[Bell Historians] Bell Restoration Project Funding

[Chris Frye]

> Douglas Davis wrote: "..does anyone know of any organisations/funds that
can be applied to for grants of this nature?"

I can't help you with any detail, but you should definitely get in contact
with the Bell Restoration Committee of the Central Council
http://www.cccbr.org.uk/bellrestoration/ who should know about these things.
They did have a system called "funderfinder" that would output a list of
trusts etc that would fit your specific criteria. For example there is no
point in a project in Kent applying to a trust that only works outside the
UK - to illustrate, the Fred Duke's International Bell Fund (can be found on
the CCCBR pages) would be ideal for you except that it only makes grants for
"bell restoration projects in countries outside the UK and Ireland".

I also remember a front page article in the RW by John Loveless about the
project at Campton. (I have not checked but a search of the RW indexes
pointed to: THE RINGING WORLD INDEX 2004. Loveless, John  24, 100 (see also,
'Campton').) John made a very good point that the project wished that they
had put a person full-time onto the task of identifying trusts and writing
letters. I think that the comment was something like it was their best
source of funding and they should have got going with it right at the start
of the project. Note also that some trusts only allocate funds twice or even
once per year; getting the letter in as soon as you can is important. I have
also heard from someone who has a full time job administering a charitable
trust that excellent communication in the form of eg a call to make contact,
a top quality letter and/or a good quality "brochure" are important to make
the application look professional and to "stand out from the crowd". 

Good luck!

Chris Frye. 

PS. Appeals are made in the RW and there are regular reports of completed
projects. Your "grants" person could do worse than to go through a year or
two of RW's, identify the contacts, and ask them what sources of grant
funding they identified.