Join Together for Museums
Museums are places of possibility.
They give us space to think, create, relax and relate. They enrich our lives and bring us together.
But the Covid-19 crisis has been a catastrophe for museums. They need urgent financial aid: to care for their collections, support their staff and keep connecting with people everywhere.
For these vital places across the UK, it’s make or break.
We are so grateful to the thousands of people who have helped us raise £1 million for museums so far. These much-needed funds will help them respond to the Covid-19 crisis with creativity: to rethink how they work, make their venues Covid-secure and take exciting projects out into their communities. Thank you.
As museums will still face enormous financial challenges when reopening, we are keeping the campaign open for a limited time so that as many people as possible can support them on their road to recovery.
Now is a critical time for us to help museums survive the devastating impact of the pandemic – and shape a brighter future.
Join #TogetherForMuseums: Please donate to help us protect the places you love.
Why donate?
Museums’ funding models have been shattered by Covid-19.
Many museums are charities, receive no public funding, or rely on volunteers. For those that have been able to reopen between lockdowns, social distancing measures have severely limited income – visitor figures in October 2020 were just a quarter of what they were in October 2019. Following months of closure and uncertainty, many face the real threat of not being able to re-open at all.
Among museums we surveyed, 92% said they need to ‘adapt and innovate’ to survive.
The good news is that our funding helps them do exactly this.
How you can help
Since summer 2020 Art Fund’s emergency funding has enabled organisations like the Roald Dahl Museum to take their amazing collection to students who can’t visit; Aerospace Bristol to create a digital storytelling experience; Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art to commission emerging artists; the Postal Museum to make their interactive exhibits safe; and much more exciting activity.
But the demand for help is huge. We were only able to support 15% of the 451 museums who applied to our emergency funding before it was exhausted.
Now we are asking everyone to come together for museums during the biggest challenge of our lifetime, and empower the UK’s beloved museums to reimagine a better future.
Making a difference across the UK
Every donation, of any size, will go directly towards vital museum projects all around the country.
Explore the updates to discover how this funding is already making an impact near you: facilitating everything from pop-up museums and outdoor exhibitions to learning resources for home-schooling.
Latest updates (23)
November 2023
Invitation to the launch of Howard Hodgkin Home
Thank you again for supporting our campaign in 2020 to join together for museums, helping them respond to the Covid-19 crisis with creativity.
The estate of Howard Hodgkin, who so generously contributed some of his work to the campaign, have asked us to let you know that they are launching Howard Hodgkin Home – a new initiative to celebrate his work and to help fund the ambitions of the Howard Hodgkin Legacy Trust.
There will be an open day at Howard’s studio in Bloomsbury, from 12 noon to 7pm on Monday 27 November, and there will also be a few of the remaining limited edition prints of 'A Small Thing Enlarged' available to buy, with the proceeds very generously coming to Art Fund to help us support more museum projects in 2024 and beyond.
For more information and to book a place please visit their homepage.
September 2021
An update on the progress of your rewards
Thank you for your patience so far in waiting for your reward.
As you may already know, each reward is created specially to support the campaign; as such they all involve working with a number of artists, specialists, suppliers and partners to ensure that each one is produced and packaged to the highest standard and that they arrive with you safely.
As you can imagine, each reward has presented its own set of production challenges during the pandemic, and therefore some have taken longer to produce than others – however, we wanted to let you know we are working closely with artists and suppliers to ensure your rewards will be with you by the end of the year. Although we cannot guarantee a time frame for delivery for every reward right now, we can guarantee your reward will be worth the wait.
We’ll be sharing news about specific rewards individually via email, so as soon as we know when yours will be ready for delivery we’ll be in touch. Please do keep an eye out for this in your inbox over the coming weeks. Thank you for your understanding and we apologise for any longer than anticipated delivery times – in particular where the item was selected as a gift.
Thank you once again for joining Together for Museums, and do look out for more updates about the projects and activity you have helped to support.
With thanks to...
A big thank you to all project backers. You made art happen.