Step 1: Submit your Grants Pre-application

Any grant application starts with a Grants Pre-application form. This simple form enables you to provide the initial information the charity needs to assess if your project can be helped by our funding. Please do read the information provided in this Grants section to ensure you understand the process and timeframes before submitting your Grants pre-application form.

War Memorials Trust only supports works to war memorials that follow best conservation practice. People are often unaware that over-cleaning, power-washing, using chemicals and other works are likely to cause long-term damage to their war memorials.

If you decide not to apply for a grant, you can still use the advice available from the charity to ensure any works you undertake follow best conservation practice. There are a range of helpsheets available from War Memorials Trust, national heritage bodies and other conservation organisations including finding contractors, cleaning and conservation of different materials and wider issues around war memorials. Any contractor you select should be aware of best conservation practice and you can discuss their proposals with them in light of the published information.

To make an enquiry about a grant

1. You will need to submit a Grants Pre-application form via the war memorial record on War Memorials Online
2. War Memorials Online is the website seeking to create a greater understanding of the condition of war memorials across the UK. It aims to have a record for every war memorial along with details of its condition to ensure that information is available to everyone
3. By adding the information onto the website directly you also make it easier and quicker for the small team of staff at the charity to review and respond to let you know if your project is eligible for grant funding. We appreciate not everyone is confident with IT and computers but we have had to look at how we can manage the volume of work to help everyone who contacts us as soon as we can. If you can help us by providing the information on the website, we can help you more quickly. If you have problems with the website you can Contact us or scroll down this page for alternative advice. Please do read the below and try War Memorials Online before contacting us

How to submit a Grants Pre-application form on War Memorials Online

1. Go to War Memorials Online
2. Login, if you do not have an account you will need to Register via the Login page (top right of the Home page). To submit a Grants Pre-application form you need to be registered so a reply can be sent to your email address. The only details required are first name, last name, email address and a Username which will appear on the website. You will also need to create a password which can be reset via the system if you forget it. We recommend when signing in that you tick the box to stay logged on for 24 hours to minimise the risk of getting logged out when you complete the form
3. Once logged in, search for your war memorial. It is important to ensure you search carefully to avoid creating a duplicate record for your war memorial as this can cause problems later
4. There is a Keyword search which is text based so you can search by name, village etc. Please remember not everyone calls a war memorial by the same name, for example some may describe it based on who is commemorated, others by where it is located
5. The alternative Location search will enable you to enter a village/town/postcode and select a radius area to search around that point to return results. The Trust recommends setting this larger than you might expect as sometimes people have not placed the war memorial on exactly the right point
6. If you find your war memorial then click on it to open the record. Review the details and edit as much as you can to ensure it is up-to-date and accurate. It should have photographs
7. If you cannot find your war memorial then you will need to add a new memorial to the website which will then enable you to submit a Grants Pre-application form. You can find a link to the Add a memorial option below the search results after you have undertaken your searches
8. Towards the foot of the page the second grey tab headed Grants is where you will need to submit the Grants Pre-application form. Carefully read the explanation given before clicking on the yellow button Pre-application
9. This will take you to the Grants Pre-application form. Again, carefully read the introductory text and then select from a drop down menu or type in the answers to the 11 questions
10. You can only move onto the next question if you have provided an answer that will ensure your enquiry is eligible. If your answer prevents you for moving on then advice will be given below about what you need to do. There are also red 'i' buttons at the end of the questions which have additional information to help you
11. You can save the form at any time by using the Save button at the bottom of the form on the right. You can also Cancel from there. Once you have completed the form you can Submit now to send the form to War Memorials Trust
12. You must provide photographs and a summary of the proposed works in order to submit. Photographs cannot be larger than 5MB each so if you have issues check the size and reduce if necessary. When explaining works, please try and give details of the specific works you intend to undertake, or the issues you are concerned about, rather than using general terms such as 'renovate' and 'restore'. These are too vague for War Memorials Trust  to comment on. You can also attach other information such as a quotes if you have them but they are not required at this point

What happens to my Grants Pre-application form?

When you submit your Grants Pre-application form on War Memorials Online:

• you will receive an automated email immediately to acknowledge receipt. Please check your junk email folder if this is not received as the emails can sometimes be incorrectly marked as junk
• A Conservation Officer from War Memorials Trust will then review your form and send a response. Again, please monitor the junk folder in your email account as the attachments can be marked as Spam by some email providers
• As a charity the Trust has limited resources so we cannot guarantee a timeframe for our response but will aim to respond within one month compared to the two months for offline submissions 

If your project is eligible for funding you will receive:

• comments on the information in your Grants Pre-application form
• advice on best conservation practice for the works you plan to undertake. This advice should be read and followed. Submitting an Application Form which ignores our advice will lead to a rejection. If you have any questions or concerns about the information provided you should discuss this with the Conservation Officer who provides the advice. We are happy to support you through the grant process
• an Application Form with Guidance Notes which you will need to complete to make a formal application

If your project is not eligible for funding you will receive:

• advice on what War Memorials Trust could fund in place of the works proposed, if an alternative solution is possible, or 
• details on why it is not eligible

What if I do not know if my project is eligible or what type of work we need to do?

To enable us to give you advice we need accurate information and good quality, recent, colour photographs. See Step 6 for common mistakes in submitting grant information.

The ways of getting advice from War Memorials Trust are:

• recommended - upload details about your war memorial, including photographs, and its condition to War Memorials Online and use the Report a Concern button on the memorial page to request advice. Make sure you are logged on to ensure we have your email address to send a reply. This is the quickest way to get a response as it ensures all information is immediately available to the Conservation Team
• Email details of your war memorial and photographs. Be aware, we cannot accept emails larger than 8MB in size so you may have to submit multiple emails or use a photo-sharing system. All emails received will have to be processed before they can be reviewed by a member of the Conservation Team so this type of enquiry will take longer than using War Memorials Online
• post details of your war memorial with photographs. All letters received will have to be processed before they can be reviewed by a member of the Conservation Team so this type of enquiry will take the longest to respond to as not all the Conservation Team are based in the London office

I cannot use War Memorials Online, what else can I do?

1. If you cannot use the website for any reason then it remains possible to email or post a copy of the old style form. But please be aware these will take longer to get a response because it has to be processed before it can be assessed. Not all staff are based in the London office so it has to be saved/scanned to make it available to them whereas they can access the forms submitted via the website immediately
2. Read the What we fund section of the website to check if War Memorials Trust can fund your project. If you are not sure if your project is eligible then follow the advice at the end of this page
3. Download a Grants Pre-application form, fill it in and return to War Memorials Trust with photographs.  We must have good quality, recent, colour photographs to be able to see problems and if you are concerned about a particular issue make sure you provide a photograph of it - we cannot advise on what we cannot see. Please be aware we cannot accept emails larger than 8MB in size
4. If you send by email you will receive an automated response. If you do not receive this then we have not received your email. It is your responsibility to check this. Be aware, we cannot accept emails larger than 8MB in size
5. If you send by post - we do not automatically acknowledge these but if you enclose a stamped address envelope we can confirm its arrival
6. We will process your form and it will be allocated to a Conservation Officer to review, or we will request further information from you. Please note we only pass forms to the Conservation Officer once all information is received. Our response timeframes start for receipt of the final piece of information, not the first
7. We will provide advice on whether your project can be funded and the likely priority level for the works. We do not guarantee a timeframe for this but will aim to respond within two months (of the date when all information was received) - please do not chase for a response before then. All forms are assessed in date received order so timeframes will depend on the number of forms currently being assessed and wider workload