A flagship Exeter City Council service, RAMM also attracts funding from other sources. Here are some of RAMM’s funders:
Arts Council England
National Portfolio Organisation
National Portfolio Organisations receive regular funding from Arts Council England. They represent some of the best practice in the world in theatre, music, museums, dance, libraries, combined arts, literature and visual arts.
RAMM is one of 72 museums designated as a ‘National Portfolio Organisation’ this year. RAMM is one of the 55% of NPOs located outside of London and will be receiving funding worth £2.1 million over four years.
This funding provides a major boost to RAMM enabling the museum to welcome more visitors. It also assists RAMM in working with communities and young people, as well as maintaining and developing its own outstanding collections.
The museum has also received a further ‘uplift’ to the funding, worth £80,000 a year, enabling RAMM to deliver an exciting programme of contemporary art. RAMM will commission new art from living artists and bring exhibitions of the UK’s foremost contemporary artists to Exeter.
Rachel Sutton, Portfolio Holder, Economy and Culture at Exeter City Council said, ‘the museum has always had a tremendous amount of support from the local community, for which we are immensely grateful. With this news we can see how the museum’s local funding brings in national money to the city, which will benefit the people of Exeter’.
RAMM has previously received funding through several Arts Council England funding programmes:
Major Partner Museum Programme (2014-2018)
RAMM and Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery’s Reach South West consortium received funding from 2014 to March 2018.
Renaissance Major Grants Programme: Reach South West previously benefited from this funding between 2012 to 2015.
Museum Development Fund (2012-2015)
A partnership of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum Exeter, Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery and the South West Federation of Museums and Art Galleries was one of nine successful applicants to Arts Council England’s Museum development fund.
This innovative partnership received £1,192,000 between 2012 and 2015 to provide a network of professional advice to all museums in the South West region, particularly supporting smaller museums.
National Lottery Heritage Fund
The National Lottery Heritage Fund has been a huge supporter of RAMM, contributing funding towards a range of projects which have all helped RAMM improve the visitor experience, develop its collections and extend its reach into the community. Support has ranged from community building projects, exhibitions, helping to secure important items for the collection and most significantly RAMM’s 2007 to 2011 redevelopment.
The National Lottery Heritage Fund (previously known as HLF, Heritage Lottery Fund), contributed £10 million to Exeter City Council’s redevelopment project that allowed RAMM to transform into a museum and art gallery fit for the 21st Century. Since 2011 RAMM has won multiple awards, including the coveted Art Fund Museum of the Year in 2012 and maintains its position as one of Exeter’s top attractions.
Designation Challenge Fund
The MLA’s Designation Scheme has identified RAMM’s World Cultures collection as a pre-eminent collection of national and international importance. The collection has benefited from the Designation Challenge Fund (DCF) which supports improved management and accessibility of these collections. Projects have included joint exhibitions at Plymouth and Stroud museums and work with local schools and universities to link the display into the curriculum themes of citizenship and identity.
Viridor Credits
Linking RAMM’s new Garden Entrance to Rougemont Gardens and placing the Roman Wall in a perfect setting is a new informal open area – the Garden – which is for picnics, live events, and quiet repose. This area was made possible by funding from Viridor Credits, an independent, not-for-profit organisation which provides funding for community, heritage and biodiversity projects around the UK through the Landfill Communities Fund.
Additional funding
Since 2003 RAMM has secured funding for a range of activities including:
- RAMM’s major development project
- purpose-built collections store
- reinterpretation of St Nicholas Priory
- special exhibitions
- conservation
- new acquisitions
- community projects
Funders include:
- Heritage Lottery Fund
- Exeter City Council
- Growth Point
- Garfield Weston Foundation
- DCMS/Wolfson Foundation Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund Designation Challenge Fund
- Big Lottery Fund
- Arts Council England
- V&A Purchase Grant Fund
- The Art Fund
- Pilgrim Trust
- Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
- Victoria and Albert Museum
- British Museum
- John Ellerman Foundation
- Friends of Exeter Museums and Art Gallery
