Community Catalysts Fund
As part of the Delivering Change programme, Community Catalysts will support community organisations with lived experience of systemic exclusion to work in partnership with museums.
Delivering Change is a Museums Galleries Scotland programme that recognises that museums have played a part in excluding the experiences and histories of many of Scotland’s people and communities. This three-year programme, funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players; Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Scottish Government, supports museums and galleries across Scotland to make changes to help all people access culture.
Purpose of the Fund
The Community Catalysts programme is supporting 8 community organisations with lived experience of systemic exclusion to work in partnership with museums taking part in Delivering Change’s anti-oppression programme, Museum Transformers. These museums are committed to an anti-oppression programme; to widening access to culture and to working in partnership with community organisations. Through this partnership, Community Catalysts will develop a project that will share stories and experiences from their community in their partner museum.
Development/Incubator Grant
In September 2024, 8 community organisations were awarded a development grant of £2,000. These grants are supporting the development of the project by covering costs including travel costs, venue hire and childcare costs to bring people from the community together with the museum to plan the project.
Delivery Project Grant
From 24th February 2025, the Community Catalysts will be invited to apply for up to £25,000 for the delivery of their partnership projects.
Who can apply for this funding?
The fund is open to the 8 organisations who received the £2,000 development grant in 2024. These are:
Assessment Criteria
Inclusion and representation of systemically excluded community in planning and delivery of the project
A key purpose of this fund is to empower people from systemically excluded communities to create, plan and deliver projects with and in museums. We want to know how systemically excluded people from your organisation and wider community have been involved in coming up with your project ideas and carrying out the initial planning of the project. We want to know how people from your organisation and community will be involved in planning and delivering your project once your grant has been awarded.
Impact of project outcomes on systemically excluded community
This fund intends to positively impact people from systemically excluded communities by enabling increased representation of their stories, histories and cultures in Scottish museums. We want to know how you will share your community’s stories, histories and culture through project activity. We want to know how you will engage members of your community in project activity, including people who are not a part of your organisation and have not been involved in the planning or delivery of your project. We want to know what impact project activity will have on systemically excluded people who take part in it. Impacts may include: people developing new skills; people gaining knowledge and experience; people experiencing positive emotions such as pride; and people connecting and building community. Please note that these are just examples, and your project may have many other positive impacts. All positive impacts should be included in your application.
Willingness and ability to engage in partnership working
A key purpose of this fund is to enable systemically excluded groups to work in partnership with museums to develop a project. We want to know how you have worked with your partner museum to develop this project: please include information about who at the museum you have worked with; how you have shared your ideas with the museum; and how you have collaborated with the museum to turn your ideas into plans. If your museum partner is not willing or able to collaborate with you, this will not affect the success of your application to the fund. If you feel that your partner is not trying to collaborate effectively on your project, please let us know as soon as possible so we can provide support.
Deliverability
As with all our grant funds, we want to know that the project has been well planned and has a good chance of being successfully delivered. In your application we will be looking for well explained project activity and well thought out project plans and budgets. We understand that project plans and budgets often need to change and adapt throughout project delivery. If your project plan or budget needs to change after your grant has been awarded, we will work with you to adapt these.
What can we fund
- Community groups can apply for up to £25,000 for projects lasting up to 18 months
- You can apply for 100% of the total project cost
The fund can support a wide range of costs including:
- Materials for activities
- Events
- Exhibition costs
- Venue hire
- Expenses, travel costs and childcare costs for people taking part
- Marketing, communication and design costs
- Salary costs for new staff, additional staff time and fees for freelancers.
- Any training and support for participants that is not already part of the Delivering Change programme
- Full Cost Recovery for Community Organisations
What can’t we fund
- Salary costs for existing staff time that are already directly funded
- Maintenance and capital work
- Full Cost Recovery for Museums
Full Cost Recovery
As well as applying for direct costs of the delivery of the project, Community Catalysts can also apply for a contribution towards the general costs of running the organisation.
We recognise that when an organisation undertakes a new project other indirect costs increase too ad we can fund part of this increase. We call this Full Cost Recovery.
We cannot fund Full Cost Recovery for museum partners.
Organisational overheads can include, but are not limited to:
- Salaries of core staff which are not fully funded by another grant. This could include the manager, the finance officer and the administrator.
- Organisation’s rent and utilities costs
- Office costs such as stationery, phone bills and printing.
For example, if a member of your core staff spends a proportion of their time on your funded project, you can request a proportion of their salary as a project cost. Similarly, if your project makes use of your organisation’s facilities and resources, you can request a proportion of your organisation’s rent, utilities and office costs as project costs.
You must identify which costs are full cost recovery in the project budget you submit with your application. you must keep a record of how you worked out your full cost recovery costs, as we may ask to see an explanation of these figures during assessment.
How to apply
Application forms will be available from early February. All applications must be submitted online via our application portal MGS Online. A PDF of the application form is available in the Supporting Documents section below. This is for reference only.
As part of your application you will need to submit the following supporting documents:
- Your organisation’s constitution
- A copy of your most recent bank statement from your organisation’s bank account. This should be the account into which any grant will be paid and the statement must be no more than 3 months old from the date of application.
- Your Project Plan
- Your Project Budget
- The Partnership Agreement you have written with your partner museum
- Your organisation’s safeguarding policy
Templates for the project plan and project budget can be found at the bottom of this webpage.
The Delivering Change project team will be in touch to offer support with completing the application, including developing the project programme and the budget, and using the MGS Online portal.
When to apply
Community Catalysts can submit an application any time between 24 February 2025 and 2 May 2025. Project delivery will be between April 2025 and December 2026, and we expect projects to last for 12 -18 months.