There is a lot of discussion of grants among people doing startups. Grants are a way to apply for and potentially receive cash that does not have to be repaid. The reality is they are pretty rare and the qualifications are often arduous and they come with strings. Remember that the grants are very competitive as it is free money and everyone wants it. There are many sources for grants and many purposes for them as well. This page is always a work in progress so send me comments.
How to approach finding a grant
Here is what I send to my SCORE clients about grants:There are a set of things you need to do to get grants:
1. Identify grantors who are candidates to give you a grant. My blog page http://dannissen.blogspot.com/p/taken-for-granted-there-is-lot-of.html gives a number of links to lists of grantors. Another good source is the list of Minnesota Foundations that is available from libraries. Another source is the member list of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits: https://www.minnesotanonprofits.org/membership/membership-lists/nonprofit-member-list
2. Tailor a message to the grantor that lays out how what you will do with the money substantially contributes to the mission of the grantor organization. This is where many applications fail. This is a creative activity that many nonprofits looking for grants hire consultants to help with.
3. Take that message and identify when the grantor is interested in receiving applications. Some organizations take applications continuously but most have deadlines and put together a plan for the period (usually a year), choosing a set of grantees in a group that will tell a story to their funders or other stakeholders.
4. If possible, identify the most important people in the grantor organizations to the selection process and find a way to connect with them. Use networking to get to them to be able to make them more understanding of the reasons your application should be considered.
Sources for Grants
Microgrants.net
A Twin Cities source is www.Microgrants.net . Basically, up to $2,500 grant to anyone who qualifies by working with an economic development agency, as explained on their website. Over 400 a year some years.
State of Minnesota
The State of Minnesota Office of Grants Management has a search engine for State of Minnesota Grants at https://mn.gov/grants/. There are grants from many departments on a variety of topics from indigenous language support to disaster preparedness.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture has a periodic grant program called the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program .
Launch Minnesota has made a large number of grants for innovative companies, listed here. There are lots of rules here. They also recommend completing the free Lean Startup class offered through Launch Minnesota before submitting a grant application to increase your likelihood of receiving funding.
Small Business Administration (SBA) grant programs
The federal Small Business Administration administers two programs for small businesses involved in research and development for many federal agencies. They are the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program and the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programs. It is described as the minimum 5 year journey to getting and using these funds. STTR awards federal research and development funding to small businesses in partnership with nonprofit research institutions to move ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace, to foster high-tech economic development and to address the technological needs of the federal government. There are 3 phases to an STTR grant. Phase I is the startup phase for the exploration of the scientific, technical, and commercial feasibility of an idea or technology. Awards are for periods of up to one year in amounts up to $100,000. Phase II is to expand Phase I results. During this period the R&D work is performed and the developer begins to consider commercialization potential. Awards are for periods of up to two years in amounts up to $750,000. Phase III is the period during which Phase II innovation moves from the laboratory into the marketplace. There is no STTR funding in this phase. The SBA seems to be updating their web pages on STTR and they are broken at the moment.
The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program provides federal grants for small companies in the critical startup and development stages, helping them to compete with larger, more established companies. Each year, 11 federal departments and agencies set aside a portion of their research and development funds for award to small business. Strong SBIR candidates are small businesses that have an innovative technology or apply an existing technology in a novel way. They also:
•Demonstrate strong commercial potential for that technology.
•Are able to perform at least two-thirds of the Phase I work and half of the Phase II work in their facilities. The rest may be done by consultants or subcontractors.
•Have key staff with the expertise and experience that demonstrates the ability to perform the work outlined in the proposal.
See SBIR.gov. The Minnesota Technology Association can also help.
For help getting an SBIR or STTR grant, you many want to work with MNSBIR, Inc. They are a nonprofit dedicated to helping people navigate these programs.
USDA Rural Business Development Grants
This program is a competitive grant designed to support targeted
technical assistance, training and other activities leading to the
development or expansion of small and emerging private businesses in
rural areas. https://www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/rural-business-development-grants.
Minority Business Development Agency
https://www.mbda.gov/ This US Department of Commerce agency gives out loans and grants to minority businesses.
Elevate Together
For Hispanic and Black entrepreneurs, Elevate Together (www.elevatetogether.org) offers
grants as part of a larger package of assistance. The Latino Chamber of Commerce of Minnesota (https://latinochambermn.com/) and Meda
(https://meda.net/) with the backing of the
Taylor Corporation are the local partners for this effort.
Amber Grant
The Amber Grant Foundation awards $2,000 dollars each month to a different
business and once a year chooses a $25,000 winner from the prior 12
grantees. https://ambergrantsforwomen.com/get-an-amber-grant/ is the website.
Fedex Small Business Grant
Fedex awards a grant to ten small businesses each year https://www.fedex.com/en-us/small-business/grant-contest.html is the website.
National Association for the Self-Employed
NASE awards up to $4,000 to small businesses. https://www.nase.org/become-a-member/member-benefits/business-resources/growth-grants is their website.
First Children’s Finance has a forgivable loan for childcare providers and more easily accessible loans.
Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) "provide capital, strategy and know-how to our Twin Cities community development partners." They make some grants to small businesses. State Farm on April 27 2022 announced a new program with LISC to help metropolitan area based businesses.
Other grantor organizations
There are many other grant programs, but the ones I have found are basically contracts to do some particular work the granting agency wants completed. For instance, Hennepin County has grant programs for sealing old wells; projects of non-environmental, community organizations to carry out innovative, community-based projects related to waste and toxicity reduction; grants to local public entities and non-public schools to support projects that reduce waste and toxicity; and projects that will reduce erosion and stabilize stream banks throughout the county. Ramsey County provides funding for programs providing direct assistance to suburban Ramsey County consumers as well as other types of funding available to suburban communities, developers and other organizations. Consumer programs for residents of suburban Ramsey County include home purchase assistance as well as housing rehabilitation and weatherization. Ramsey County also administers competitive funding award programs for units of local government, non-profit organizations, businesses and developers. These include Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), Housing Investment Partnership Act (HOME), and the Ramsey County Environmental Response Fund (ERF). Other counties have similar programs. None of this looks like a way to get most small businesses funded.
There are many foundations and community organizations that give grants
for activities in their areas of focus, like medical research, community
development, and quality of life issues. My search has
not found any
kind of consolidation of these and they change from time to time. Here is a partial list:
Surveys of available resources
The City of Minneapolis
They have a page on grants at https://www2.minneapolismn.gov/government/departments/finance/grants-special-projects/ .
WCCO (cbslocal.com)
This article from a local media source from May 12, 2017 has a page with a number of grants on it.
GrantWatch.com
This website has a list of grants for small businesses.
Grants.gov
Another source for a long list of government grants is Grants.gov which consolidates many offers from many granting agencies in the federal government. These tend to be specific requested activities that an agency needs to carry out but needs help to do.
Finimpact.org
This is a page of lots of grant ideas and links. It goes through much of the information on this page and more.
Don't forget contests and competitions
Another way to get money is to win contests like the Minnesota Cup https://carlsonschool.umn.edu/mn-cup . I have had a couple of my clients apply for this, and they did not win. However, they both said it was valuable to compete. The 2018 competition distributed $500,000 to winners.Use other economic development organizations for help
It is hard to have too many mentors.You might try using other economic development agencies, like WomenVenture https://www.womenventure.org/ and the African Development Center http://adcminnesota.org/ and other groups. While most of these organizations do not do grants, they do have connections in the community that can be helpful to getting grants. Microgrants has a good list of partners to pursue https://microgrants.net/partners/.
The Latino Economic Development Center has a number of programs that help their community in both English and Spanish.
The Center for Economic Inclusion https://www.centerforeconomicinclusion.org From their About Page: "[The Center] is
dedicated to strengthening the Minneapolis-St. Paul region’s civic
infrastructure and collective capacity to disrupt systems and influence
market forces to catalyze shared prosperity and an inclusive economy."
The SBA sponsors more help
In addition to SCORE, the SBA sponsors other programs.Women’s Business Centers
The Small Business Administration (SBA) funds Women's Business Centers (WBC) across the country.
https://www.sba.gov/local-assistance/find/?type=Women%27s%20Business%20Center&pageNumber=1 is the search engine for SBA Women's Business Centers. WomenVenture is our local WBC in the Twin Cities, but there is one in Little Falls and one in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Small Business Development Centers
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) runs our local SBDC's. The Twin Cities one is joint with the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. https://mn.gov/deed/business/help/sbdc/find-sbdcs/sbdc-tc.jsp .
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