3 Types of Grants For Your Small Business to Consider
From Forbes.com:
“A grant must sound too good to be true for small business owners—it’s free money, plain and simple. No repayments or interest rates, no credit scores, no haggle, no hassle… Right?
Unfortunately, funding your small business with grants isn’t that easy. Otherwise, every small business owner on the block would cash out on them—and nobody would need to look for a loan, search out crowdfunding or investing, or ask their relatives for favors. There are two main obstacles to landing those grants:
- Grants are notoriously hard to locate. Sure, there are a few websites you can use to search—like BusinessUSA or Grants.gov—but they’re generally either paid services, difficult to parse, or poorly updated. Many grants and contests are outdated by the time they make it onto these lists, or else their links have changed. Regardless, looking for small business grants can frustrate even the most patient business owner.
- Grants are often hyper-specific. While some are wide-ranging enough to apply to plenty of small businesses, especially among the corporate programs, many target a very narrow selection of categories only. (For example, how many businesses can actually qualify for theMinnesota Emerald Ash Borer Community Preparedness Forest Protection Reserve Appropriation grant program? Odds are, probably not yours.) And whether it’s specific to certain industries, locations, demographics, or all of the above, you can bet that grant is also limiting in how you can use its funds. Unlike with a loan, with a grant you’ll have a set of guidelines to follow—or you risk having to pay it back.
Click the link below to see some of the most popular grants and programs (the folks over at Forbes.com) have found—hopefully your business will qualify for one, and you can be on your way to financing your business.”
Forbes.com web article: 3 Types of Grants for your Small Business to Consider
