How to Apply for Home-Based Business Grants

There is a lot of debate as to how useful it is for small business owners to apply for grants. Many experts will remind you of the fierce competition, the strenuous guidelines, and the amount of time spent on applying for home-based business grants. However, there are literally millions of dollars being given out in home-based and small business grants every year. If you're up to the challenge, here's the steps you need to take.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• The Internet
• Word Processor
• TONS of Patience

1. Develop a Clear Business Plan: Getting a loan and getting a grant both start out with the same basic item ... a business plan. If the people you're requesting money from can't see how your business is laid out, what you do, and where you mean to take it, they're not going to give you a penny. Take the time to make a clear, clean business plan before you do anything else.
2. Find Materials: Grants are offered for a specific purpose. They're intended to help the female business owner, or to aid the person wanting to start a day care. They're offered to businesses that employ welfare-to-work recipients or that operate in a severely impoverished area. Whatever it is that you can say, "There's a need for me!" ... find materials that strongly support your claim. Make your business stand out in positive, humanitarian, charitable, environmental, etc. ways that no one else in your area does.
3. Research: This is one of the most time-consuming steps. You'll need to carefully research what grants are available, and choose at least three which really fit in with the focus you've decided to push. A grant that offers small businesses funds to aid in helping teens get their first job won't do you any good if your focus is on improving the environment. Don't try to change your focus to fit a grant. Look for another grant instead.
4. Print All Materials: When you find the grants that fit your business like second skin, print out every single bit of information you can find on the grant, the business or organization that offers the grant, and previous grant awardees. You'll be referencing this information over and over when you write the grant proposal. Look specifically for the instructions an organization lays out for the grant process.
5. Develop a Grant Proposal: Most grant givers have specific instructions for what they want included in a proposal submitted to them. Follow this layout precisely, or your entire application will be ignored. Your proposal must list everything about your business, what your business does, and what it needs the grant funds for. Most of all, it should address how the needs of your business will turn around and fulfill the grant-giving agency's goals.
6. Prepare the Mailing: Before you send off your proposal, take time to double and triple check that everything the agency has requested is in the envelope. You should also have included the extra materials supporting your focus and your business plan. You can include a postcard that is stamped and addressed back to your company, and request that the organization toss it in the mail so you know the proposal has been received.
7. Don't Stop: Because grants are so competitive, don't hold your breath that your business will receive the first grant you apply to ... or even the fifth. Often, home-based businesses will find that they have to apply to dozens of grant givers before they ever receive a reply, much less be awarded the grant. So keep going. Most of the materials you've developed for the first grant will be perfect for the next one, and the one after it.

Tips & Warnings

• Perseverance is the name of the game; don't give up.
• Focus your abilities and choose grants that are aimed at those abilities.
• Never - ever - pay for a "list" of grants available. These are almost always scams.
• Read and re-read your proposals for any spelling or grammar errors. You want to look as polished and professional as possible.