Grants of up to £90,000 are available to support museums by creating new exhibitions featuring the lives and achievements of extraordinary, historical figures who have made a significant impact on the industrial, creative industries and arts, scientific, commercial or social history of the UK, helping to shape the world we live in today.
We want the funded exhibitions to be inspiring and exciting – especially for young people – and we are very keen to hear about exhibitions that would feature:
Grants cover both capital and revenue expenditure and you will receive full support from AIM in promoting your project. The bulk of the grant (90%) is for capital (i.e. the exhibition itself and work required to produce it). 10% can be spent on other costs such as education resources and organisational project costs.
A brand-new website that will be promoted to the public, parents, museum educators and schools will launch in spring 2019 and will feature all our History Makers projects from all three rounds.
The first application stage is to submit a brief Expression of Interest form of no more than 200 words after checking your eligibility.
Please visit our AIM Biffa Award History Makers webpage for full information.
AIM Biffa Award History Makers
To inspire you, take a look at a video and case study from Clifton Suspension Bridge Trust who were grant recipients in the first round of History Makers.
Size of grant awarded: £24,631
About the project
The Clifton Suspension Bridge was Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s first engineering project, due to money issues Brunel was unable to complete the bridge. Many people do not know that our history makers, Sir John Hawkshaw and William Henry Barlow, completed the Bridge as a memorial to Brunel after his death.
The funding has paid for two permanent interpretation panels to be added to the CSB Visitor Centre. The panels contain information about significant changes Hawkshaw and Barlow made to the bridge design, which has ensured the strength of the bridge to carry modern traffic. To demonstrate their great impact on Victorian engineering we have shown the major worldwide engineering projects they have achieved and their engineering collaborations. To truly build a full picture of both engineers we also explored their family and social lives. The panels are accompanied by tactile objects and a touch screen full of further information.
How has the AIM Biffa Award funding positively impacted?
The aim of the project was to raise public awareness of the lives and achievements of Hawkshaw and Barlow. Through consultation we have witnessed adult groups and schools learning new information about our history makers and endeavouring to pass his information onwards. In the future we will be using the interpretation boards and the touch screen to assist with educational workshops and tours, this will further accomplish our goal. The project has expanded our volunteer team, we recruited new specialised volunteers just for this project, such as Mel our very first Micro-Volunteer and Qing our volunteer illustrator.
“Without the AIM Biffa Award History Makers funding we would not have been able to tell the full story of the Clifton Suspension Bridge. The new exhibition panels will not only be read by local and international visitors, we will adopt the information into our education programme and guided tours. It is very exciting for us to be able to display this new information and we look forward to the reaction from our visitors.” Kat Tudor, Community, Learning and Volunteer Officer and Project Manager- Hawkshaw and Barlow Untold
“I’ve really enjoyed the experience and found it rewarding. I’ve enjoyed learning about the history of the bridge, finding some interesting articles for the display, using my brain for a change and meeting a good group of people – I went to one meeting and a social event, so although I was volunteering from a distance I felt part of something. I hope my relationship with the bridge team continues.” Melanie King, Micro Volunteer Hawkshaw and Barlow Researcher
Biffa Award
Since 1997, Biffa Award has awarded grants totalling more than £165 million to thousands of worthwhile community and environmental projects across the UK. The programme administers money donated by Biffa Group Ltd through the Landfill Communities Fund.
Landfill Communities Fund
The Landfill Communities Fund (LCF) is an innovative tax credit scheme enabling operators (LOs) to contribute money to organisations enrolled with ENTRUST as Environmental Bodies (EBs). EBs use this funding for a wide range of community and environmental projects in the vicinity of landfill sites. LOs are able to claim a credit (currently 5.3%) against their landfill tax liability for 90% of the contributions they make.
Since its inception in 1996, over £1.6 billion has been spent on more than 56,000 projects across the UK. For further information please visit https://www.entrust.org.uk/or see HMRC’s general guide to landfill tax.