Government (and other) Grants

Did you know that the government has set aside billions of dollars in free grant money to help you to start your business? All you have to do is to apply for it and the check will be winging its way to you. If you’ve seen such an advertisement it is probably from a company that offers to help you prepare your grant request. Oh, by the way, there will be a slight charge of a few thousand dollars for our assistance. Or perhaps it’s an offer for a book that will outline the ten easy steps to get free grant money from the government. Your chances of getting that free money are about as good as your finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s not that grant money doesn’t exist. It’s the requirements to qualify that usually are the problem.

Defense agencies do offer grants for certain innovative research programs to solve a problem they want addressed. Some foundations offer grants for specific purposes mostly to help the underprivileged in a non-profit way. If your intention is to start a business to make a profit the grant opportunities become slim to none.

So you still want to try to get a grant, eh?  O.K., start at the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance at http://12.46.245.173/cfda/cfda.html (www.cfda.gov) It lists all of the sources for government grants.

Here are other non-government grant sites. Look them over and then do a Google search on your own for more sites. You might just find a nugget of gold in the pile.

http://12.46.245.173/cfda/cfda.html

http://www.sba.gov/sbir/indexsbir-sttr.html

http://www.sba.gov/expanding/grants.html

http://fdncenter.org

http://www.lib.msu.edu/harris23/grants

http://www.escus.org

http://www.guidestar.org

www.grantwriters.com