MD North Grants

MD North has two distinct grant schemes available to your museum:

  • Open Grants
  • CPD Bursary

Open Grants  
These grants are to support organisational development that helps museums to meet or go beyond the requirements of the Accreditation Standard.

By organisational development we mean interventions that might:

  • build your museum’s capabilities and capacity to achieve your long-term goals
  • improve performance of how you plan for and deliver some of your services
  • support testing, trialling or changing approaches to the way you work
  • enable your workforce to flourish, thrive and have meaning in their work

These grants are available to the following types of museums:

  • Museums in the north of England which are Accredited, hold provisional status, or are formally Working Towards Accreditation
  • Museums that are not Accredited, or not formally Working Towards it, can be part of a project involving a partnership of museums, but an Accredited museum must be the lead partner.

The following museums are not eligible:

  • National Portfolio Organisations and DCMS sponsored National Museums.

Individual museums can apply for grants of up to £5,000. Multi-site organisations, partnerships and consortiums can apply for £7,500 where the funding will benefit more than one Accredited museum, including those officially Working Towards Accreditation.

All projects must also demonstrate how they deliver against the Arts Council England’s Investment Principles:

  • Ambition and Quality
  • Dynamism
  • Environmental Responsibility
  • Inclusivity & Relevance

Two rounds of Open Grants have been awarded so far and another two rounds of grants are planned for 2025:

  • Round 3 opens in January and closes in April 2025
  • Round 4 opens in June and closes in September 2025

The guidance and application form for Round 3 will be available on our website on the 13th January 2025 when the scheme opens for applications.  

This grant scheme has been made possible by monies from Arts Council England and the Art Fund.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Bursary  
Thanks to funding from Arts Council England and with support from Art Fund, MD North can offer CPD bursaries for individuals, organisations and networks in the North of England that represent or work with Accredited museums and museums officially Working Towards Accreditation.

By CPD we mean any museum practice related activity that supports your organisation and its workforce to develop talents, skills and knowledge that enable you to design, enhance and deliver services against your organisational priorities and goals.

These grants are available to the following types of museums:

  • Museums in the north of England which are Accredited, hold provisional status, or are formally Working Towards Accreditation
  • Museums that are not Accredited, or not formally Working Towards it, can be part of a project involving a partnership of museums, but an Accredited museum must be the lead partner.

The following museums are not eligible:

  • DCMS sponsored National Museums.

Grants are available up to £500 for individual CPD and £2,000 for organisational wide initiatives.

Applications will be assessed on a rolling basis until 6th December 2024.  Please note the CPD Bursary will close earlier if all funds have been allocated. 

The scheme opened on 14 June 2024.  For more information and guidance notes visit here.