest, significance, value and meaning of heritage and sets out up-to-date costs for a range of interpretative methods.
  • This guidance is designed to help you understand what we mean by language heritage and provide examples of the types of language projects we fund.
  • This guidance provides examples of the kind of activities we can fund and advice to help you plan and deliver formal and informal learning as part of your project
  • This guidance is designed to help those planning an oral history project where people’s memories, attitudes and experiences are recorded.
  • This guidance explains how you can use our funding to train new and existing project staff and volunteers and/or increase awareness amongst the public about heritage skills.
  • This guidance explains what we can fund and provides creative ideas for using the arts in heritage projects.
  • This guidance provides ideas on the roles volunteers could undertake in your project, and will help you to plan for volunteering activity, including recruiting, managing and training volunteers.

Additional guidance

  • Drawing up a conservation management plan will help you to understand why your heritage is important and to whom. It will also help you to look after your heritage in future, and make decisions about changes.
  • In this guidance we explain the evaluation work that we want the organisations we fund to carry out. We expect evaluation feedback from all the projects we support, in the form of an evaluation report and an evaluation questionnaire
  • This guidance is designed primarily for heritage projects that plan to make a charge for entry, or for use of facilities or for other services provided, for example, venue hire, catering, or retailing.
  • This guidance provides useful tips on how to make your project more accessible and reminds you of your legal obligations not to discriminate against disabled people.
  • This guidance gives advice on good practice in developing and delivering a bilingual heritage project.
  • A ten-year management and maintenance plan will help you identify the resources you need and the actions you will need to take to keep the work we have funded in good condition.
  • This guidance describes the process of planning learning and participation activity in three straightforward steps, and sets out our requirements for what an Activity Plan should contain.
  • An outline of the environmental impacts we think are likely to be important on projects of differing sizes and type – and what we think it should be possible to achieve on each.
  • ‘Full cost recovery’ simply means securing funding for – or ‘recovering’ – all organisational costs, including the direct costs of projects and their associated overheads.

Corporate documents

Annual reports

  • The National Heritage Memorial Fund annual review includes information about major projects the organisation has carried out throughout the year, and a financial breakdown of its accounts.
  • Annual report and accounts for the year ended 31 March 2011.
  • The Heritage Lottery Fund/National Heritage Memorial Fund Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2010.
  • The National Heritage Memorial Fund annual review includes information about major projects the organisation has carried out throughout the year, and a financial breakdown of its accounts.
  • The National Heritage Memorial Fund annual review includes information about major projects the organisation has carried out throughout the year, and a financial breakdown of its accounts.
  • The Heritage Lottery Fund/National Heritage Memorial Fund Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2009.
  • The Heritage Lottery Fund/National Heritage Memorial Fund Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2008.
  • The National Heritage Memorial Fund annual review includes information about major projects the organisation has carried out throughout the year, and a financial breakdown of its accounts.
  • The National Heritage Memorial Fund annual review includes information about major projects the organisation has carried out throughout the year, and a financial breakdown of its accounts.
  • The Heritage Lottery Fund/National Heritage Memorial Fund Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2007.

Business plan

  • This plan focuses on our use of resources in 2011-2012 to achieve the aims set out in the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Strategic Plan 2008-2013.
  • This Plan focuses on our use of resources in 2010-11 to achieve the aims set out in the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Strategic Plan 2008-13.
  • This plan focuses on our use of resources in 2010-2011 to achieve the aims set out in the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Strategic Plan 2008-2013.
  • Report published 5 March 2010, reveals for the first time the scale of the heritage tourism industry in the UK, estimating its gross domestic product (GDP) contribution to be £20.6 billion.
  • Equality Scheme - January 2010
  • This plan focuses on our use of resources in 2009-2010 to achieve the aims set out in the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Strategic Plan 2008-2013.
  • The Heritage Lottery Fund Strategic Plan 2008-2013. Our Strategic Plan identifies our aims and priorities over a five-year period.
  • This plan focuses on our use of resources in 2008-2009 to achieve the aims set out in the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Strategic Plan 2008-2013.
  • NHMF/HLF has adopted the principle that in the conduct of public business in Wales, it will treat the English and Welsh languages on a basis of equality.
  • This plan focuses on our use of resources in 2007-2008 to achieve the aims set out in the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Strategic Plan 2002-2008 published in May 2002.
  • This plan focuses on our use of resources in 2006-2007 to achieve the aims set out in the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Strategic Plan 2002-2007 published in May 2002.
  • This plan focuses on our use of resources in 2005-2006 to achieve the aims set out in the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Strategic Plan 2002-2007 published in May 2002.

Strategic plan