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Culture Recovery Fund: Emergency Resource Support - Round two

Key Information

Grant range

Generally, between £25,000 and £3 million (£1 million for for-profit organisations) 

However, if you’ve already received a grant from the Culture Recovery Fund, there are limited to how much you can apply for:   

if you are a non-profit organisation, the maximum you can receive in total across all rounds is £4 million   

if you are a for-profit (commercial) organisation, the maximum you can receive in total across all rounds is £1.5 million 

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About the programme

Q: The guidance indicates that the funding period begins from the first day of the month I apply however I am unable to enter the correct date for some of the activity in my delivery plan.
A: Unfortunately, Grantium is only able to accept delivery plan entries for Emergency Resource Support round 2 with a start date on or after your application was created on the system. For any eligible activity taking place before this date, please use the date your application was created as the start date and include the accurate start date in the description section. The end date of the activity can be entered as normal. 

Q: What is this funding for? 
A: This programme has been put in place to provide exceptional emergency funding awards to culturally significant organisations that were financially sustainable before Covid-19 but are now at imminent risk of failure and have exhausted all other options for increasing their resilience.

Applicants can apply for funding to cover the period from the month at which a full application is made, up to a point where you can demonstrate a return to financial viability, but no later than 31 March 2022. Applicants must be able to demonstrate they are at risk of insolvency within 12 weeks of the point of application.

Through this programme, we can cover costs to support you to meet the shortfall between your operating costs and income up to a point where you can demonstrate a return to financial viability, but no later than 31 March 2022. 

Applicants should be able to demonstrate plans to maintain this sustainability through the financial year 2022-23, without needing further emergency support.

Organisations should only propose to deliver activities that are essential for survival and do not represent significant financial risk. 

Through the Emergency Resource Support programme, we can support:

  • essential business expenditure, such as staff salaries and fixed/operational costs for the duration of the funding period
  • costs for projects/activity that are/is essential to your continued operations and that are/is related to the reopening of businesses in a Covid-safe manner and that will drive future income 
  • full or partial repayment or clearance of Covid-related debt incurred since 01 April 2020, not including affordable lending
  • building reserves, up to a maximum value of eight weeks’ turnover  (Local Authorities and Universities cannot include these costs)
  • proportionate redundancy pay outs where decisions have been made to reduce the workforce
  • running risk management and financial reviews and testing any identified actions to safeguard the organisation as needed
  • one off costs arising from organisational development including reconfiguring business plans, governance and activity needed to help safeguard the future of your organisation – in particular, costs that will enable organisations to increase income
  • one off building/capital expenditure up to a maximum of 10% of the full grant request in order to adapt any existing activities and core business. These costs can include: purchasing or installing essential Covid-19 related equipment, adaptations to help you operate and comply with social distancing requirements, essential IT equipment and connectivity costs to support homeworking, activities to enable your organisation to put information online and to interact with your community/customers if your site is closed, for example, digital expertise, equipment or customer relationship management system

Q: How do you define ‘at clear risk of no longer trading viably’? 
A: By ‘no longer trading viably’ we mean you can demonstrate that, without additional support through Emergency Resource Support, your organisation would not have the ability to generate sufficient income or sufficient cash reserves (or near-cash reserves where it is appropriate to liquidate them) in order to meet operating payments and debt commitments. If you can demonstrate a clear risk of this, then you are at risk of no longer trading viably. 

This is similar to the definition of cash-flow insolvency. However, given the unique circumstances of many cultural organisations (including the importance of cultural assets in their reserves) we will take a balanced view as to whether your organisation is at risk of no longer trading viably, based on the evidence presented in your application.

Q: Are the criteria and application process the same as the other rounds of the Culture Recovery Fund: Grants programme?
A: This programme has separate aims and different priorities from the other rounds of Culture Recovery Fund: Grants. Because of this, the application process, questions and criteria are different – please read the guidance. Note: this round of funding has the same aims to CRF: Emergency Resource Support Round 1. 

Q: What is the budget for this fund?
A: The budget for the Culture Recovery Fund: Emergency Resource Support programme is £23 million. The delivery of this funding will be kept under active review and Government will consider how best to adapt it in line with the needs of the sector. 

The funding comes directly from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and is part of the £2 billion Culture Recovery Fund package they announced to protect the UK’s culture and heritage sectors from the economic impacts of Covid-19.

Q: The feedback from my unsuccessful Permission To Apply form is shorter than it was in Round 1. Why have I not been given more information?
Due to anticipated high volumes of applications expected for this fund, we have had to revise our process to enable us to make more decisions in the timeframe specified. We have had to address how much feedback we are able to give to applicants at the PTA stage if they were not successful. We will still provide feedback at this stage, but this will not be as extensive as the feedback we were able to provide in Round 1. 

Q: Can I apply to Emergency Resource Support Round 2 if I have previously been awarded Culture Recovery Funding in CRF1, CRF2?
A: Recipients of CRF rounds 1 and 2 are eligible to apply. However, the Emergency Resource Support Round 2 programme is for organisations that are at risk of no longer trading viably within 12 weeks. If this is the case for your organisation, you are eligible to apply.

Q: Can I apply to Emergency Resource Support Round 2 if I have previously been awarded Culture Recovery Funding via Emergency Resource Support or Continuity Support?
We would not expect organisations awarded recent Emergency Resource Support or Continuity Support to make an application to this fund. However, we may, by exception, consider an application where the application is able to present a clear and credible rationale for why further funding is needed based on substantial changes to your circumstances from your original application, for which adaptability could not have been factored into your original plans.

Q: Can I apply if I was previously unsuccessful in my application to the Culture Recovery Fund?
A: Yes, but previous assessments will be considered when making decisions on granting permission to apply for Emergency Resource Support Round 2. If you previously scored Not Met on Cultural Significance you may not be invited to apply, however we will also take into account any new information that you provide in your Permission to Apply form. 

Q: What will the success rate be? 
A: In these unprecedented circumstances, we can’t pre-empt success rates as we do not know how many organisations will apply.  We believe that there will be considerable demand for this funding.

Q: How are decisions being made?  
A: Decisions are made by Arts Council England. We will make our decisions based on the information you provide in your application form and accompanying attachments, and any other information we hold about you, including previous Culture Recovery Fund applications and monitoring information, any further information that we requested as part of the process and, where relevant, data and information held in the public domain. 

If you have applied for more than £1 million (either in this round, or cumulatively across CRF rounds), we may share your application with the Culture Recovery Board (or a subset of the board) appointed by DCMS and ask them for comment before a final decision is taken.

Applications up to £1 million may also be shared with the Culture Recovery Board.

Q: Who sits on the Culture Recovery Board?  
A: Members of the Culture Recovery Board have been appointed by DCMS. It is chaired by Sir Damon Buffini.  

The full list of board members on the Culture Recovery Board is as follows: 

  • Neil Mendoza; Commissioner for Cultural Recovery and Renewal
  • Arts Council England; Sir Nicholas Serota, Chair of Arts Council England  
  • Historic England; Sir Laurie Magnus, Chair of Historic England  
  • National Lottery Heritage Fund; Rene Olivieri, Chair of NLHF   
  • British Film Institute; Jay Hunt, BFI Governor (Board Member) 
  • DCMS; Emma Squire, Director for Arts, Heritage and Tourism 

Independent Board Members:  

  • Claire Whitaker  
  • Baroness Kate Fall  
  • Hemant Patel  
  • Samir Shah
  • Carol Lake
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