We’re pleased to announce the grantees of the first round of the reimagined Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund. The fund supports projects using museum collections to improve inclusion and equitable working with community partners.
Here are June 2025’s awardees:
Durham University Museums, Auckland Youth Community Centre, Blackhall Community Centre & Teesdale Community Resource Hub (TCR), £99,996 for Street Museum 2, a project to empower communities in the north-east to design and lead work combining local and personal heritage with global history using museum collections.
National Coal Mining Museum for England, The Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation, Spectrum People & Creative Minds, £98,561 to celebrate the role of Miners’ Welfare by bringing together heritage, community, health, academic partners, and people living with marginalisation, mental and physical ill-health.
National Maritime Museum & National Windrush Museum, £100,000 for a National Windrush residency at the National Maritime Museum, which will work with the Caribbean community to examine how Caribbean food shapes identities and culture in Britain, engaging visitors with the lived experience of the Windrush Generation.
University Museum of Zoology Cambridge & The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire, £99,951 to increase access for audiences that have limited opportunities to engage with museums and wildlife and empower them to engage with social and climate crises.
Whithorn Trust, Building Futures Galloway Ltd & Youth Work D&G, £100,000 to pilot an approach to engage excluded young people to create a full-scale, research-led, medieval carpenter’s workshop offering accredited non-academic pathways into heritage and addressing a skills gap.
Manchester Jewish Museum, £100,000 to support collective healing between Manchester’s Jewish and Muslim communities through art and cultural exchange in the context of ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
Nairn Museum, £99,823 to develop participatory work exploring how both inward and outward travel have shaped Highland coastal identity, and how Highlanders have shaped the world.
“I am delighted that we are able to announce the first round of grantees of the newly launched Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund. It was fascinating to read the applications and see the high standard of work that is being delivered in partnership with communities – I hope this funding will support the successful organisations to take this work to the next level and look forward to sharing the results and learning with the wider sector.”
Sharon Heal, director, Museums Association
Image: People at work in a workshop at the Whithorn Trust