TYPES OF BUSINESS GRANTS
Your business idea may assure you success expectation but you are not sure of its performance. Going for loan for a business startup may not be an option in this case. There are business grant that help business owners in starting up a business. So you may be wondering which type of business grant can help you begin your journey.
The best thing is to find the best grant that matches your business that you want to start. Note that business grants are non-payable meaning it cannot be refunded back hence helping your business to keep growing without any debt.
Here are the list of business grants for your business startup:
Government grants
The government of US offered different kinds of grants targeting certain special groups that are not able to start a business but with business idea. Federal, state and local grants are the 3 main types of grants that the government offers.
Federal is the most competitive grant since it offers the highest amount of money.
State grants gives small grant therefore minimal competition while local grants are rare to be found but can be access through connections.
This government grants extends to on-profit organizations and other special business like that of scientific research, education and medical research programs. These programs are those that are innovative to the community and they mainly create jobs to the youths. Government grants are not meant to implement any survival idea or settling debts but in such cases you may consider other types of grants known as Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA). The offer is always listed among the hundreds of government grants.
The government list has got different categories offered by about 26 agencies which include; arts, business and commerce, community development, environment, housing, legal services transportation and many more. For the sake of scientific or medical research which it varies from one issue to another like that of cancer and infectious diseases research to Agriculture education.
It does not matter which kind of category you are looking for, the important part is you to be more creative as a story teller of your business.
Small business administration (SBA)
Small business administration grant is also one of the government’s grants agency that offers funding for small business startup. The U.S small business administration gives out three types of business grants at every given year.
Two SBA grants are usually meant for helping programs that deals with research and development. Where the Small Business Innovation (SBIR) and THE Small Business Technology Transfer Programs grants are offered for the sake of those pursuing scientific projects that go hand in hand with federal programs and can be commercialized at the end.
Export Developments projects that are in small business are also funded by SBA together with government. It is given out through the State Trade Expansion Program which is a national office managed by SBA International office which also oversee many of the government grant funds.
To some extend the Small Business Administration grant is also involved in PPP loan program.
Grants for Minority
These are grants distributed to special people known as minority in the society. The grant can be either form the government or non-governmental institutions. The eligible people include; veterans, women and different racial and ethnic groups. These groups can apply for this grant to start up their business.
For the veterans who are in business, they can access the grant that is managed by SBA known as The Veteran’s Business Outreach Program. Veterans can apply for B2B Funding opportunity as they receive training known as Boost to Business. This program can support the veteran’s business up to five years.
There is special group of people who are also eligible for special grant to minority. These are the women in business who are majorly granted by over 5,000 government agencies and from several other private organizations that award grants to female entrepreneurs. These agencies offer a total of $20 billion grants to women who own business. There are some private companies like Girlboss Foundation who also offer grants to business women who work in creative fields.
The government set a budget of $1 billion every year to be distributed to minority groups as grants which are available at the Federal, state and local levels.
Corporate Grants
This is a competitive type of grant that is offered by private companies who invest in entrepreneurial projects as part of their budgeted mission. These companies also help in building and nurturing innovated talented business person where they may end up acquiring and using the idea.
The applicant for this grant has a very big responsibility of writing essays and business plans explaining business merit to boost the eligibility. The young business people can also acquire grants by participating in a context provided by Small Business Grant Context where they award three of the companies that won the context. The context is limited to those that are under six months of service having less than 99 employees.
Comcast Innovative Fund offer grants to companies working on an open source software development, research and other important projects that can be used by Comcast at a later date.
Visa’s Everywhere Initiative which was founded in 2015 also gives out up to $150k grants to those who have financial challenge but can propose their products and solutions to Visa partners.
Private grants
This is a type of grant that is offered by profit organizations to business owners. These organizations always look for projects to fund in society offering resources like Candid.org, a network that is open for funding projects. There are over 226,000 Americans grantmakers that can be found in Foundation Directory Online though some of them don’t have their own websites. The grant seeker can also subscribe to FDO which is not free but can give you the access of up to 18 million grants offers.
If you are looking for a free directory of grantmaking foundations then the best site for you is the Council on Foundations. The grants are offered to organizations not only within the country but across U.S.