Evaluating Grants 

If you receive one of our grants, we will ask you to monitor how your project delivers against the aims, outputs or products you set out to achieve.  

We will ask you to collect data that we will use to evaluate the impact of our grants.  We will not be expecting formal evaluations from every project we fund, and we are not expecting you to be evaluation or data experts. We will provide support and guidance through this evaluation and data collection journey. 

This flexible and proportionate evaluation and data collection approach can help us understand how our investment is creating change in the world. We hope it will also help you to generate useful learning and insight. 

Our approach to evaluation 

We look at the impact of our grant programmes as a whole, rather than evaluating every individual project in detail. Our approach is: 

  • Proportionate - tailored to the size and complexity of your project 
  • Flexible - adapted to the unique nature of your work 
  • Integrated - built into our grant processes 
  • Purposeful - we only collect data we’ll use 

What we ask from you 

We use a tiered system based on the size of your grant: 

Tier 1: Grants under £25,000 

  • Tell us how your project supports our priorities and what changes it will make 
  • Share basic information about your project’s location and aims 
  • Provide updates at key stages 
  • Reflect on what went well and what could be improved 

Tier 2: Grants between £25,000 and £250,000 

  • Do everything in Tier 1 
  • Use our tools to collect and share data at the start and end of your project 
  • Where relevant, gather feedback from visitors, volunteers or participants using our Social Impact Framework 

Tier 3: Grants over £250,000 

  • Do everything in Tiers 1 and 2 
  • Carry out or commission a detailed evaluation (we call this 'partner-led evaluation'). Funding for this evaluation will be included in your grant offer
  • Share data on the long-term impact of your project (where relevant) 

We’ll confirm your evaluation requirements once your expression of interest has been assessed and you’re invited to submit a full application. 

Also of interest

Understanding the Social Impact of Heritage