Further details of the Emergency Resource Support scheme were announced this week.
This is a £20 million emergency fund which will provide funding from £25,000 to £3 million to culturally significant organisations that face collapse within twelve weeks of their application date.
The funding comes from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport as part of the £2 billion Culture Recovery Fund package. The eligibility criteria are different to earlier rounds and described by ACE as being similar to those used for the 2018–22 National Portfolio programme.
In addition to these conditions, Arts Council England has now applied caps to the support they will give, so although organisations may apply for up to £3 million under this third round of the Culture Recovery Fund, there is a £1 million cap for commercial operators.
Furthermore, there are limits of £4 million and £1.5 million for non-profit organisations and profit-making set-ups respectively, across all rounds of the CRF.
Applicants must be able to evidence their financial viability pre-COVID and their present need for emergency funding, having taken advantage of all other avenues of support. It is also necessary to request permission to apply which, if granted, then sets the clock ticking giving applicants five days to make their submission.
Funding under this scheme may be used for redundancies, essential business expenditure, to make repayments on COVID-related loans and other costs.
The window to make Permission to Apply requests is open and requests can be made until 30 September. The window for applications to those granted permission opens on 15 July and closes on 14 October.