Culture Support Grant Expression of Interest (available until end of 8 November 2024)

Expressions of interest are invited for capital and revenue grants towards cultural projects in Great Yarmouth.

The Culture Support Grant can provide a flexible subsidy to help your organisation to grow, improve resilience or extend its reach/impact. It is available to any micro, small, medium-sized business, charities and organisations that have been trading for at least 12 months involved in arts, culture, or heritage within the Borough.

The focus of the capital grants is to create or improve culture, heritage or tourism facilities, or assets (i.e. physical structures, buildings, and sites). The focus of revenue grants is to provide funding for arts, heritage, culture programmes and events.

Expressions of interest are invited for capital grants up to a maximum of £20,000 with a 20% applicant contribution, subject to a minimum grant of £5,000. Projects MUST be capable of being delivered and grants paid out by 31st March 2025.

For example:

What the grant can support

• Investment to assist cultural assets and attractions adapt and grow, such as the development, restoration, or refurbishment of local natural, cultural and heritage assets and sites.
• Investment in the purchase and installation of equipment, machinery, technology, or processes that facilitates growth, improves resilience, efficiency, or productivity, or creates jobs.

What the grant cannot support

• paying-off debts or refinancing
• the purchase of stock or land
• research and development costs
• financial investments
• salaries, travel or subsistence
• training or accreditations
• ongoing normal business costs and overheads
• costs associated with a statutory or legislative requirement for the organisation
• commercial businesses and opportunities
• expenditure not related to the project
• VAT reclaimable from HMRC
• other revenue costs such as marketing

Expressions of interest are invited for revenue grants up to a maximum of £10,000 with a 20% applicant contribution, subject to a minimum grant of £5,000. Projects MUST be capable of being delivered and grants paid out by 31st March 2025.

For example:

What the grant can support

• seed funding for arts, heritage and cultural programmes and attractions to extend the reach and impact of organisations in the Borough and encourage participation and activity in the community and wider public.
• arts, heritage and cultural activities and events
• staff costs (including salary, travel, or subsistence)
• non-statutory training or accreditations
• most ongoing normal business costs and overheads related to the project

What the grant cannot support

• paying-off debts or refinancing
• the purchase of stock or land
• research and development costs
• financial investments
• costs associated with a statutory or legislative requirement for the organisation
• staff time or consultancy fees related to time spent working on the application form or other application documents
• purchase of buildings or rental fees for leased premises
• aid for lobbying, entertaining, petitioning or challenging decisions, which means using the UKSPF to lobby (via an external firm or in-house staff) in order to undertake activities intended to influence, or attempt to influence, Parliament, government or political activity (including the receipt of UKSPF funding); or attempting to influence legislative or regulatory action
• payments for activities of a party-political or exclusively religious nature
• VAT reclaimable from HMRC
• gifts, or payments for gifts or donations
• statutory fines, criminal fines, or penalties
• payments for works or activities are fully funded by other sources
• contingencies and contingent liabilities
• dividends
• costs resulting from the deferral of payments to creditors
• costs involved in winding up a company
• legal expenses in respect of litigation
• costs incurred by individuals in setting up and contributing towards private pension schemes
• payments that breach or are contrary to the funding agreement or UK legislation

A simple expression of interest form can be completed online.

After you submit an Expression of Interest you will be contacted by our Inward Investment Team who will be able to advise you whether you should submit a full application. They will explain any issues around eligibility and can assist you with that application, if required. You will be asked to supply quotes where appropriate (three quotes for costs over £5000) that you are seeking the grant for so you may wish to consider this now to avoid delays later in the process and to ensure that the expenditure underpinning your proposals is sufficiently well-developed to proceed. Grants will be assessed on a first come, first served basis.

Please note that we cannot retrospectively fund initiatives that have already been commissioned, paid for in full or in part or otherwise definitively initiated. Grant funding cannot be awarded as retrospective payment for goods or services procured before a formal offer of a grant has been received and accepted. Multiple grant applications from the same applicant cannot be considered. Our grants are discretionary; not all applicants will be successful and not all successful applicants will be awarded the full 80% of eligible costs. Applicants will need to provide a copy of their accounts for the last 12 months or last financial year.