Nathan Dippie Small Business Grants: Top places to apply for starting a business The Start Up Business Hub
Starting a small business can be an expensive and complex process. In order to reduce the financial burden on any one individual or financial institution it is often wise to look for small business grants. Business Grants come in all shapes and sizes from a few £100 to £1million+ so looking for the right sized grant is vital to increasing your chances of getting it.
Types of Small Business Grants
Government grants for small business – The government has set aside and allocated resources to promote and aid small businesses, some of this is form of free business advice and courses to help build up your skill sets but there are also financial government grants for small business to help you kick start and help you succeed in your chosen venture. Competition for these is fierce but it is always worth applying.
- Direct - This is typically given to fund activities such as training, employment, export development, recruitment or capital investment projects. With a direct grant most schemes usually require the company involved to put up around 50% of the cost.
- Repayable grant – This type of grant gives small businesses cash for a specific project with future profits used to payback to original amount, however, if the project doesn’t succeed, the grant is written off.
- Soft loan -A soft loan is a special type of small business grant, it’s terms and conditions of repayment are less stringent than they would be under standard financial agreements. E.G. interest rates may be substantially reduced or non existent and the repayment terms will likely be over an extended period.
- Equity finance – A capital sum is injected into the small business and the investor takes an equity share of the business and if the value of the company increases the shares can then be returned, but unlike venture capitalists, the expectations and requirements of the providers of public funds are usually less demanding
Where to look for small business grants
This is the tough bit, where do you as a business owner go looking for that small business grant that would help you grow and develop into a fully fledged thriving company. Below are 5 of the best places to look to help you find a grant to suit you.
- The UK (including the Welsh and Scottish parliaments) offer Government grants for small business. They are a very useful starting point, however sadly there is no central point for looking for these. The government is made up of many different departments and each one awards small business grants based on their own set of criteria. The best thing you can do is to look at these requirements and apply to those which best fit your current situation. There are hundreds of governing bodies, but these are some of the most important (the hyperlinks will take you to the department specific grant pages):
- Local funding, this can be from the local councils or organisations. Their main objectives is to increase the economic output of an area, so the requirements for these grants is often geared towards how is your business going to affect the local community and economy. This can be in terms of jobs or in terms of them being your customers and you bringing valuable services to the area. I cannot list all the local councils however if you go onto your local council website and then to the starting a business section, e.g. this is the Manchester city council start your own business section. There is also the gov.uk site which replaced the business link site and has a lot of information about local funding for your business and that is located at gov.uk Often these local grants are for smaller amounts but they are often the easiest to get.
- If you are looking to do work on the continent or you are in an area which the EU feels needs development and the Image may be NSFW.
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EU has also designated areas for schemes called European Structural Funds know as Objective 1, 2 and 3 and being in a tier one area can greatly increase your chances of gaining funding provided you fulfil the other requirements. EU grants are often much larger and are used for large capital investment like property, there are also small business grants available for agriculture. You can find more information on European small business grants on their website.
Those are your main areas to look to, there are smaller and more specialised grants offered by companies, universities and charities, but these are directed at highly specialised companies, who are focusing on a very specific problem, but if you are in one of those industries, it is very much worth approaching them to see if they can help, even if it is in the form of sponsorship as opposed to a business grant. Good luck in getting the grant you need to start your business and if you have any questions or have anything else to help others succeed then please leave a comment.
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