AIM members care for a huge and significant range of historic objects and collections. They range from fine art collections to locomotives, textiles to ships, decorative art and social and industrial history collections.

AIM is grateful to the Pilgrim Trust for funding the Collections Care, Audit and Conservation grant schemes. The grants support small to medium sized museums to care for their collections more effectively and efficiently and to meet the standards required for Accreditation.

We encourage applications from museums to bring in conservation expertise to ensure that collections care and conservation meets professional standards and will have most impact for museums and their visitors.

A summary of each scheme is below, but we encourage you to read the full details, including all the eligibility criteria, on the relevant application form before getting in touch.

Collections Care Audits

These grants, run in partnership with Icon enable small museums to undertake a basic professional collections care audit. Audits are undertaken by an accredited conservator (ACR) to help museums identify key collection care issues and priorities.

Grants are £1,100 plus travel and VAT (if applicable) to cover the cost of a fully accredited conservator undertaking a three-day audit.

These grants are a good starting point before making an application to the Collections Care or Remedial Conservation schemes if your museum has not previously had a professional conservation advice.

To be eligible for a collections care audit, your museum should:

1. Be an AIM member.
2. Be an Accredited Museum or awarded ‘Working Towards’ status.
3. Be a registered charity. An associated charity can receive the grant on the museum’s behalf if the museum itself is not a charity.
4. Have fewer than 20,000 visitors p.a. Please base your visitor figures on the visitors you have in an average year pre-2020 not those affected by Coronavirus and restrictions.
5. Application to this scheme does not prevent museums applying to the Pilgrim Trust for other, unrelated projects.

The full guidance and eligibility criteria is included on the application form. Click here for the collections care audit application form>>

Collections Care Scheme

These grants help museums with under 50,000 visitors or a turnover of less than £300,000 pa to develop a more sustainable approach to the conservation and management of collections through improvements to collection care. Grants of up to £10,000 are available to enable museums to receive tailored, specialist advice, purchase equipment to implement advice and train staff and volunteers.

We are looking for projects that enable a step-change in the quality of collections care that a museum can provide.

To be eligible for a collections care grant your museum should:

1. Be an AIM member.
2. Be an accredited Museum or have been awarded ‘Working Towards’ accredited museum status.
3. Have fewer than 50,000 visitors p.a. OR a turnover of less than £300,000 p.a. (Please note in the case of branch museums, the total turnover of the parent organisation must be less than £300,000 p.a.) Please base your visitor figures and turnover on an average year pre-2020.
4. Application to this scheme does not prevent museums applying to the Pilgrim Trust for other, unrelated projects.

The full guidance and eligibility criteria is included on the application form. Click here for the collections care application form>>

Remedial Conservation Scheme

These grants help museums with 50,000 visitors or a turnover of less than £300,000 pa with the conservation of objects in their collections. Grants of up to £10,000 are available to conserve objects that are part of a museum’s permanent collection. Conservation work should be carried out by an accredited conservator unless in exceptional circumstances.

We expect museums to have a conservation plan for selected objects but they need not be those at most risk in your collection.

To be eligible for a conservation grant your museum should:

1. Be an AIM member.
2. Be an accredited museum or have received ‘Working Towards’ status.
3. Be a registered Charity, an associated charity can receive the grant on the museum’s behalf, if the museum itself is not a charity.
4. Have fewer than 50,000 visitors p.a. OR a turnover of less than £300,000 p.a. (Please note in the case of branch museums, the total turnover of the parent organisation must be less than £300,000 p.a.). Please base your visitor figures and turnover on an average year pre-2020.
5. Application to this scheme does not prevent museums applying to the Pilgrim Trust for other, unrelated projects.
6. Applicants may apply to the scheme more than once for different projects, we ask that previous award projects are completed before applying. Priority is given to applicants that have not previously received funding.

The full guidance and eligibility criteria is included on the application form. Click here for the remedial conservation application form>>

How to make an application

The next round closes on 31 March 2022.

Read through the guidance within the relevant application forms (links above and at the bottom of this page). Download and complete the relevant application form and submit as a PDF to Fiona Woolley on [email protected]

We recommend contacting Fiona prior to submitting your application via the email address above.

Help with your application

It may be useful to refer to the AIM Success Guides in Collections Care and Basic Interventive Conservation

The AIM programmes team are happy to advise on applications. Contact Fiona on [email protected]

You might also find it helpful to talk to your local Museum Development Officer (MDO) before making an application. They have considerable experience with grant applications and may be able to help with finding a suitable conservator or suggest how you might strengthen your application. We can advise on who best to contact for your area.