Have you heard about Federal Grants?

Have you been wanting to apply for one for some time?

Want to get YOUR share of Uncle Sams Money?

Here's an excellent website that has loads of information about getting grants.
www.unclesamsmoney.com

This section will give you some sort of introduction to the Federal Grant program.

Obviously, one of the first places to look for federal grants is the government. They provide the greatest number of available grants to businesses and other organizations. Now, the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) would be an excellent place to start searching for a federal grant. They offer 15 different types of federal domestic assistance which includes, formula grants and project grants. Project grants provide funds for specific projects. These can include research grants, training grants, construction grants and technical assistance grants. Formula grants are given to states in line with distribution formulas.

http://12.46.245.173/pls/portal30/CATALOG.TYP_ASSISTANCE_DYN.show

This website will also give you information on how you can apply for federal assistance. What you can do is use the search engine to find suitable programs. You'll get back information about what the program offers and what you need to do to apply. You'll also get contact information for the agency that is offering the grant. This is useful for finding out directly if your grant or project proposal meets their funding parameters or if there are currently funds available. They will also be able to answer any other questions you may have.

If after this bit of research it seems you have a match, it is time to apply for the grant. The application for federal assistance you would usually use is a standard form 424. Other agencies may have extra forms you will need to fill out as well. The CFDA will also offer help in writing the grant and can explain the various parts of the grant proposal.

UncleSamsMoney.com is another site you should check out. They list all types of Federal grants offered by the government. They can help you find grant opportunities as well as offer help for writing a grant proposal.

Foundations and non-profit organizations are also a source of grants. Here are a couple of websites that have lots of information about grants available through foundations and non-profits. One is the Foundation Center. They have a listing online and a book of foundation grants to individuals. There is a small subscription rate for the online service or you can purchase the book.

http://foundationcenter.org/getstarted/individuals

You can also get their materials at certain libraries. They also have online courses in grant writing and how to research grant opportunities. Some for-profit corporations also provide grants through their foundations. One well-known of these is the Gates Foundation created by Bill Gates of Microsoft Corp. They give educational grants for certain purposes.

USA.gov is another useful site offering grants for nonprofits. You may not currently be a non-profit, but you may be thinking of becoming one or becoming affiliated with one to be eligible for grant monies. It doesn't hurt to take a look around the website. You'll find many opportunities for grants and the requirements for eligibility.

Maybe you can't find the grant you are after through the government. There are other organizations that may be able to help you find the money you need. We will go over these in a later article.

No matter where you live, each state offers a selection of grants to people living in the state. At the state level is where you will likely find grants for attending school. This might be a pre-start-up cost for you if you require some training before you begin your new business, so this is an indirect advantage of grant money available at the state level. Although many of these programs are focused on providing state grants for low and middle-income students to attend college, there are some grants available for businesses.

For example, did you know that on the Governor of Texas's website they list procurement opportunities? If your business sells furniture, or if your business provides services such as computer programming and service, maintenance and repair, moving services, or temporary personnel, then your business might be eligible to "procure" the contracts and you would make the money for them. This is not a grant per se, but it does offer the opportunity for a business to get money that does not have to be paid back.

If you are in New York, the state's Governor's Office of Regulatory Reform site offers tax credits for businesses that operate and are certified in the Empire Zone. This will save your business money, and make it easier for you to stay in business and put your money toward expanding the business rather than paying taxes. New York also offers low-rate loans for existing small business expansion.

If you want to relocate a business to New Jersey, the state offers a grant in the form of tax credits to offset your business taxes. The grant can be as high as eighty percent of your taxes, so it definitely pays to look into these types of opportunities at the state level. There are also grants available for employee training in job safety and health and basic literacy skills.

If you live in Connecticut, according to the state's office of Policy and Management you may be eligible for a grant for $10,000 if you are an individual or company with less than 30 employees that has created a renewable energy technology that has not yet been sold. You can use the money for such purposes as product development and testing, developing your business plan or meeting your payroll, among others.

This is just a small selection of what type of business assistance is available at the state level, but it gives you a jumping off point of some of the places in your state where grant money might be available. It also is wise to remember that, in terms of state grants, many foundations and non-profit organizations give grants to people living in a particular state, but mostly those people have to be a non-profit organization or affiliated with one and not an individual in order to qualify.

What they can be used for?

State grants are primarily for funding business expansion rather than for start-up costs. There are some exceptions, one being if your new business will be located in an economically depressed area and you will hire local people to work for you. Another is if you want to start a business that will improve the environment in some way, such as a recycling business of some kind. If you are looking for state grants that would provide for a reduction of certain taxes you would normally have to pay, they are available as well because states want to encourage new businesses to form within their states to provide new business and jobs to the area.

State grants tend to not cover start-up costs for a new business. You usually will not be able to go out and rent a building or buy machinery or advertise your new business with this type of funding. This sort of funding is often more available at the local level, as we will take a look at next.

Click Here For More About State Government Grants

Local Grants

You can also find grant money available for small businesses to access and use at a more local level. You will want to see if your city or nearby cities has or have an Economic Development Council. These councils offer a wealth of help for new local businesses. They all vary a bit, but likely here is where you can find out what the business climate and the demographics are for the town in which you will want to do business, which will assist you in writing your business plan.

One example of this is the Thurston County Economic Development Center. They offer grants through the Washington Technology Center's Research and Technology Development Grant Program, for applied research projects to make their way out of the lab and into the marketplace. Another type of financial assistance they make available is the Community Development Block Grant Float Loan Program, where the city applies for a grant and with that money makes available short term loans to private businesses that will create jobs for lower-income individuals www.thurstonedc.com

You can also sometimes find business grant money from your local government. In the Seattle area, among others, if you are planning a larger new business that will employ 150 people and will require building, you can receive King County Green Building Grants if your project will be LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, certified, which is building for conserving resources. www.cityofseattle.net

Your local Economic Development Administration might also provide you with resources to start a business. If you are a non-profit organization or an affiliate of one, you might be able to apply for an economic development grant that can be used by the nonprofit for expenses related to planning for lessening unemployment and improving incomes in an economically distressed area, which can make your business plan stronger and increase the chances of your business on paper becoming a reality. www.downtowncamas.com

Other places to look for local grants are at your town or city's Chamber of Commerce. Sometimes they might not offer a grant to a business, but they do offer grants to non-profit organizations, so your business could work with a local non-profit to develop a program that would meet the grant's qualifications.

Through a Chamber of Commerce you might also find that a particular city offers a grant to qualified businesses equal to a percentage of their investment in the first year of the business's existence if the company is located in a particular area of the city.

If you belong to a business organization or association you might find local grants available through these resources, as well as small private foundations and family foundations that are located in your area and which might fund local projects. There are many business organizations and associations available, ranging from the Arizona Bioindustry Association to the American Philosophical Association and the Computing Technology Industry Association, to name a small number of business associations out there. These types of organizations often offer help and support to a new business through education, perhaps a mentorship program, and sometimes grants.

What can they be used for?

The uses of local grant money can be as varied as the number of different grant programs you explore. Many grants from higher levels up at the state and federal level are bestowed on cities. There are often grant departments that function within a local city government, and their job is to find grants that can be used to fund city projects that will benefit all the citizens of the city. This can help a business because the city can get grant money to pay for the construction of roads that will bring customers to your business more easily, or they might pay for improving a downtown area to attract more people and customers to the downtown sector of a city or town where your business might be located, for example.

You might also find local grant money available to help you attend a trade show in the United States or even in other countries. This will assist your new business in finding customers and introduce your products to new markets, which would help your new business to grow.

Another avenue of resources is grant money that is bestowed on a local organization, usually a non-profit one or a foundation, and then the local non-profit makes various types of resources available for people who want to start a business. Often these resources are given to whoever is the focus of the non-profit foundation. It could be children and education. Or it might be women or minorities, or other types of beneficiaries. Sometimes money is available if your new business is located in an economically depressed area of a town, and if your new business will hire local people who come from an economically depressed background, then you will find many incentives available from a city or town to help bring your new business there.

If you are a professor affiliated with a local college or university, there is grant money available for research projects. Many of the research projects tend to be oriented toward the science fields, such as biomass energy and other types of technology, as well as environmental concerns such as renewable fuel research, and health-related research.

If you want to start a business that has a science and environmental focus, there is grant money available for individuals who partner with a university or other organization and work together on developing new types of products, typically with a renewable energy focus. The purpose of these types of project grants is to develop a product which can then be introduced to the public. In addition, at the local level you may find grants available for educational pursuits that would give you the skills you need to start a new business.

Even with local area grant opportunities, they often cannot be used for an individual's business start-up costs. What is available at the local level are tax incentives, which can be sizable, and low-interest loans based on grant money that your local city or town received from the state or federal level. Local grants are also not usually available to for-profit corporations. Local grant money is often more available to non-profit corporations.

Every grant opportunity has specific parameters that must be met for applying for the grant, and if you are selected to receive the grant, what it can and cannot be used for. If you are awarded a project grant, then the money is usually used for funding the project, and not other expenses, so it pays to read the grant announcement carefully for all the details.

Now that you know the differences in the types of grants and their various uses, let's take a look in greater detail about where you can find grants.

Click Here For More About Local Government Grants

You need to do research before applying for a grant.

If you are going to start a business, you want to be reasonably sure that you will be successful with it before you put a lot of money into it. One way to do that is to research the type of business you would like to start. Whatever the particular industry is, whether a service-type industry or a product you'd like to manufacture and sell, you will want to take a look at industry trends. Is this industry growing or declining, both nationally and locally?

You will also want to take a look at every aspect of how this business will operate--how will a product be produced, focusing on all the exact steps. What is the process for providing a particular service? This will give you an idea of the amount of time needed to produce a product or perform a service, and how quickly you can do both of those things while still maintaining quality will determine how much business you can handle and how much money you can make. It will also tell you if this is a business you can do on your own or one for which you will need to hire employees.

Now is a great time to take a closer look at the market for your business. Who would want to buy your product or service? What product or service is it that those customers want to buy but currently cannot find available? Is there anyone else who sells such a product or service?

Where can you find the answers to these questions? There are many sources available, and many are low-cost or free. The Internet can be a great jumping-off point for information, as can any trade associations for the type of business you might want to start. Another free online resource is Score, standing for Service Corps of Retired Executives

http://www.scn.org/civic/score-online

They have online volunteers with experience in the business you would like to start, and you may e-mail them questions about your small business at no charge (Score, 1998). If you are fortunate enough to find someone who has experience with the business you want to start, see if that person would mentor you, perhaps in exchange for a product or service you could provide that person. Your local library is another great free source of information about business and business statistics (Washington State University-Small Business Development Center, 2005).

When you have some answers to the above questions and are starting to get a clearer idea of your new business, you will next want to consider what it will cost to start this new business. Now is the time to think about both what it will cost to start and then operate the business. What about advertising costs--how will new customers hear about your business?

Business taxes are also part of the cost, and you can get information from the Internal Revenue Service, your state Department of Revenue, or a certified public accountant. Will you need a license or permit to conduct your business? You can check with your state, county and city Departments of Licensing. You might need to include insurance and worker's compensation as part of your business cost, and your state Department of Labor and Industry can assist you with this (Washington State University-Small Business Development Center, 2005).

Make sure that you do your research and you will be much more prepared when applying for grants.

Ever wonder what the first step in getting a grant is?

Determine Startup Costs

So let's say that, after analyzing the market, you come to the conclusion that your idea will sell like hotcakes. But perhaps one factor that is standing in your way is high start-up costs.

Start-up costs include things like paying for a place to work out of, buying all the initial equipment, furniture, and tools necessary for the business to operate, possibly legal fees and consultation fees, licensing fees, communication fees for telephone and Internet services, taxes, buying raw materials if you plan to manufacture a product, and marketing your new business venture. When you start adding it all up, it can become a little daunting.

At this point you might need to ask yourself if there is some way that you can maintain the quality of your potential service or product, yet cut some of the initial costs to start. This is when creativity will come into play. Anyone who is rich can throw money at a problem, but if you have a lack of funds, this will be the impetus you will need to get creative and find other solutions. (Not to mention that people pay big money for creative ideas that lead to solutions to problems--that can be a business in and of itself, if you have a talent for it!) All viable businesses provide a solution to a client or customer's problems. So, by thinking along these lines from the start, you will be helping yourself greatly in the process.

One way to cut costs is to start small. Can you work out of a room in your home, or a garage? You can avoid renting an office or workspace for a while until you start making money, which can help lower initial costs. You might not ever need a brick and mortar office if you start an online business or store. Get creative and consider as many possibilities and options as you can so your business idea will work.

Another method you can try is to figure out a way to do the work by yourself in the beginning. This is not a bad way to start, because you will want to know every aspect of how your business runs, so you will want to work every job yourself to see where all the strengths are, and where you can improve on any weak areas. This can give you vital information you will need to potentially lower costs, improve productivity and increase the amount of money you can make. Then, when you start making money you can hire some employees to help you. It will also make it easier when you have to train employees, because you will understand all the requirements of every job your business must perform to stay in business and how they interact with each other, because you will have worked them all yourself.

Be certain to keep an open mind during the business planning and start-up cost phase. Keep talking to other small business people or a mentor who might have suggestions for starting small and less expensively. Also remember that the start-up costs will be offset by the revenue that your business will generate, so over time you will break even and then begin to make money from the business.

You now know that you need to determine the startup costs so that you can decide which grants you should apply for to meet that start up cost.