Finding Local Funding For your Business

Looking for major foundations may seem easy enough. With this day in age full of information all a person has to do is look the topic up online. This seems easy enough, doesn’t well yes and no, I say that because yes you type in grants for women and you get about 89,900,000 results, unless you are more specific, for example;  grants for women entrepreneurs, How to Apply For Small Business Grants For Women or Women-Owned Business Grant Program. So where do you go if you are looking for locally-based projects and organizations? There are grant directories that provide names of donors and executors, as well as statistics on monies and grants paid. You could look at your local foundations which the directories are made for your region for example; Regional Associations of grant makers (RAGs) each state should have one. There are other sources that might help your search for example www.grantsmart.com is an online resource that offers a searchable tax information database for private foundations. 

How do you find the right Foundation? This is a very important question because of our economical circumstance foundations are thinking more like a business so when applying for a grant it would be wise to see if your organization matches up with the foundations guidelines. For instance, the foundation might list they support women businesses; however, you learn that their purpose is to strengthen training program grants in their region. Therefore, your program for getting new computers or expanding your business is not in their interest and not a good fit. So look at each individual foundation’s profile and read the purpose statement to make sure they share the same interest as your project. Do not forget to read the qualifications and criteria carefully, follow all directions to the T in order to obtain your grant.

On that note I would like to say, if you have been in a classroom setting or had to turn in a report of any kind and follow the teacher’s request, no matter if you agreed or disagreed with the specifications this is what you had to do in order to pass the paper and the class, or they would deduct points from the paper.  Writing a grant proposal has the same concept, follow the directions according to what they require put it in their order and then you will reap the rewards, on the other hand, do the proposal as you see fit and they may just reject your proposal.