Funders

A flagship Exeter City Council service, RAMM also attracts funding from other sources.

You can see the range of crucial support RAMM receives from donors, sponsors, grant givers on the museums digital supporter’s board.

Here are some further details about some of RAMM’s main 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 80 museums designated as a ‘National Portfolio Organisation’ for the period 2023-26. RAMM is one of the 72% of NPOs located outside of London and will be receiving funding worth £1.8 million for the period.

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.

Cllr Laura Wright, Exeter City Council’s lead for Arts, Culture and Corporate Services, said, “This is wonderful news for the city and its citizens. RAMM is the city’s cultural flagship organisation and an important part of our community and civic life. The museum encapsulates all that is good about the city, its energy and ambition, and we are delighted to see this recognised by Arts Council England. This news gives us reassurance that we can continue to deliver a high-quality museum service to the people of Exeter, at a time of great need in the communities we serve.” 

Designation Development Fund

The MLA’s Designation Scheme has identified RAMM’s World Cultures collection as a pre-eminent collection of national and international importance.

In 2019, a grant from the Arts Council England Designation Development Fund was awarded to RAMM for the Ancestral Voices project. Based on the museum’s historic Americas collections the project involved multiple partner scholarship, conservation, documentation, the reinterpretation of artefacts, the acquisition of related contemporary art, and a public programme. The project’s conclusion in March 2023 resulted in the redisplay of three permanent display cases in the Americas gallery.

Project Grants

In 2021 RAMM was awarded Arts Council England Project Grants funding for a major public arts project Museum at Large. The project sought to help the city and communities recover from the impact of Covid-19 offering valuable employment and commissioning opportunities for freelance creative practitioners after what had been an extremely difficult year.

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. Most recently RAMM was awarded £247,748 for a major digital collections project. The project will help the museum better reflect Exeter people’s histories and experiences in the museum’s catalogue and online content. Previously, support has ranged from resilience and community building projects, exhibitions, helping to secure important items for the collection and most significantly RAMM’s 2007 to 2011 major 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.

Additional funding

Since 2003 RAMM has secured funding for a range of activities including:

  • RAMM’s major development project
  • RAMM’s LED lighting replacement project
  • purpose-built collections store
  • reinterpretation of St Nicholas Priory
  • special exhibitions
  • conservation
  • new acquisitions
  • community projects

Funders include (for a full list of funders please visit our acknowledgements page):

  • Exeter City Council
  • Arts Council England
  • National Lottery Heritage Fund
  • Garfield Weston Foundation
  • DCMS/Wolfson Foundation Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund Designation Challenge Fund
  • V&A Purchase Grant Fund
  • The Art Fund
  • Pilgrim Trust
  • Victoria and Albert Museum
  • Valencia Communities Fund (formerly Viridor Credits)
  • British Museum
  • John Ellerman Foundation
  • Friends of Exeter Museums and Art Gallery

To find out more about supporting RAMM please visit our Support RAMM page.