How to find free business grants?

If you're trying to start your own small business, it can seem almost impossible to gather enough funding for the project.  However, there are dozens of ways to get more money for your business.  The conventional way is to simply get as many loans as possible. However, as more and more people try and open their own small business, and the economy gets worse and worse, it is becoming very difficult to find business loans at all, let alone get a bank to approve you for one.  So, what can you do?

One option is to try and find free business grants offered by the government that match your business.  But these can be very difficult to find, and on top of that the paperwork to get them can sometimes seem overwhelming.  However, keep in mind that if you fill out 100 pages of paperwork and get $10,000, you just made $100 per page.  So just keep your own goal insight and visualize the $10,000 check and soon you will be done with the paperwork.  Now the only question is, how do you find these free business grants?

The first type of grant that you want to look for is a community of restoration grant.  These type of grants are extremely common all over the country.  Basically, if you plan on opening your business in what the government has decided is an area that needs to be turned around and revitalized, they will give you some extra money to help with your business.  By doing this the government gets businesses to help revitalize neighborhoods.  Think about it: who pays more taxes, the wealthy communities or the poor communities?  So, especially if you're the planning on opening a business in one of these communities anyway, this can be a great and easy way to go.  The downside is obviously the neighborhood, depending on how far the revitalization has come, you may be opening a business in a pretty bad part of town.

The next type of grant that you can look for is an ethnicity grant, which are simply grants based on your ethnic background.  While these are much more rare, they are offered.  Native Americans especially will benefit from these type of grants, though they usually have a restrictions on what type of businesses they can be used for.

The fastest and easiest way to find any kind of free business grant is to call your local community development board.  If you do not know how to get a hold of your community board then call city hall and they can point you in the right direction.  The development board will have absolutely all the information on what grants are currently being offered, and will be more than happy to provide it to you because they know that your business will help the community.  So before you start scouring huge government books or buying those government grant programs that you see on TV, try making a simple phone call.  You might be surprised at the results and even come away with a good sum of start up money from that simple call.

Use the free resources on this site to find the most suitable free business grants available.