The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has launched a new £8m (US$10.6m, €9.5m) investment programme designed to help organisations within the UK improve long-term heritage management.

The Resilient Heritage scheme will award grants of between £3,000 (US$4,000, €3,600) and £250,000 (US$333,300, €298,000) to organisations seeking to build their capacity or achieve strategic change to improve the management of heritage. This includes applicants enhancing their own fundraising capacity, finding new streams of income, exploring new operating models, becoming more efficient and developing new partnerships for training and capacity-building.

Under the new scheme there are two levels of funding. For grants of £10,000 or less, the application, assessment and monitoring process will be much simpler than for grants above that sum.

The programme has no deadline, with all applications being assessed in an eight-week period. Grants will be awarded by local HLF officers or a deputy director of operations.

For interested parties, the HLF recommends using the Resilient Heritage Strength Checker – a diagnostic tool designed for voluntary and community sector organisations and social enterprises based in the UK that either have, or are looking to take on, responsibility for heritage. The free-to-use tool will help applicants analyse how their organisation currently works and areas of strengths and weakness, to help identify what needs to address as part of their respective projects.